Elaine Wainwright* offers an ecological reading of two extracts from John’s Gospel — John 3:16-18 and John 6:51-58.
Reading the biblical text ecologically is an engaging task. Our current context for this engagement is a world in crisis as the global pandemic coronavirus brings death to the human community. And in this context we can be isolated from our faith communities and the usual proclamation of the Scriptures in liturgies in church.
The context is changed radically from a few weeks earlier. Now Earth itself, together with its human and other-than-human population, is groaning. That can be understood as groaning in pain and loss. But it may also be what Paul describes as a “great act of giving birth” (Romans 8:22-23) — birth into a new way of being for the cosmos and all that inhabit it…
Continue reading the article below:
Tui Motu Issue 249, June 2020 (PDF)