The Christian Mutation: Reclaiming the Dynamic God of Jesus

Name: The Christian Mutation: Reclaiming the Dynamic God of Jesus
Brand: Orbis Books
SKU: 978-1-62698-688-6
Price: 28.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

Author:Ilia Delio

Binding: Paperback

ISBN: 9781626986886

Page Count: 248

$28.00 USD

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SKU:978-1-62698-688-6

*Advance Praise and Reviews*

“Jesus—a young Jewish mystic with an acute sense of God’s immanence; monotheism—a work in progress, God’s increasingly capacious power of becoming all in all; Christianity—a mutation in our understanding of God working out Godself in human and cosmic evolution. Buckle up. Destination Omega. This is the age of mutation and Ilia Delio is challenging theology: get on board—or fossilize.”—John D. Caputo, author, Before God, Without God: An Intellectual Memoir

“Process theology has long been dominated by Protestant voices. In The Christian Mutation, Ilia Delio significantly advances the underappreciated current of Roman Catholic process theology—highlighting its alternative sources and inspirations, as well as its criticisms, tensions, and possibilities.”—Andrew M. Davis, author, Whitehead’s Universe: A Prismatic Introduction

“This energetic exploration addresses questions of evil and the evolving God-world relationship, building to a bold examination of our religious practices today.”—Libby Osgood, CND, editor, Green Saints for a Green Generation

“Ilia Delio expands our understanding of the nature of God. Building on the process theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead, this beautiful and important book shows how Christianity can respond to the challenges of our time while retaining a strong connection to its biblical roots. I highly recommend this groundbreaking work of theology.”—Steve McIntosh, author, Truth Emerging: A Developmental Philosophy of Purpose and Progress

“A daring, visionary, and deeply important book. I cannot wait to see the impact this book will have.”—Pete Enns, The Bible for Normal People podcast

“Ilia Delio deploys both Teilhard and Whitehead to argue for theological—indeed, doctrinal—revisions informed by contemporary science. In sharp contrast to a static conception of God as the ‘unmoved Mover,’ she passionately argues for an alternative reclamation of the ‘God of Jesus’—a dynamic force that lures creation into increasing complexity.”–Stephen Schloesser, SJ, Loyola University Chicago

Ilia Delio traces a bold theological arc: the God revealed in Jesus marked a radical breakthrough — an intimate, dynamic relationship between God and creation that was unlike anything before it. But as the early Church confronted heresy, it reached for the stabilizing frameworks of Neoplatonic thought, gradually trading that living insight for philosophical abstraction. This move was eventually codified in Thomist metaphysics, where it became the dominant tradition. Yet another current ran beneath the surface. Through Francis of Assisi, Duns Scotus, and Bonaventure, a creation-centered, incarnational faith survived — one that kept God close to the world rather than remote from it. Delio argues the Church has remained too long in the grip of its older metaphysical inheritance, and that renewal is overdue. That renewal, she suggests, is already underway. Whitehead's process theology breathes new life into this alternative tradition, and Teilhard de Chardin draws it into dialogue with Catholic thought. The thread comes together in Pope Francis's Laudato Si' — a genuinely Franciscan theology of creation that recovers, at last, the intimacy between God and the world that Jesus first made visible, a living God at home in a dynamically relational universe.

Ilia Delio, OSF, a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, is retired professor of theology at Villanova University, and founder and executive director of the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture. Her many books include The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Relational Whole and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love.

Cover design: Diane Mastrogiulio