MARCH 2007

ISSUE 9 - ISSN 1448 - 6326

Gloria Ulterino Walking with wisdom’s daughters: twelve celebrations and stories of women of passion and faith Notre Dame IN: Ave Maria Press, 2006.   Pp. 220 ISBN -10: 1-59471-063-5

Since the publication of her earlier book, Drawing from Wisdom’s Well (2002), Gloria Ulterino’s scriptural reflections and the evocative liturgies based on them have become increasingly popular. Her intention is essentially pastoral: to lead others, especially women, to a deeper exploration and claiming of their own life experiences and to situate day-to-day realities within the more encompassing context of an informed spiritual awareness and trust. The prayer experiences – celebrations, as she calls them – which she has thoughtfully and sensitively fashioned in this present text seek to evoke the compassion, energy and courage to live with hope and purpose. She has come, as she explains in her Introduction, to shape her written reflections through her own experience as a parish pastoral administrator – a role she was asked to undertake and which she found she loved by actually entering into it, with all the human dilemmas her ministry presented. So her book speaks powerfully from her own involvements. It also reflects in-depth scriptural study which informs the situations she re-creates.

The book contains twelve settings, designed for group sharing but serving equally for individual reflection. All are concerned with women, stressing their equal contribution to the communities they formed part of, rescuing some from near-anonymity and giving a different ‘take’ on the influence of others. These reflective sessions seek to draw out and take hold on latent powers for healing, reconciliation and wisdom- sharing as the various lives presented are pondered over. They are designed to inspire richer possibilities, drawing on re-imagined experiences of women from the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, from later centuries and the present time. Among the women selected are Miriam, sister of Moses, Lydia, the purple dye trader, Brigit of Ireland, Catherine of Sienna and the three missionary Sisters, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Ita Ford and lay missionary, Jean Donovan, all murdered in El Salvador in 1980.

The commemorations themselves are set in a sequence of ‘story-reflection-ritual-prayer’, together with suggested readings and hymns. Each is accompanied by a referenced historical review of the life-situations taken for reflection. The text is illustrated with evocative art work.

Reviewer: Dr Rosa MacGinley - Golding Centre for Research in Women's History, Theology & Spirituality; Dr MacGinley is presently seconded to the Institute for the  Advancement of Research at McAuley at Banyo Campus of the Australian Catholic University

ATTENDING THE WORD: Doorways through Theology, Philosophy and Literature.

In this review, I will discuss three books that converge on religious experience as a disclosure of meaning, as a word addressed to us through the different portals onto our world. The links between the books make them amenable to a joint discussion

The first book is from Rupert Shortt, God’s Advocates: Christian Thinkers in Conversation ( London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005) pp.  242, Rrp. $34.95

In this book, Rupert Shortt, Religious Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, engages in discussions with 18 Christian scholars. The reader is offered both a tour d’horizon of contemporary Christian thought and various soundings to assess its state and particularly the ways in which it has recovered its confidence. The setting is predominantly that of the anglophone world, specifically Britain and North America, and includes both established names and newer voices.

The author hopes that the mixed menu, through a variety in format and content, will prove more appetizing for a reader. Overall, the book achieves this aim. The author blends two-way and three-way conversations. We enter into some of the personal and academic background of authors such as Rowan Williams, Tina Beattie, Jean-Luc Marion or Miroslav Volf. Alternatively, we get multiple perspectives from peers who may once have been mentor and pupil: Alvin Plantinga and Christopher Insole on philosophy of religion; John Milbank and Simon Oliver on Radical Orthodoxy; or from the close working partners, Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan on political theology.

The reader is ushered through fields beyond those just mentioned: philosophical theology (Janet Martin Soskice), the recent renaissance in systematic theology (Sarah Coakley), Christianity and society (David Martin), theological ethics (Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells) and some of the new developments in feminist (Tina Beattie) and black theologies (J. Kameron Carter). The process is enhanced by Shortt’s mastery of the theological landscape and his sensitivity to the particular manner it has been enriched by his conversation partners. He asks questions that help both the reader (to be exposed to an author’s key ideas) and the individual scholar (to excavate some of the personal and historical influences that shape his or her work).  Shortt provides links between authors and chapters and is both respectful and probing in his interactions.

The scope of contemporary Christian thought is vast. Even the full-time scholar can do little more than be acquainted with developments beyond one’s area of special interest. For this reason, this book is a very helpful, and timely, resource. It has a helpful index and endnotes. More importantly, for someone with a basic familiarity with theology, this book offers an exposure to some of today’s key authors and issues. At times, grappling with some of the closely argued responses is mentally bracing but worth the effort.

This book indicates clearly that the craft of theology is now predominantly lay –driven and university-based. At times, some of the speakers and their specializations appear to overlap (perhaps unavoidably so). In that light, one wonders whether a greater representation of women authors would have been helpful. Again, perhaps the inclusion of a biblical specialist would have underscored the debt to scripture scholarship particularly in the way it can, at times, explore unknown terrain.

In its content, the book’s scope resembles, in some ways, Marion’s ‘saturated phenomenon.’ I would like to mention four things that struck me as a reader.

First, one strand, discussed with Christoph Schwöbel, which seems to thread its way through the book is Trinitarian theology in its relational and social implications.

Second, Tina Beattie reminds us, that the theologian has to balance good scholarship with ‘prayerful and ethically engaged practice.’ In other words, she rightly emphasizes that ‘any theology that cannot be communicated to people in the churches is not a Christian theology’ (197).

Again, Sarah Coakley speaks of her conviction that, in the theological enterprise, the furrows of scientia must be tilled in the soil of sapientia. She speaks of a theologian’s need for a regular discipline of contemplative silence. One is thereby led by the Spirit beyond conventional modes of rationality. Prayer, as an intentional form of what she calls ‘dispossession’, is a practice that ‘underwrites and progressively transforms all that one goes on receiving from those other sources: it sets them in a progressively new light’ (71).

Finally, only one conversation in this valuable book is devoted to a single historical figure – that with David Burrell on Aquinas. It brings to the foreground recent studies done (by Burrrell and others) on the formative impact on Aquinas of Jewish and Muslim thinkers such as Maimonides and Avicenna.  The book’s interchange with Miroslav Volf on inter-faith dialogue and reconciliation in today’s world can profitably, as in other fields, return to Aquinas for insight and nourishment.

And in speaking of Aquinas, we come, then, to our second work. 

Rudi Te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (UK: Aldershot: VT: Burlington: Ashgate, 2006) pp.  184, Rrp. $46.20.)

Te Velde, from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, is amongst Thomist scholars who, with Burrell and others, have clarified the extent of Aquinas’ debt to Islamic scholars in ways of using Greek philosophy. Te Velde’s concern here is more specific: he presents an account of divine ‘scientia’ concerning God as One/Trinity/ Creator in the Primar Pars of the Summa. In the book’s six chapters, he examines Aquinas’ treatment of foundational questions: does God exist? what God is and is not, discourse about God, God and causality of creation, divine and human freedom.  

