Thomas Berry was a cultural historian and ecotheologian (although “cosmologist” and “geologian” – or “Earth scholar” – were his preferred descriptors). Among advocates of “ecospirituality” , he is famous for proposing the idea that a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving Universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species … Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent in self-glorification and despoiling the world, is poised to embrace a new role as a vital part of a larger, interdependent “communion of subjects” on Earth and indeed throughout the Universe.  He did note that the transformation of humanity’s priorities will not come easily, first requiring what he called “the great work” — the title of his last major book — in four institutional realms: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.

 

After receiving his doctorate in history from The Catholic University of America, Berry then studied Chinese language and Chinese culture in China, as well as Sanskrit for his study of India and the religious traditions of that country.  He later published a book on the religions of India and one on Buddhism, and then assisted in an educational program for the T’boli tribal peoples of South Cotabato (a province of the island of Mindanao in the Philippines), taught the cultural history of India and China at universities in New Jersey and New York, and then became the director of the graduate program in the History of Religions at Fordham University (1966–1979).  Thereafter he founded and directed the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in Riverdale, New York.  He also studied Native American cultures and shamanism. From his academic beginnings as a historian of world cultures and religions, Berry developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes. Thus it was that he appropriately described himself as a “geologian”.

 

In 1995, Berry nominally retired to Greensboro, North Carolina, though he continued to write, lecture, and receive friends at his home until his passing in 2009.

 

“The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees, — all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly interrelated … As such, we will either go into the future as a single sacred community, or we will all perish in the desert … Our human role is to be that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself and its numinous origin in a special mode of conscious self-awareness.” ~ Thomas Berry

Filed under: In LOVE with Humanity by Scaughdt