Melissa Raphael Books

In this book, Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars explore the question: what can it mean to love Planet Earth? Many people will profess casually that 'I love nature', but can that love make an actual impact on the life of our distressed and ravaged world? The writers consider how love might be, not just an emotional extravangance, but a practical response to the ecological crisis into which the human and non-human world is plunged at the present time. Correspondingly, they enquire whether this love can be reciprocated by non-human forms of life and even by apparently inanimate objects. As believers from three main Abrahamic faiths they ask how this love for nature connects both with the act of loving God and with receiving the love that God bestows on all creation. Thus they dare to maintain that love of God can be a practical response to environmental emergency.

Focusing on feminist theory, theology, and culture from 1965 to 2010, the book explores how various feminist movements—secular, Christian, Jewish, and post-Christian—utilized ancient and contemporary concepts of redemption. It highlights their efforts to address and overcome the alienation women experience from their own identities and potential, using the metaphor of liberation from slavery and false ideologies.