Abstract
Global Justice, Christology and Christian Ethics. New Studies in Christian Ethics
Lisa Sowle Cahill
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 328 pp. $99.00
Lisa Sowle Cahill, the J. Donald Monan, S.J., Professor of Theology at Boston College, is already an extraordinarily prolific author on a variety of subjects ranging from the family to bioethics to war and peace to sexuality. She has written a new book that brings together in a comprehensive way the three traditional areas of Roman Catholic theology: Bible, doctrine, and ethics. The title of the book with its focuses on justice, christology, and ethics only hints at the thorough and wide-ranging scope of this book. Not simply an effort to relate christology to justice in the world, Global Justice takes on nearly all the major doctrines of Christian theology, arguing convincingly that “just action is necessarily a criterion of authentic Christian theology.”
The book is organized into eight chapters. The first, “The Politics of Salvation,” makes a case for the interdependence of theology and ethics. In doing so, Cahill draws on American pragmatism and argues for Christian theology’s rootedness in the political and practical, tying in as well with her revised natural law approach. And while she does not refer to the ongoing tensions between Catholic bishops and theologians that have been heightened in recent years, the first chapter and the seven that follow argue consistently for the necessary place of creative theological work that is explicitly related to its social and political context. The following seven chapters, titled (very simply) “Creation and Evil,” “Kingdom of God,” “Christ,” “Spirit,” “Cross,” “Nature,” and “Hope,” develop the implications of this interdependence. Many of the chapters also relate the theoretical issues to concrete examples.
Chapter 2, “Creation and Evil,” focuses on “humanly caused evil,” noting that “competition, violence, destruction are part of the human condition” (37). Cahill’s is a complex discussion that focuses on how broken relationships are at the heart of human sinfulness (a familiar feminist theme) while she also maintains that “seeking undue control . . . without humility” (61) and without proper consideration of the other (a more traditional Christian emphasis) is constitutive of sin as well. This chapter concludes with analyses of the ambiguous narratives of Hagar and Job, both of which, she notes, leave the reader without full closure but maintain the focus on the brokenness of human relationship with God, others, and the natural world (the latter more fully developed in the chapter on nature).
The next four chapters are explicitly christological. Chapter 3, “Kingdom of God,” argues for the significance of Jesus’ mission as giving “content” to salvation, that his understanding of salvation was “corporate and political,” and that the Kingdom was to be “effective in transforming social and political life” (77; emphases in the original). Cahill’s familiarity with New Testament scholarship is in evidence throughout the chapter, although an expert in the field could evaluate her work in this area better than this reviewer. In the “Christ” chapter, she distinguishes between “Spirit” and “Word” christologies, noting the theological pluralism of this doctrine. In the “Cross” chapter, she takes on the thorny issue of the contemporary relevance of the atonement, arguing that any theology of the cross needs to be linked with both incarnation and resurrection. In chapter 7, she develops an argument for a revised natural law, rooted in Thomism but attentive to current issues unforeseen in the 13th century. Her brief concluding chapter, “Hope,” reflects on peacebuilding, with an illustration from civil strife in Liberia, where she comments that “Christians must bring about the impossible, albeit partially” (292).
This is a masterful text that shows how the integration of fields often fragmented from each other can result in a creative synthesis of Christian theology. Edward Schillebeeckx’s multi-volume christology comes to mind as one older example of the integration of biblical, theological, and ethical scholarship. While this is clearly a work of Christian theology, I did wish for somewhat greater attention to the challenges that the global context poses to the exclusivity and superiority of Christian claims in relation to other traditions. While there is some discussion of the implications of Dominus Iesus, I wondered about Cahill’s thoughts on the efforts at contextualizing christology that one finds in Asian and African theologies.
Meant for a well-informed readership, this book will generate lively discussion not only about christology and justice, but also about the relationships among biblical studies, theology, and ethics. It will also, I hope, encourage scholars to venture outside their own specialized areas and move towards the integration of these fields so masterfully accomplished in this book, which I hope will be accessible soon in paperback and at an affordable price.