In a crowded field, Te Velde finds a space for his own analysis and, at times, for personal and well-argued interpretations. He opens the book by offering another perspective on the Exitus/Reditus structure of the Summa by building on the Prologue to the Prima Secundae where we find expressed succinctly the intersection of divine and human freedom. Te Velde sees that the circular movement of the Summa’s tripartite division is better articulated in terms of freedom’s three modulations: in the creator’s freedom (God and his work), created freedom (humanity and its self-directing activity) and the restoration of fallen freedom of humanity towards God (Christ and his work of salvation).

Te Velde moves on to examine the Five Ways. He outlines positions that see Aquinas as an apologist offering philosophical proofs for God’s existence that underpin and lead to Christian faith and, alternatively, those who see the Five Ways as rational justifications that assume a faith conviction. Te Velde underlines the fact that Aquinas starts within Christian faith but has, as his object, God as Truth [of all humanity]. He wishes to establish the minimal conditions that are needed for anyone to say that this Being we call God actually exists. 

Te Velde probes the rationale for the threefold division of the Prima Pars (God/ Trinity/ Creation) in so far as it is guided by the subject matter ‘God and his work.’ The Prima Pars, is in many ways, a microcosm of freedom and agency that guides the whole Summa. In approaching divine agency, human discourse about God must reflect the distinction between divine nature (statements about who God is) and activity (what it means to say that God does something). In this context, Te Velde discusses those who highlight the negative theology of Aquinas in this part of the Summa. Te Velde argues that overemphasis on Aquinas as an instance of negative theology tends overlook the fact that negation is not the primary lens but is part of ‘how the intelligibility of God is to be expressed from the perspective of his effects’ [75].

Te Velde is particularly skilful when he discusses Aquinas’ account of the semantic possibilities of human language in relation to the transcendent reality of God. Aquinas’ acute sensitivity and observations about the use of language concerning God is better appreciated with the influence of the linguistic turn in philosophy [for instance, the work of David Burrell and Fergus Ker]. TV is particularly adept at presenting Aquinas’ modest, contextual and limited use of the notion of analogy. Te Velde reminds us that, for Aquinas, analogy is not an ingenious linguistic device without ontological bearings. Its roots are in the positive relation between the created world and its divine origin in ‘being’ as the basis of intelligibility. This enables us not simply to use language to deny qualities of God. We can speak affirmatively of God using strategies of ‘denial’ and the ‘way of eminence’ to speak of God’s being and qualities.

The final phases of this study concern God as Creator and God as Grace. Binding together creation and the whole Summa is Grace [as Thomas O’Meara, Anna Williams and others have reminded us in the past two decades]. God’s saving freedom and the Dionysian God of self-communicating goodness reflects the essence of who God is. Our happiness is sharing in the gift of the loving God’s triune life.

But it may help to aim the final spotlight to Te Velde’s chapter on creation. We are reminded there of G.K. Chesterton’s comment that if Thomas Aquinas were to receive a fitting epithet [as St. John ‘of the Cross’ or St. Thérèse of ‘the Child Jesus’] it would be Thomas ‘of the Creator.’ The Christian belief in creation prompts Aquinas to resist strongly any Gnostic-like temptation to devalue material reality as something from which we should be saved. For him, such a view actually demeans God.

For Aquinas, creation points us towards God, is the second volume of God’s word. Embedded in his theological vision is an ‘attitude of trust and open acceptance to the natural world’ and the context in which ‘we realize our orientation towards God’ [123].  The central role of ‘participation’ in his account of created agency is not one of emanation understood as a form of neo-Platonic, creaturely, dependent mode of infinite being. It is as if the creature is seen as a ‘manifestation’ viewed as a conduit for divine transcendence at the cost of an individual identity. Aquinas sees the human creature as made to be ‘set free in its own natural being, really distinct from God’ [141]. Te Velde’s summing up reminds us of Aquinas’s comment in the Prologue of the Prima Secundae: it is precisely in the human exercise of self-counsel and direction [prudence] that the image of God shines most brightly [shares in divine providence].   

This is a valuable study in its field. Te Velde shows mastery of his material. This is reflected in the chapter endnotes, select bibliography and final Index. These aspects, together with the book’s layout, make it more approachable and helpful. The author’s debt to, or difference from, other scholars is always expressed with courtesy and fairness. The book is primarily aimed at the specialist reader. It is the work of a philosopher whose clarity and closely-woven arguments never lose their focus and consistency. For that reason, it is accessible to a wider public.

However, one cannot to be too sure if that wider audience would include Flannery O’Connor, given her remark about the ‘horrible wrappers’ of Aquinas’ God (as Tony Kelly reminded us in Pacifica ten years ago). This should not deflect us from the seriousness with which she viewed Aquinas. This same attitude towards O’Connor herself (and her ‘quirky’, unexpected God) together with other authors (and their ‘absent’ God) is evident in our final book, D.Z. Phillips, From Fantasy to Faith: Morality, Religion and Twentieth Century Literature ( London: SCM Press, 2006), Pp. 240, Rrp. $69.45.

This collection of essays was originally published in 1991 as The Philosophy of Religion and Twentieth Century Literature. It is not Phillips’ wish to explore how one moves from fantasy to faith with the help of philosophy or any other discipline. He is concerned with the many distinctions between fantasy and reality together with the fact that these have as much to do with morality as they have to do with religion.

In Part 1 ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, Phillips tries to portray the full weight of the pervading Western view that religious belief is an inherently childish phase that we should, in emerging adulthood, leave behind. Is it a fantasy built on the projection of unsatisfied yearnings? Or is it the case that, as with some many other aspects of life, religion is ‘caring’ untruth, a ‘white lie’ that we tell each other to get through life, especially when it is difficult. Variations on these themes are explored: in L. Frank Baum’s ‘Down the Yellow Brick Road’ to the Emerald City where the Wizard dwells to the empty heaven of Wallace Stevens and Dennis Potter or the charitable untruths (or is it the limits of language?) of Philip Larkin’s poetry.

Part 2 ‘Under a Godless Sky’ explores some moral alternative to religion and surrounding problems. This can take place to reliance on rules, deadly respectability, self-interest, ‘instant solution’ religion or can take the form of the breakdown of language or meaning. He carefully uses his philosophical scalpel to pare away settled interpretations (Pirandello, Beckett, Stoppard) to reveal an underlying religious impulse. He tries to expose a longing for something else which, at times, requires a certain distortion to get to its truth (as Picasso reminded us about he role of art).

Part 3 ‘Heroes of the Horizon’ finds Phillips using Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea), Isaac Babel’s portrayal of the Cossacks and Albert Camus’ The Plague to argue for moral perspectives that are independent of religion. These can be embodied in those who address life through moral engagement for a better world, especially where its horizons are most limited. Phillips points to clues that suggest that Camus, for instance, does not close his mind to the possibility of a religious perspective. To take P further, the provisional nature of Camus’ attitude is perhaps confirmed by the irony pervading the structure of his later work The Fall (La Chute). There, through the person of Clamence, Camus alerts us to the dangers of self-deception and absolute positions.

Finally, in ‘Under God’s Heaven’, Phillips offers instances of the possibility of a religious sense that goes beyond, without denying, the reality of human suffering. Emerging from authors such as Barbara Pym, Edith Wharton, Elie Wiesel, R.S. Thomas, Flannery O’Connor, is the recognition that nothing is ours by right, that we are all dependent on grace. Rain falls on just and unjust alike. This is nowhere more important than when confronted by the silence of the heavens in the face of suffering.

