S06E03: How Rethinking God, Gender, And Nature Can Heal A Burning World

A campfire changes the kind of conversation you can have. With scholar and wilderness guide Kimberly Carfore, we lean into that flame to ask why so much of Western faith and culture treats the earth—and women—as subordinate, and how we can reorient toward relationship in a century of fires, floods, and frayed trust. Kim’s journey from Catholic roots to ecofeminist theology and back into the woods becomes a map for courage: teaching friction fire as a spiritual discipline, founding Wild Women to empower outdoor connection, and wrestling honestly with appropriation, reverence, and responsibility.

We trace how dominionist readings of Genesis 1:28 fueled the Doctrine of Discovery, witch burnings, and modern domination systems, then pull forward correctives from multiple wells. Haudenosaunee wisdom reframes peace as right relationship with the natural world; cultural burning and Indigenous fire stewardship model care that prevents catastrophe. Ecofeminist thinkers like Val Plumwood expose the human superiority reflex, while theologians such as Sally McFague invite us to imagine the earth as the Body of God—and perhaps, as Kim suggests, as Mother—so power becomes care, not control.

Along the way, we get practical and personal: breath as a plant-human exchange, ancestry as orientation rather than shame, climate impacts on marathon times as a tangible signal, and the way a simple fire-making practice can restore agency without conquest. If we’re serious about climate solutions, we need more than technology; we need new theologies, renewed kinship, and places to gather, listen, and act together.

Join us to rethink dominion, recover relationship, and tend the ember that connects us. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves big ideas by a warm fire, and leave a review to help others find the conversation. What image of the sacred would help you live differently tomorrow?

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View the transcript and show notes at podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org. Learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery on our site DoctrineofDiscovery.org.