The Body of God, Sexually Violated: A Trauma-Informed Reading of the Climate Crisis

Abstract

This article employs the body of God metaphor, developed by Sallie McFague, in order to propose that the environmental crisis can be understood as a crisis in which the earth is being subjected to repeated sexual violations. The first section develops what is at stake, theologically, for the climate crisis when utilizing this metaphor. The next considers how applying this metaphor shifts the story of Christianity in ways that illuminate historic hierarchies of creation, as well as shift the way we frame the ecological crisis to one in which sexual harm has occurred. The third section uses trauma theory to understand the earth’s response to the climate crisis and proposes a trauma-informed ethic for a revised practice.

Keywords

• Sallie McFague
• ecotheology
• sexual violations
• rape
• environment