RELIGIOUS FEMINISM AND THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET: A Buddhist Christian Conversation

"It is crucial that the world's faiths and historical cultures not only end their wars against each other, but enter into the kind of deep mutual understanding that can lead to solidarity in creating a just, peaceful, and sustainable world." This noble sentiment forms the heart of an extended "conversation" between two religion scholars. Gross, a Buddhist (Soaring & Settling, etc.), and Ruether, a Christian (Gaia and God, etc.), have collaborated since 1985 on interfaith dialogues that are respectful, balanced and enlightening. Here they reveal their own personal stories first, and then proceed to explore, measure for measure, the problems, liberations and inspirations of their religious traditions, each woman responding to the ideas and issues raised by her friend and colleague. The final pages apply this technique and these concepts to ecological concerns in a chapter that shares the book's title. The metaphor Gross and Ruether so aptly use for this conversation is that of learning a second language that enhances, but never supplants, one's mother tongue. Readers specifically seeking a heavy treatment of ecospirituality will yearn for more pages, but nonetheless the wisdom on this issue does not disappoint. The book is a good model of what so many women do well: carry their own candles and hold them high, dispelling darkness together. (May)