It is heartening that Phillips, as with James Wood in The Broken Estate, rekindles a, perhaps, neglected practice of delving into the connection between literature and religious belief. Beyond Phillips' lucid arguments, probing analyses and accessible language, there is much that is refreshing and uplifting in this book. Phillips, a philosopher, adopts a contemplative stance which ‘strives to do conceptual justice to journeys of various kinds’ (v and 236). Every window on life’s meaning can be threatened by distortion, deception and fantasy just as it can disclose faith that is truth-bearing. In probing these, Phillips brings a respect for ways of knowing beyond the empirical and the philosophical. He takes seriously the possibility of a religious belief that is not infantile or repressive. 

Phillips' approach is perhaps best reflected in his discussion of Flannery O’Connor. She is one who uses shock tactics to crack hardened perceptions of God and religion through ‘distortions needed to get to the truth’ (94). More importantly, Phillips concurs with her conviction that resistance to mystery results from giving prime place to explanation. Beyond understanding and explanation, one comes to a point of attentive wonder, even in situations that baffle us.

There are moments where we become aware of something more, of divine grace working in the contingencies and limits of life and relationships. This may occur more often than we think. Phillips' position is consonant with David Hay’s comment in his recent study of religious awareness as biologically natural to humanity (Something There: the biology of the human spirit).  In thirty years of research in his field, Hay meets the same story told time and time again in the context of unbearable suffering: people speaking of the something there that does not protect us from pain but is accompanying us in the midst of it as we struggle through it.

Phillip’s book prompts three final thoughts. First, the religious impulse will not disappear despite the crusade of a Richard Dawkins. Second, to say that ‘God is missing but not missed’ may be true of today’s western developed world but, on present estimates, will not be true of 70% percent of the global population by 2025. Finally, natural theology and apologetics cannot displace the divine word spoken as grace to religious yearnings in a suffering world - the disturbing image of a Crucified God.

Reviewer: Tom Ryan SM - Tom Ryan is Adjunct Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University, the University of Notre Dame Australia, WA and Visiting Fellow at Griffith University, Brisbane. Email: tryansm@bigpond.net.au

Margaret Hannon The Nature and Demands of the Sovereign Rule of God in the Gospel of Matthew Library of New Testament Studies 308; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2006.

This study is lucidly written and very well structured.  After a brief introductory chapter that raises the inevitable questions of methodology, the author works her way systematically through every “Kingdom” saying in the Gospel of Matthew.  This could have been a tedious exegetical task.  But the method chosen avoids possible tediousness.  She does not rush headlong into the all-too-common narrative approach that dominates so many doctoral dissertations these days.  She respects this method, which she calls a “horizontal methodology,” while she shows her mastery of it.  I particularly appreciated her insightful understanding of “foreshadowing” and deliberate repetition of themes across the narrative.  However, she rightly insists on the need to ask historical and exegetical questions of the text that look behind the narrative to the “socio-historical contextualization” of the implied author, hearer and reader of the text.  This is crucial.  It is my opinion that many contemporary “readings” of New Testament narratives are dishonest.  They attend only to the “implied author and reader,” the world in front of the text, but in the end, one suspects that the interpreter is herself or himself that implied reader.  As is evident from much that is produced these days, especially in doctoral dissertations from the United States, we are running the risk of a new fundamentalism, clothed with the rhetoric of literary analysis.  New Testament scholarship must never abandon what might be called a “vertical analysis”: an in depth analysis of the world that produced the text.

But the author does not stop there with her methodological introduction.  She steps outside the current debate over the need to marry diachronic and synchronic readings to suggest that the text of Matthew itself suggests the possibility of more ideological readings: feminist, post-colonial and liberationist.  Her introduction does not elaborate on this literary theory, but from time to time in her reading of Matthew, she shows the possibility of such readings, often with the help of a fine scholar, Gary A. Phillips.  This is well-argued and, wherever she makes the suggestion, challenging.

The analysis of the kingdom language is wisely determined by the shape of Matthew’s narrative.  The literary design of the Gospel of Matthew has generated considerable debate, but a certain degree of unanimity is emerging.  All Matthean scholars are aware that the Evangelist can indeed be called “meticulous Matthew” (Peter Ellis), and her understanding of the Gospel’s literary structure respects that position.  She uses Matthew’s practice of inclusions, often marked by the crucial repetition of Kingdom language, to determine the structure of Matthew.  She then reads that narrative determined by the structure, and locates her systematic study of the Kingdom sayings within that reading of the narrative as a whole.  This method generates eight chapters, running from the Infancy Narrative, to discipleship, the preparation of labourers for the Kingdom, the revelation of knowledge of the Kingdom, the keys of the Kingdom, gaining status in the Kingdom, the cost of rejecting Jesus’ message concerning the Kingdom, the eschatological promise and awaiting the Kingdom of the Father, concluding with the proclamation of the Kingdom and good news for the nations.

Surely, this is the way one must approach any theme in a narrative.  Much classical linguistic and theological analysis of Gospel themes have focused upon each single appearing of an expression or a theme, and the literary and theological context has been ignored.  This is not the case with this study.  Her book is a fine example of the adage “text without context is pretext.”  There is plenty of context here, and very little pretext.  Indeed, although this was not one of her primary concerns, the 232 pages of this study also provide a very succinct, reliable and contemporary commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from 1:1-28:20.

I find her arguments, in detail and in general, very cogent.  As is being recognized more widely these days, the chief agent in the Gospels is not Jesus, as one would expect in narratives where he is always the hero, but God.  She has shown that this is especially true with the Gospel of Matthew.  There, Jesus - named “God is with us” (Matt 1:23; 28:20) - proclaims God’s gratuitous and saving presence.  The proclamation of the Kingdom, however, is not reserved to Jesus.  Others are commissioned and trained to do the same.  One of the features of her study is her insistence of the never-ending discipling - that goes on beyond the parameters of the text of the Gospel and the time-frame it covers, into an unknowable future.  This is where she helpfully injects interesting suggestions about the possible use of less traditional - and less stable - readings of the Matthean text.

In her study of the Jesus’ parabolic teaching of the kingdom (Matt 13), she inserts a telling footnote.  It may appear exaggerated to cite at length from a footnote in a review, but the note (when read with attention) articulates most clearly her understanding of the challenge of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom, as we find it in Matthew,  that lies behind a great deal of the second half of the study.  “There is no doubt that Matthew probably also meant these similitudes to be later interpreted on their own as the need arose.  This is clearly implied in the similitude of the scribe trained for the Kingdom of the Heavens.  Here, we have an excellent example of the transparency of the Matthean text, where a pericope is orientated not only towards the original audience, but also towards the needs of the future reader of the text.  He therefore shares his work accordingly.  Matthew also gives expression to the particular teachings of Jesus that all future beneficiaries of those teachings are meant to take to heart.  As the similitudes in this part of the discourse form part of exposition of the teaching unit, they are meant to explain the mysteries of the Kingdom to the historical disciples.  They should, therefore, first be interpreted as a unified section of the Matthean text before being interpreted individually.  This latter belongs to future disciples of Jesus, who are charged with interpreting them for their own time” (p. 115 n. 43).

