Jennifer R. Ayres - Böcker

Like other creatures, human beings are inhabitants of their ecosystems. But are humans good inhabitants? According to Jennifer Ayres, the way of inhabitance is stubbornly elusive. The work of understanding, loving, and tending God's world is constrained by patterns of alienation, exploitation, and systemic neglect and injustice.Faced daily by evidence of ecological death and decay, Ayres determines that this important work of inhabitance is constantly threatened by ecological despair. Ecological despair stems from alienation from the natural world, acute and generational grief resulting from loss of home places, and, for many, an overwhelming guilt at having been complicit in the planet's suffering. In Inhabitance: Ecological Religious Education, Ayres proposes a solution to this increasing alienation: the way of inhabitance. Just as other animals live and thrive within their ecosystems, so do humans live in a habitat created, sustained, and loved by God. This God perpetually invites us to become better inhabitants.Many religious communities already cultivate inhabitance as a way of life, work that they consider to be central to their deepest theological commitments. Inhabitance examines a diverse array of such practices that foster more intentional engagement with the particular places in which people live. Ecological religious education, Ayres demonstrates, nurtures a disposition of loving commitment toward God's creation.Inhabitance demands a willingness to love other beings and a willingness to courageously encounter the human and ecological suffering of the world and be fully present to that suffering. And even as humans live more lovingly, courageously, and attentively within their particular places, their lives are opened up to the deepest sources of human well-being - for when God's world around us flourishes, so do we.

Christians in the United States are on a quest for good food. And yet, at every turn, they confront brokenness in the food system. Access to healthy food is not secure. Farmers and laborers struggle to find meaningful agricultural work that pays a livable wage. Animals and the land are abused. At the public policy level, legislation has increasingly favored mass-produced products in order to provide the largest amount of food to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible prices—regardless of the consequences. Unable to trace the sources of their food, and perhaps even the ingredients, consumers are vulnerable to a deep and abiding alienation. Still, many religions, including the Christian tradition, orient themselves around the table, a site for connection and nourishment. Good Food is a practical theology grounded in a rich ethnographic study of the food practices of diverse faith communities and populations. In the midst of the wounded food system's woundedness and harm, they are hopeful but not naïve, and in their imaginative work, the seeds for a thriving food system are taking root. Grounded in unflinching analysis and encompassing both theological and moral implications, Ayres examines actual religious practices of food justice, discovering in the process a grounded theology for food. Ayres challenges Christians to participate in communal initiatives that will make a real difference—to support local farmers, grow their own food, and advocate for fair food policies. Good Food equips readers with the theological and practical tools needed to safeguard that which sustains us: food.