Down to Earth

In the face of climate change and ecological diminishment, how can we hope that creation itself--good and beautiful, marked by tragedy and chaos--is taken up rather than left behind? Can a Christian vision, which has at times been drunk on eschatological dreams (or nightmares) that consign this world and most of its creatures to destruction, foster an earthly hope? Jurgen Moltmann and Sallie McFague offer two contemporary possibilities for an ecological eschatology. Floyd critiques both of these theological visions and traces an alternative that is both humble (grounded in the humus, the dirt) and hopeful (grounded in divine creativity), arguing that a "down-to-earth" hope is grounded finally in beauty: the beauty of the other that draws out the self, the beauty of the redeemed self coming out to meet the other, and the beauty of God that lures forth ever-new possibilities and gathers up all the beautiful and broken creatures into the deepest possible harmony.