Subsequent to this note, her study of Matthew 13:52: “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is old and new,” is a bold projection of this discipling into a future where readings and re-readings of Jesus’ proclamation of God’s sovereignty, its challenge, and the dangers inherent in its rejection, will take place in contexts undreamt of by the implied writer and readers of this text.  At once stage I feared that I had lost touch with my beloved “Matthew” as the scribe who had been trained for the kingdom, but I found, to my relief, that she saw him as the first in a long line of those followers of Jesus who would read and re-read, proclaim in and out of season, the challenge and the presence, the promise, and the challenge of the sovereignty of God (pp. 117-121).

Of course, there is no such thing as the perfect book, and my reading of her study was prejudiced by the fact that I have very recently published a major commentary on the Gospel of Mark (The Gospel of Mark.  A Commentary [ Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003).  I am aware that one cannot do everything, and she makes it clear from the start that she wishes to study Matthew as Matthew, and not to devote attention to the Evangelist’s use of sources (pp. 2-5).  But time and again I found myself thinking of the brilliance of Matthew’s re-working of a Markan original that could have further enriched her analysis: his use of the Son of Man language, the suggestion that Matthew has rejected the Markan use of the messianic secret, as in Matthew Jesus’ command to silence “anticipates the disciples’ lack of perception as to the nature of Jesus’ messianic role” (p. 145); but that is certainly one of Mark’s motives for the use of this so-called “secret,” the worst kept secret in the history of secrecy.

This is a significant book on a central theme in the Gospel of Matthew.  It asks us to look again at what the Kingdom means - the affirmation of God’s sovereignty and its consequences.  But it further urged us to see how our preaching and living the sovereign rule of God must go on, in different ways and in different contexts, as generations come and go.  Through this reading of Matthew, we are asked to recognize that the challenge of Jesus is alive and well. 

Reviewer: Professor Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B., A.M., F.A.H.A., Salesian Province Centre, Ascot Vale, Vic 3032.

Melanie M. Morey and John J. Piderit, S.J. Catholic Higher Education: A Culture in Crisis Oxford University Press, USA (April 20, 2006) 464 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0195305517

When Bob Dylan penned the lyric for “The Times They are A-changin’” in 1963, it is unlikely that he realised by just how much.  Few would have appreciated the magnitude of the cultural revolution that was underway in the West, which would be exported in time around the globe.  It affected most aspects of society including higher education, which initially fostered it, and laid the basis for the series of changes to the university sector that have seen the utilitarian replace the academic as the dominant consideration in the minds of most of those who fund, administer, and use universities today. 1963 was a significant year for the Church, with Pope John XXIII calling Vatican Council II, which was to alter the Church’s stance to the changing world, from distance to engagement. The change in stance and the cultural revolution in the wider society were to have many effects, one of which was the way religious communities came to see their role.

It is against this backdrop that Dr Morey and Fr Piderit write about a ‘culture in crisis’, the culture of Catholic higher education in the U.S.A. As a result of the changes in Church and society during the second half of the twentieth century, they see the culture in decline and facing an uncertain future. A major factor in this has been the loss of the cadre of traditional leaders from religious orders that the culture has depended on to give it its Catholic character. With membership of religious congregations in the U.S.A. decreasing in the second half of the twentieth century by almost fifty percent, the American Catholic higher education system now has a dearth of leaders and teachers well-formed in the Catholic tradition.  The book is not, however, a counsel in despair because the authors have a series of recommendations to address the crisis.

The analysis and recommendations are born of the authors’ wealth of experience in the higher education sector.  Piderit has a long career in higher education and was for seven years President of Loyola, Chicago. Morey has over 30 years experience as a consultant in higher education and has worked closely with a number of Catholic institutions and with the congregations that founded them. This experience is brought to bear on the results of their survey of administrators in 124 Catholic tertiary institutions and on the data arising from a series of personal interviews with the leaders of 33 institutions, including The Catholic University of America, Notre Dame, and Georgetown.  The authors show considerable skill in managing their material and wisdom in interpreting it, which makes for an interesting, authoritative, and challenging treatment of where American Catholic higher education is at this juncture in our history.  It deserves to be read by all those involved in or seriously interested in Catholic higher education.

Central to the analysis advanced by Morey and Piderit are two features they maintain are essential to organisational culture of whatever sort, if it is to prosper amid competing cultures: distinguishability and inheritability.  Both are vital to the survival of a culture but can be in opposition to each other.  A culture must be clearly distinguished from others; thus, a Catholic university must differ from a secular university in ways that are clearly evident to those who attend or consider attending one.  At the same time, a culture must be transmissible. If there are to be Catholic institutions of higher education one hundred years or more from now, the ways institutions function today must make that possible.  Too much concern for inheritablity can lead to a loss of distinguishability as attempts are made to ensure the viability of an institution, for example, by insisting it not be ‘too Catholic’ or more subtly by stressing the founder rather than the founder’s Catholic affiliation.  But an institution must be attractive to students because, without a strong financial base, an institution cannot survive for long. Pity then those who lead Catholic higher education institutions as they wrestle with the dilemma. 

Based on their data and experience, Morey and Piderit see American Catholic higher education institutions loosing both distinguishability and inheritability.  Although participants in their study strongly supported the need to provide a strong Catholic culture in their institutions, few, according to the authors, were making good on their intentions.  Although there were in most institutions compulsory courses in theology, religion, or philosophy, according to Morey and Piderit, there was no evidence that students ‘were actually appropriating any significant aspect of the Catholic intellectual tradition that could be called on after graduation’ (p.114). For the authors, the Catholic intellectual tradition includes all contributions to Western intellectual life stemming from Catholic theology and philosophy, including influences in literature, the arts, law and extending to the social, life, and physical sciences.  It subsumes Catholic moral theology, which in turn subsumes Catholic social teaching. Concerns with social justice and pastoral care are exemplars of the tradition, Morey and Piderit maintain,  but do not substitute for it and unless tied back to the tradition and its practice do not of themselves provide any distinguishability with respect to secular universities, many of which would see justice and care for students as important.

The authors argue that, whereas earlier in the twentieth century Catholic institutions were able to bring to students the Catholic intellectual tradition in ways that students saw relevant to their lives post-university, today that art has been lost.  It is this that has undermined the culture’s distinguishability and inheritability. A significant reason for the loss is that few staff today have a good enough understanding of the Catholic intellectual tradition to show how it touches on their own specialised areas of inquiry and few are living the tradition in the way professed members of religious orders do.  Knowledge and practice of a tradition are both important if observers of it are to appropriate key aspects to their own lived experience. The current generation of students, the authors maintain, will not study the tradition for its own sake but because it has value in their lives.  Showing this value is the task that many in Catholic higher education institutions are ill equipped for.  Many staff, according to Morey and Piderit, can take students through the first steps of the Catholic intellectual tradition, because it is based on reason and subscribes to the same canons that all subjects taught in universities, secular other otherwise, do.  Thus the student is taught to think critically, to demand evidence and not simply accept assertion, and to develop more generally a sceptical cast of mind. But the Catholic intellectual tradition does not leave the student abandoned to scepticism but points the way to the appreciation of significant human values. It is the second stage that many academics in Catholic universities are powerless to undertake and yet it is this stage that transforms the educational experience for the student, as the authors put it, from one that shows them how to earn a living to one that shows them how to live a life.

