Abstract
In A Theology of the Drug War, Walker makes the call for Christians to experience and extend the fullness of God’s salvation in Christ in the context of globalization through neighbourliness and resistance, reflecting specifically on the context of the drug war in Latin America. He develops a transmodern theological ethic that connects God’s goodness and beauty to the suffering and injustice fostered by globalism, with a particular orientation towards the interests of victims. The author builds a political theology by weaving the political philosophy of Enrique Dussel with Hans Urs von Balthasar’s aesthetics of salvation. He concludes with a powerful case study, reflecting on the ‘Caravan for Peace’ movement as an example of how Christians can live out neighbourliness and resistance.
The author introduces the book with a reflexive account of his own engagements with the drug war through missionary work. The chapters exploring the work of Dussel and Von Balthasar, while at times quite dense, offer rich theological reflection and dialogue with other important works. He addresses the particular challenges of transmodern contexts, moving on from modern arguments that fail to address the complexities of contemporary global economics and politics. He paints a clear picture of the way in which global capital influences politics and fuels injustice and suffering, and makes conclusions that offer rich reflection for a variety of world contexts. The book develops a political theology and applies it to a context through a single case study, which means that the specific context of the drug war (and the suffering people caught up in it) does not remain clearly front and centre throughout. The richness of the theological reflection, however, contributes to a compelling application in the final chapter.
The author’s weaving of Dussel and Von Balthasar’s work with other sources offers a well-thought-out and genuinely hopeful political theology for the sometimes bleak context of twenty-first-century globalism, challenging Eurocentric approaches. A potential weakness of the book, though, is that while the author seeks to give an account from the subaltern, the majority of citations come from European educated men. Incorporating the disruptive critique of authors such as Marcella Althaus-Reid may have enriched this aspect of the book.
I particularly enjoyed the author’s compelling introduction to Dussel’s work, which has inspired me to read more. Indeed, the book proved a powerful resource for me to reflect on my own ministerial engagement with young people suffering criminal exploitation related to the drug trade. However, as a practical theologian, I felt that a broader range of core source material combined with some qualitative research might have strengthened the arguments more than an application/single case study format, particularly by allowing voices from the subaltern to speak. I felt that the greatest strength of the book was that it offered a genuinely creative, hopeful and practical approach to mission in the face of the injustice fuelled by transmodern globalism.