Jim Schenk -- What Does God Look Like in an Expanding Universe?

If the ancients had known what we know, "they would have drawn some very different conclusions about God, life and death," writes Jim Schenk in the introduction to this book, which contains diverse but mostly compatible thoughts from writers who find today's science illuminates religious concepts rather than opposing them. Schenk, as editor, has organized the brief but frequently pithy essays into three sections, each of which asks a very big question: "Where do we come from?" "Why are we here?" "Where are we going?" These sections are sub-divided into "Personal Perspectives" and "Universal Perspectives." Schenk, founding member of the ecological education organization ImagoEarth and of Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village in Price Hill, says most of the articles and interviews "are original...obtained specifically for this book." Among the more than 50 writers are Thomas Berry, David Spangler, Joanna Macy and William Irwin Thompson. An alphabetical listing of contributors includes brief information about them and their individual ideologies. The book's tone is upbeat but not necessarily warm and fuzzy. Diarmuid O'Murchu, priest and social psychologist, is not sure that humans as we know them will continue to exist but projects "a more developed (and hopefully, more benign) species, and the universe will continue to flower and flourish as God designed it to do." The brevity of the essays keeps them readable but means the reader is sometimes jumping fast between large ideas. Schenk's own orientation is strongly ecological, springing from concern over "the virtual human disconnection from the planet." (Jane Durrell) Grade: B+