The authors recognise that students too have changed from the days of the golden age of modern Catholic universities.  Many today, although nominally Catholic, are illiterate with respect to their faith and its practice, making it difficult to draw on the Catholic intellectual tradition at a level of sophistication comparable to that of the secular subjects being taught.  Although professing a commitment to spirituality, many students are not prepared for a commitment to religion and the constraints that they see that entails, which makes the Catholic intellectual tradition more alien than it would have previously been.

If the diagnosis is correct, what then is the remedy? The authors are careful not to simplify the problem by recommending a general solution, and this review because of its brevity may ill serve the careful analysis they provide.  For example, they recognise that not all Catholic institutions are alike and suggest at least four types, depending on the cohort of students they attract and the objectives they set themselves.  Institutions that recruit Catholic students almost exclusively cannot be readily compared to those where Catholics and those of other faiths and no faith may be equal in number.  The prescription needs then to be carefully tailored to the patient.  Although there are many things that Catholic institutions need to do, from increasing student participation in the liturgical life of the university to enforcing Catholic standards of relationship in student residences, a key requirement if the culture is to survive, according to Morey and Piderit, is ‘hiring for mission’.  The Catholic mission of the institution needs to be taken seriously in the selection, appointment, and induction of all staff, not just those at the senior executive level.      

Although the idea of hiring for mission does not originate with Morey and Piderit, they argue for it persuasively.  They note that the President of a college has a substantial influence in maintaining or transforming a culture, but staff at lower levels can support or undermine even the most determined of senior executives. Although mission is manifestly important in filling senior positions, it is equally important at the level of the class room teacher.  This does not mean that all staff must be Catholic, not even half according to the authors.  What is important is that all staff understand and genuinely support the mission and that there is a sufficient number of Catholic staff whose authority and influence in maintaining the culture is unquestioned.  Staff need to understand the Catholic intellectual tradition and its relevance to their subject area and show a willingness to assist students make connections between it and current issues.

To achieve this, the authors suggest that disciplinary excellence may need to be supplemented in selection criteria by knowledge of the tradition, selection committees may need to favour candidates whose doctoral programs included connecting their thinking to themes in the tradition, and in-service education through summer schools may need to be offered to ensure staff have the confidence to link their disciplines to the tradition.  All of these suggestions may be confronting to those staff in Catholic colleges who see their role as no different from that of academics at secular universities.  But that is the nub of the problem if the culture is to be distinguishable and inheritable, that is, to survive.  Catholic higher education is to be staffed in future by those without the religious formation of nuns, brothers, and priests but formation is necessary if the system is to offer a genuine alternative, no less academically rigorous or enlightened but one ‘from the heart of the Church’.

There is, as it happens, little reference in the book to Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic constitution for universities. His statement touched off a controversy in American higher education when the American bishops attempted to formulate a response to it that recognised the history and practice of universities in their country.  Piderit, at the time, was out of step with a number of senior Catholic administrators in supporting Ex Corde, or more correctly supporting that part of it that deals with the mandatum to teach theology in Catholic institutions.  The authors confine themselves to referring to only one section of Ex Corde, that to do with the number of staff who must be Catholic in a Catholic university.  As noted earlier the authors consider that a strict interpretation of the 50% rule in Ex Corde is not necessary to ensure the Catholic character of an institution.   That said, their thinking is very close to that of the papal statement.

The book is about Catholic higher education in the U.S.A. and one may ask is its analysis relevant to other systems.  In Australia, for example, there are only three Catholic higher education institutions and not the 220 in the U.S.A., none are anywhere near as old as the well-known American institutions (although one can claim a heritage dating back to the 1800s in the teaching colleges of religious orders), and only in one of the three institution has the chief executive ever been ordained or a member of a religious congregation.  The American experience is nonetheless informative because the revolution that has challenged Catholic culture in North America shows many similarities to that in Australia.  A central message from the work of Morey and Piderit is that there is more than one way for a higher education institution to be authentically Catholic, and it has less to do with what is prescribed in a curriculum than with respect for the role of theology and philosophy in the life of the institution and efficacy in imparting the Catholic intellectual tradition to students by word and deed. To use a form of language common in discussions of education today, the task Morey and Piderit set for institutions is to focus on the outcomes of the educational experience for students and not on the inputs. Is the moral agency and spiritual being of students better formed as a result of their attending an institution whose title professes a commitment to the Catholic intellectual tradition? This is a tough question to answer and it may be easier to avoid it by instead counting courses students are required to take, but, if the culture of Catholic higher education is to continue to contribute to building the city of God, institutions will need to find practical ways to answer it. This is the challenge for Catholic higher education that remains at the end of the book.

Reviewer: Professor John O'Gorman is the Pro Vice-Chancellor - Quality & Outreach - at the McAuley Brisbane Campus of Australian Catholic University.

David Ivan RANKIN From Clement to Origen: The Social and Historical Context of the Church Fathers ( Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). ISBN: 0 7546 5716 7. 182 pages. £45.

This volume seeks to present pre-Nicene early Christian literature from the four great cities of the Roman empire (Rome—represented by Clement, Hermas, Minucius Felix, and Hippolytus; Carthage—represented by Tertullian and Cyprian; Antioch [and Asia Minor in general]—represented by Ignatius, Theophilus, Polycarp, Melito, Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus; and Alexandria—represented by Epistle to Diognetus, Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria, Athenagoras, and Origen) in its relationship with the surrounding culture. After an introduction, which sets out the prevailing philosophical systems of the Graeco-Roman world, each chapter summarises the cultural (excluding religious) conditions of each city together with summaries of the writings of the respective individuals, particularly with regard to what each Christian author had to say about the surrounding society and the imperial system.

There is a particular and very welcome emphasis in the pages of this volume on factors like rhetoric, patronage, and philosophy as key determinants not only of that cultural milieu but of the Christian literature itself. Rankin’s concern is to highlight the ways in which early Christianity was a product of its times and environment in addition to and sometimes even despite its claims to uniqueness.

Apologetic and protreptic literature are compared with one another and related to the three rhetorical genres (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic). It is noted that scholars disagree about how exactly to define the apologetic and protreptic genres and how to relate them to forensic and deliberative themes.  This brief discussion on pp. 6-8 perhaps highlights the fact that for some early Christian writers apologetics made use of both forensic and deliberative strategies and that it is in the latter that there is overlap with protreptic. This is complicated for the uninitiated and perhaps a little more detail at this stage could be helpful. One could suggest, for example, that a number of early Christian apologies cannot be classified as having only one aim; indeed, they may try to explain their faith, defend their faith, and argue for conversion to their faith.

As indicated by the brief lists of further reading at the end of each chapter, this volume is an introduction to pre-Nicene Christian literature for those unfamiliar with the field. Yet, it is an introduction that contains a wealth of information and reveals the author’s close reading of the primary material. The chapter on North Africa is particularly solid.

