ABSTRACT
This chapter concludes the book by fleshing out a general approach to Christology and the doctrine of incarnation in wider conversation with religious naturalism. Christ is imagined not as a divine being existing beyond the world and exclusive to the life and death of Jesus, but as the root metaphor of the Christian tradition that describes human's ethical encounter with the face of any creature—animal, vegetal, elemental, or otherwise. I describe the world as a religious ecology in which cruciform divinity erupts from and is inseparable from all vulnerable bodies. I contextualize my approach within perspectives on religious naturalism with an interest to demonstrate the similarities and differences with theologians and philosophers such as Donald Crosby and Charley Hardwick. Central to these discussions are just how expansive Christ is as the object of religious devotion and whether the flesh itself is to be divinized. Furthermore, this chapter answers other questions that arise without being sufficiently addressed in the previous chapters. In clarifying my approach to religious naturalism, I explore broader religious frameworks that may be appropriate for further understanding my perspective on an incarnate Earth—namely pantheism and polytheism. This is done in the spirit of Levinas and in more direct exploration of the thought of Giordano Bruno, whose multi-unitary and multi-modal idea of God is becoming increasingly important in my Christology. I conclude with a final thought on the structure of Christian faith as necessarily ethical in nature and inclusive of the human place within a more-than-human world. Such becomes the foundation for a variety of sociopolitical approaches to the concrete issues the world faces, especially with respect to issues pertaining to ecological and animal ethics. No solution is offered for constructing sociopolitical ethics or public theology, but a path is opened for further studies pertaining to specific ethical contexts which might benefit from dialogue with deep Christology.