Inevitably there is room for a few quibbles. In the introduction it is Aristotle’s overview of rhetoric that is presented to the reader. Yet, Karl Barwick in 1922 and Friedrich Solmsen in 1941 observed how later rhetorical theorists deviated significantly from Aristotle’s detailed divisions of the elements of rhetoric. Aristotle’s view on the persuasive nature of epideictic rhetoric was somewhat idiosyncratic. However, Rankin does go on to comment on the contributions of Hermagoras, Cicero, and Quintilian. While it is to be commended that a piece of early Christian literature be examined in its own milieu, I do not know if that is what we get in the fourth chapter on Antioch and Asia Minor, a point Rankin acknowledges himself on p. 89. There is nothing about Theophilus that is related to a setting in Antioch. On p. 90 it is admitted that there is no explicit engagement with local Smyrnan culture in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians. Indeed, since Justin Martyr’s three surviving works were written in Rome, placing him in a chapter on Antioch and Asia Minor would need some justification, despite the fact that he originated in Palestine. The similarities with Numenius of Apamea do not give a distinctly Antiochene/Asiatic flavour to Justin’s writings. What we end up with is a useful summary of the writings with regard to Justin’s dependence upon Platonic and Stoic philosophical concepts and his attitudes toward the imperial system, but one that does not point to any geographic influence on Justin’s thought. In a work on pre-Nicene Christian literature it would be impossible to omit Irenaeus of Lyons, and Rankin devotes a number of pages to him, even though, since he “does not appear at first glance to devote much time or energy to an engagement with the society around him” (pp. 107-108), he would seem to outside the scope of this investigation. However, Rankin does highlight Irenaeus’ familiarity with philosophical concepts, particularly through his knowledge of Gnosticism and its reliance upon Stoicism.

This volume is not a history of the practice of Christian interaction with the society in which it found itself in the first centuries after Jesus, but a summary of the attitudes of early Christian writers to those societies and cultures of the Roman empire, particularly with an emphasis upon the rhetorical and philosophical. As a window into the social theology of pre-Nicene Christian literature for the undergraduate reader or a handy summary for the specialist, this book can be highly recommended.

Reviewer: Rev Dr Geoffrey D Dunn, Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University

The God Delusion and the Goldilocks Enigma: An Extended Book Review

Two recent books seek to address ultimate questions about the existence of God, the origin and purpose of the universe and the origin and significance of humanity within it, but with widely differing effectiveness. These are The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Bantam Press, London, 2006, 406 pages, Trade Paperback, AUD 35.00) and The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies (Penguin Books, London, 2006, 350 pages, Hard Cover, AUD 55.00).

The God Delusion is intended by its author to convince believers at all levels, of the logical necessity and moral superiority of atheism and to convince them that handing on religious traditions to children is a form of child abuse. While Dawkins’ writings have earned him many detractors, those who have met him or seen him interviewed have often found him witty, intelligent and approachable, while he maintains his passion to see science triumph over religion. He is well qualified to present his case. He is Oxford's Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and is the author of the influential book The Extended Phenotype (1982). His books defending a purely materialist view of reality include The Selfish Gene (1976), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995) and The Ancestors’ Tale (2004).  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. Not surprisingly, The God Delusion became an immediate “best seller”. However, I found it disappointing, as did most reviewers, even atheists who have been strong supporters of Dawkins’ previous works. A synopsis of The God Delusion and a summary of reviews from science journals (including Nature), other magazines, national newspapers and other commentators are available in the entry for The God Delusion at Wikipedia.com.

Clearly, Dawkins is motivated by justified alarm at the growing political influence of the religious right in the USA and their attempt to replace the teaching of authentic science with the pseudoscience of “Intelligent Design”. We might expect Dawkins to provide a carefully researched and closely reasoned discussion of the strengths of atheism compared to contemporary theological models of God.  However, he presents little evidence of having studied the major contemporary theologians.   Instead he attacks ancient theistic arguments and culturally conditioned scriptural documents ignoring our current understanding of their strengths and weaknesses based on centuries of scholarship. In fact, he does not even recognize theology as a subject. His methodology relies excessively on bold assertions without proof and on a rhetorical style replete with sarcasm and the ridiculing or parodying of opposing arguments. In his view, scientists who admit to any form of theism are speaking only metaphorically, are really atheists but dare not admit it, or need to have their consciousness raised.

Dawkins demolishes some well known “straw men” including simplistic anthropomorphic models of a forensic and vengeful God (of whom Martin Luther said “Love God? I hated Him!”).  Dawkins also correctly rejects the “God of the gaps” approach for which the natural end point is indeed atheism. Whereas Paul Davies acknowledges that St Anselm and St Thomas Aquinas were among the intellectual leaders of their age, and thus deserving of respect, Dawkins treats them with scorn. For example, he describes St Anselm’s ontological argument as “infantile”, though it has proved surprisingly challenging to eminent philosophers and theologians for almost a thousand years. They include Bertrand Russell, who once thought he had proved its correctness, and Charles Hartshorne, who proved that Anselm’s real discovery is that if God exists, he exists necessarily.

On the positive side, Dawkins’ discussion ranges over many relevant topics beyond his tirade against the suffering inflicted both historically and today in the name of God and religion. He examines the theory that religion arose through a process of natural selection. He argues that morality does not depend on religion or a belief in God. He also addresses the problem that is the primary motivation for the Goldilocks Enigma, by Paul Davies.  The nature of the universe is determined by the values of around twenty fundamental constants including Plank’s constant in quantum theory, the ratio of the electric charge of the electron to that of the proton, and the ratio of the gravitational force to the newly discovered repulsive force that is causing the rate of expansion of the universe to increase. Had any of the constants been different by around one percent, life could not have evolved. The probability of all the constants being “just right”, like Baby Bear’s porridge, is infinitesimally small, so it looks as if they have been set by a divine designer.

While he cannot find a completely satisfactory atheistic explanation, Dawkins favours the multiverse hypothesis that there are a very large, and perhaps infinite, number of unseeable and undetectable universes among which at least one will be “just right”.  As we shall see, Paul Davies rejects the multiverse argument as unsatisfying.

The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies is a very different book to The God Delusion. Internationally acclaimed theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Paul Davies is eminently qualified to write on why we live in a “Goldilocks universe”. He has had a distinguished career at the cutting edge of cosmological research.  Besides numerous research publications, he has authored more than twenty books including The Mind of God (1993), About Time (1996), How to Build a Time Machine (2001) and The Origin of Life (2003). His skills as a communicator of science have been recognized by the award of the 2001 Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics, the 2002 Faraday Prize of the Royal Society and two Eureka Awards. His writings on the relevance of science for religion earned him the prestigious Templeton Prize for 1995; an award which Dawkins cynically claims is “usually given to a scientist willing to say something nice about religion.”

The Goldilocks Enigma is extremely well written and Davies leads the reader gently through the complexities of modern physics and cosmology with a complete avoidance of mathematics. Nevertheless, the intellectually challenging nature of the topics covered means that it is hard going in places, especially towards the end.  The reader is helped by the excellent summaries of key points provided at the end of each chapter.

The first six chapters explain the key issues to be addressed and then take us through an exciting overview of modern cosmology, introducing us to the Big Bang at the beginning of time, space and matter, Einstein’s theories of relativity, what the universe is made of and what holds it together, the search for an all-explaining theory of everything that will unite general relativity and quantum theory, and the newly discovered dark force of repulsion that is causing the rate of expansion of the universe to increase. If the reader finds all this laborious on a first reading, she or he can still follow chapters 7 to 10 after reading just the end of chapter summaries of the first six chapters.

Chapters 7 through 10 are the most exciting and challenging part of the book and should be read in their entirety if the important issues are to be understood. Chapter 7 addresses the key question: Why is the universe uniquely fit for the evolution of life when the probability of all of the key constants being at just the right values is infinitesimally small? Davies explains how the four basic forces of nature need to work together in just the right way to produce life. He also introduces us to the mystery of why the measured amount of “dark energy” in the universe is smaller than the calculated value by a factor of one followed by 120 zeros, a rather large error of prediction to say the least!

Chapter 8 considers the multiverse hypothesis favoured by Dawkins, and Davies demonstrates some unfortunate byproducts of the theory, with theological implications, including the existence of “fake universes”. Davies leaves his final judgment on the multiverse hypothesis to chapter 10 and the Afterword.

In Chapter 9, Davies considers the strengths and weaknesses of the “Intelligent Design” argument, again withholding his final comment until the end of the book.

Chapter 10, the final chapter, is the most challenging chapter of the book with mind blowing concepts such as quantum strangeness, backwards causation  and causal loops.

Finally, in the Afterword, Davies evaluates the relative merits of seven alternative “ultimate explanations”. One of these is the multiverse, which Davies does not favour because, among other shortcomings, it leads to the prediction of “fake universes” of which the observed universe is probably one! Davies does come up with his preference for one of two solutions which treat the role of humanity in the universe seriously and leave room for an, admittedly unconventional, God. But to appreciate the implications of his conclusion you will have to read the book.

Recommendations: Concerning The God Delusion, I must agree with physicist Lawrence M.  Krauss (in Nature) that it is a pity that Dawkins did not concentrate on his strengths. Instead, he has allowed his justified fear of the religious right to provoke him to a polemical tirade unworthy of his former scholarship. The God Delusion does address major issues in the “existence of God” debate but adds little new to the debate. Paul Davies’ The Goldilocks Enigma is not primarily a book on religion and the existence of God, though its topic has obvious relevance to those areas. If you are awed by the grandeur of the universe  and wonder where it and we came from and what is our ultimate destiny, or wonder if science is compatible with belief in God, then this is a “must read” book. I could not put it down.

Reviewer: John Flanagan. Originally trained in theoretical physics, John Flanagan spent 35 years in industrial research and information technology before moving to the University of Wollongong where he became Director of the Logistics Program in the Graduate School of Business. Now retired, he continues with the Graduate School of Business as an honorary Senior Fellow, conducting and supervising research and contributing to course design. He is a Fellow of the University of Wollongong and also holds a further degree in theology.

Norman M. Ford & Michael Herbert Stem Cells St Paul’s Publications, Strathfield, 2003

Norman Ford and Michael Herbert provide a thorough systematic treatment of the scientific basis, government policy, potential benefits and ethical issues associated with stem cell science. Ford and Herbert rigourously define a number of scientific terms and research findings associated with current research into stem cell science, laying the basis for an informed rational discussion of this development. A crucial point to the current argument is an understanding of the key scientific terms, multipotency, pluripotency and totipotency.

These refer to stem cells that generate only a particular type of tissue; many different types; and is capable of producing a complete individual respectively. A clear outline of the science underlying stem cell research proceeds now to discuss the associated ethical issues.

Arguably, the ethical issue associated with stem cell research revolves around where one defines the start of human life. Philosophers would debate where human personhood could be said to in existence but science clearly identifies the initial stage of human life as a continuous development of the zygote formed at fertilisation. Ethical stances toward stem cell research and applications therefore arise from one’s one viewpoint of where human life and personhood start, and therefore respect for human life is accorded in line with where an individual situates their own viewpoint in these concepts. Philosophical arguments are offered from both Church and secular viewpoints, these are critically evaluated to arrive at a stance that is consistent with the Church’s ethic of respect for human life.

The crux of the embryonic stem cell ethical argument therefore concerns a belief involving how life is defined. If one holds the view that life is sacred from its’ earliest developmental stage, i.e., the zygote formed upon fertilization, then it follows that destruction of an early embryo to obtain stem cells is ethically unacceptable given the totipotency of the embryo.

Ford and Herbert (p74) point out that a single cell from a four day embryo is totipotent: it has the potential to form the entire offspring, including placental tissue, in a continuous, coordinated biological process, given a favourable uterine environment. This implies that a cell removed from a four-cell embryo could itself be deemed an embryo. Upon this biological argument, the case against embryonic stem cell research is made.

Australian Government legislation is discussed, specifically concerning The Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 and The Research Involving Embryos Act 2003; both of which still stand for the most part, the focal difference now being that Human Embryos can now be cloned in accordance with the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006.

Ford and Herbert argue that there must be a greater understanding of the science of tissue regeneration and organogenesis, and that advances in basic stem cells biology will eventually overcome existing ethical issues, thereby eliminating the need for early living embryos to be used as a source of stem cells in the first instance.  A number of other sources of stem cells are able to be ethically derived such as pluripotent embryonic germ cells obtained from ectopic or miscarried fetuses, adult stem cells, and cord blood.  In conclusion Ford and Herbert state: clearly there is no ethical justification for making laws to authorise the destruction of ‘spare’ IVF embryos or cloned human embryos to obtain ES cells for ‘therapeutic’ purposes. Public funds should be provided for research on umbililical cord, placenta and adult stem cells as well as on suitable stem cells from miscarried fetuses and pluripotent EG cells from recently deceased fetuses. This would accelerate the development of the desired ethical therapies for use in regenerative medicine and avoid the destruction of human embryos.

Reviewer: Gary Curran has post-graduate qualifications in Science and Theology.

Clark, W.A. A voice of the own: The authority of the local parish. Collegeville: Liturgical Press (2005). ISBN-10: 0-8146-5218-2; ISBN-13: 978-0-8146-5218-3. Pp. xxviii + 222. Pb.

William Clark’s A Voice of Their Own is an informative and useful text for those with an interest in ecclesiology, and particularly for those who wish to develop their understanding of authority in the post-Vatican II Church. In this book, Clark argues that the authority of the universal Church has its foundations in the concrete realities of the local Church.  To complement his argument, Clark considers three parishes, each noted by their geographic and cultural differences.  He also considers the theology of Karl Rahner, Walter Kasper and Joseph Ratzinger in understanding the authority of the local church.

For some people, the issue of authority in the church is a source of tension, uncertainty and misunderstanding.  For others, it is an issue of divisive debate.  Sometimes, one's understanding of authority becomes the determining factor of whether one is "progressive" or "conservative" on the theological spectrum. Rarely is such labelling helpful.  In fact, Clark suggests that this type of labelling leads to "mortal combat" (p. xvii). Theologies “from above” and “from below” are not intended to be competing agents.  Whilst Clark acknowledges that authority "from above", has in the past dominated authority “from below", his primary interest is to contribute to a more balanced understanding of authority in the church.

Readers will find in this book an introduction and seven chapters.  In the introduction, Clark acknowledges some of the abuses that have rocked the North American Church and claims a crisis of authority.  He then sets out an understanding of ecclesiology from below, the relationship of the local church to the universal church and then outlines his premises for understanding authority and the local community.  In chapter one, Clark provides an overview of three Roman Catholic parishes that he continually returns to throughout the book: St Joseph's Parish in Biddeford, Maine; St Thomas Aquinas Parish in Jamaica; in St Matthew's Parish in inner-city Boston.

"Community" is a central theme of this book. Clark discusses it from the perspective of canon law, Vatican II and scripture.  Despite these foundations, he notes that for many people in parishes, an understanding of church as community is problematic.  A sense of community in the church is challenged by secular forces, and also by ecclesial forces. Clark argues that in the past parish community was usually determined by geography.  That is, one’s place of residence determined the parish to which that person belonged. Increasingly, though, geography has become less of a determining factor.  This idea will resonate with many Australians who reside in urban areas.  Often they will sample a variety of parishes in their area before deciding which parish best suits them: "Community belonging and participation are no longer automatically expected of believers, but instead are based on separate and deliberate personal decision" (p. 52).

It is a reality that people experience church, firstly and most profoundly, at parish level.  Paradoxically, though, people often talk of church at universal level, and occasionally at diocesan level.  Clark seeks to counter this paradox by developing an understanding of intimacy as it is related to community.  His sense of intimacy is developed along the lines of fellowship, participation, communion, and solidarity and what is personally intrinsic.

Clark follows his discussion on intimacy with discussion about authority in chapter four. He argues that authority in an authentic Christian community “must be experienced, neither as an imposition of power nor as a separation from power, but as the empowerment that occurs when what is truly authoritative is honored” (pp. 113-114).

In chapter five Clark recalls the debate between Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and Cardinal Walter Kasper in 1999-2001 about the relationship between the local church and the universal Church. He summarises the approaches of both Ratzinger and Kasper before identifying their common ground and divergences.  "Gospel authenticity", he argues "engages the fullness of a local community’s reality, shapes the faith and understanding of its members, and in turn allows them to reach out apostolically to shape the faith and understanding of others outside the community" (pp.161-162). Thus, the concrete reality of the local church is integral to the authority of the universal Church.

In chapter six, Clark considers the local church community in light of the work of Karl Rahner.  Rahner’s ecclesiology, and regular preference for an ecclesiology from below, serves to inform an understanding of the inherent authority of local church communities.  Chapter seven, the final and shortest chapter of the book, summarises Clark's arguments and suggests ways that local communities can strengthen their bond with the universal Church without foregoing their rightful authority.

A Voice of Their Own will provide readers with a deeper sense of the relationship between the local church and the universal Church, and the way authority can and should be exercised in both. It is a worthwhile read.

Reviewer: Michael Chambers is a lecturer in the School of Religious Education at Australian Catholic University. He works at the McAuley Campus in Brisbane.

A selection of recent titles in theology

chosen by Hugh McGinlay of Rainbow Books.

Available from all Christian book shops

or contact Hugh directly for further information

hugh@rainbowbooks.com.au

 

CLIMATE CHANGE

The challenge to all of us

Sean McDonagh

$29.95                    1856075621            Dublin, Columba Press, 2006                 

Informed comment and reflection on the critical issues of climate change, from a Christian perspective, that welcomes the move to incorporate ecological concerns into the wider missionary dimension of the Church.

 

ECOLOGY AT THE HEART OF FAITH

The change of heart that leads to a new way of living on earth

Denis Edwards

$39.95                    1570756651            Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2006

This remarkable contribution to ecological theology combines scientific cosmology and evolutionary biology with a deep conviction that humans are made in the image of God; and proposes that being made in God's image involves both kinship with other creatures and the call to cultivate and take care of creation. 

 

IN SEARCH OF BELIEF

Revised edition

Joan Chittister        

$28.95                    0764814842            Liguori, Liguori Publications, 2006

Examines the Apostles Creed phrase by phrase, offering new and challenging insights, a new way of understanding its tenets, and 'breathing new life into familiar phrases'. 

 

CONCEPTS OF MISSION

The evolution of contemporary missiology

Francis Anekwe Oborji

$47.95                    1570756635            Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2006                   

Highly accessible and comprehensive introduction to the elements that have formed the history, theology and practice of Christian mission; from Africa's most respected Catholic missiologist. 

 

UNDERGOING GOD

Dispatches from the scene of a break-in

James Alison

$39.95                    0232526761            London, DLT, 2006

Thought provoking analysis of religion and violence, reconciliation and forgiveness, and gay/straight issues by one of the most exciting and original voices in Catholic theology.

 

ESCHATOLOGY AND HOPE

Anthony Kelly

$34.95                    1570756511            Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2006

Examines the concept of hope in general and how eschatology enlarges the scope of what humans anticipate in ways that transcend mere continuation of life after life, persuading us that Christian hope involves much more than hope for immortality.

 

LITURGY, TIME AND THE POLITICS OF REDEMPTION

Randi Rashkover and C.C. Pecknold (eds)

$122.50                  0334040337            London, SCM Press, 2006

The latest in the series 'Radical Traditions', the book is divided into five parts: Liturgical Acts, Liturgical Time, Liturgical Scrolling, Liturgical Improvisation, and Liturgical Silence, each featuring essays about a different aspect of Jewish or Christian liturgy.

 

MEETING MYSTERY

Liturgy, worship and sacraments

Nathan D. Mitchell

$35.95                    1570756740            Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2006

An introduction to liturgy, worship, and sacraments for beginners and an adventure that guides us to the place where ritual and silence reveal God’s surprising self and the human soul is moved to pray in a spirit of awe and love.

 

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION: METHODS

Elaine Graham, Heather Walton and Frances Ward

$69.95                    0334029767            London, SCM Press, 2005

Aimed at postgraduates and academics interested in the expanding volume of work and research surrounding theological reflection, this unique reference work allows a clear and visible contrast and comparison as each model is treated formally and critically.

 

CHRISTIAN HISTORY

An introduction to the Western Tradition

(New updated edition)

Diarmuid MacCulloch

$51.95                              0716206242  Peterborough, Epworth Press, 2006

New edition of a celebrated book that takes us from the earliest days of the fledgling Christian Church to the end of the twentieth century and enables us to put characters, movements and places in their wider context and make connections between them.

 

CONSTANTINE’S BIBLE

Politics and the making of the New Testament

David L. Dungan

$34.95                    0334041058            London, SCM Press, 2006

Suggests that the legal imposition of a ‘canon’ or ‘rule’ upon scripture was a fourth- and fifth-century phenomenon enforced with the power of the Roman imperial government; and that the political forces shaping the New Testament canon are much earlier than the second-century crisis occasioned by Marcion.

 

LIVING BAPTISM

Called out of the ordinary

Clare Watkins

$34.95                    0232526621            London, DLT, 2006

We baptise, we christen, but all too often the truly profound nature of what is being done is lost to us… and this at a time when, more that ever, we need thoroughly lively and substantial thought to what it means to be an ordinary Christian.

 

ANGLICANS IN ROME

A history

Frederick Bliss

$59.95                    1853117455            London, Canterbury Press, 2006

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Anglican Centre in Rome, this comprehensive history of the Anglican presence and influence in Rome celebrates the growth of dialogue and mutual understanding between the two communions.

 

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DESIRE