at the limits of the secular review (rsr)

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Ethics

AT THE LIMITS OF THE SECULAR: REFLECTIONS

ON FAITH AND PUBLIC LIFE. Edited by William A.

Barbieri Jr. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publish-ing Company, 2014. Pp. x + 375. $35.00.

This collection of essays is the product of The SecularityProject under the auspices of the Catholic University of America. It is a distinctly Catholic look at the prospectiverole of religion in our post-secular time, and includes chap-ters from luminaries like P. Casarella, W. Cavanaugh, P.Rossi, S.J., and D. Tracy. The book is organized by twelveheuristic keywords, such as “agency,” “community,” “imagi-nation,” and “tradition,” with an essay devoted to each. Itstarts with C. Taylor’s The Secular Age (2007), and proceedsto identify “breaches” or “openings” in “the immanentframe”: the “conditions of belief” as conceived by the modernsocial imaginary. These “openings” exist as emergent possi-bilities within the present triangulation of faith, secularity,and public life. The primary argument is that if we want tounderstand how religion should function “at the limit of thesecular,” that is, to enrich and contribute to public life, wemust question both secularity and religion. Post-secularityaffords us the chance to rethink and reshape faith in publiclife to make both more open to each other: “to make belief more believable.” The essays are broad, diverse, well edited,and clear. They are not always novel, but add to the growingbody of interdisciplinary work on the seismic shifts in reli-gion and secularity. This book will be instrumental in clari-fying the role of faith in this post-secular world and is anindispensable guide to what is at stake, both theologicallyand politically, in that risky endeavor.

Silas Morgan

Loyola University, Chicago

POWER, SERVICE, HUMILITY: A NEW TESTA-

MENT ETHIC. By Reinhard Feldmeier. Waco: Baylor Uni-

versity Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 155. Paper, $19.95.In this book, NT Scholar Reinhard Feldmeier reflects

upon the exercise and purpose of power in the NT, which hesituates within the ancient perception that being divineessentially means having power to do as one pleases.Feldmeier holds that the NT, in line with the OT, countersthis view, and he contends that two conflicting forms of power are at play in the NT: 1) the tempting power of thedevil, which “violently subjects [others] to one’s own will”;

and 2) the power of God, which “understands existence ascoexistence and hence acts not against the other but for himand with him.” The latter form of power manifests itself inhumility and service before God and others, and Feldmeierargues that service and humility are not renunciations of power but rather a received form of power via union withGod that is key to the Christian way of life. Though thebroader world sees power as a means of status and oftenoppression, Jesus and his followers view power as a means of

service and endurance in the face of oppression. This bookoffers many generative thoughts, including in response tothe ways “humility” as a virtue has been abused, but the textmoves swiftly and provides more of an insightful commen-tary on the topic than a fully fleshed out ethic. It would bewell suited to a collegiate or graduate level scriptural study

of power or biblical ethics. Nelson M.E.B. Reveley

University of Virginia

THE ETHICAL VISION OF THE BIBLE: LEARNING

GOOD FROM KNOWING GOD. By Peter W. Gosnell.Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014. Pp. 410. Paperback,$30.00.

Gosnell examines selected sections of the Bible as theyrelate to ethics, as opposed to morality. For Gosnell, moralityis the basic ability to know the difference between right andwrong, whereas ethics involves knowing why somethingmay be good or bad. While noting that the Bible does notfocus on ethics, he stresses that ethics stems from its writ-ings. Given the Bible’s size, Gosnell wisely chooses only aportion to analyze, concentrating on Torah, Proverbs, andProphets from the OT, and Matthew, Luke, and Paul from theNT. He extracts manageable segments of the different bookswhich he meticulously scrutinizes illustrating how they ulti-mately impact Christian ethics, as well as how they relate toeach other. The focus naturally remains with ethics, butGosnell does a very good job of summarizing the key pointsas they apply to his theme, showing the highlights and theirmessages for the ethical Christian. The result gives thereader a taste of biblical ethics, which places it well for theintended use. Gosnell has written this book as an introduc-tory college textbook, including numerous biblical citationsas well as questions at the end of each chapter. His level of writing suits the audience, bringing concepts into a nicelyframed, college textbook format.

Paul Mueller

Duquesne University

FEMINIST CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL ETHICS:

CONVERSATIONS IN THE WORLD CHURCH. Edited

by Linda Hogan and Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orabator. Catho-lic Theological Ethics in the World Church. Maryknoll, NY:Orbis Books, 2014. Pp. xi + 300. $42.00.

The second of six planned edited volumes of theCatholic

Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC) network’seponymous series, this collection of twenty-three essays isan outgrowth of CTEWC’s mission “to appreciate the chal-lenge of pluralism; to dialogue from and with local culture;and to interconnect with a world church not dominatedby a northern paradigm.” The book succeeds in its aim todemonstrate when approached “as a discourse, process,methodology, or movement, feminism is globally variegated,contextually multilayered, and methodologically polyglot.”

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Expressly avoiding gender reductionism, this volume is aconversation that highlights diverse feminist theologicalcontributions that address globalized, universal concernsthrough local, contextualized perspectives. Female and malescholars from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, India,Latin America, and North America draw from their own

wells to highlight the fluid and dialectical nature of feministdiscourse using real cases and concrete issues. Such treat-ment includes analysis of sustainability of the church’ssupport of antiretroviral treatment in South Africa, exami-nation of gender-based violence and dowry and social-structural sin in India, critique of the all-male enclave of church hierarchy’s notification of Catholic feminist theolo-gians, and the argument for an “ethics of church participa-tion” where spirituality is adequately challenged by justice.This excellent resource is of clear interest to ethicists,ecclesiologists, and feminist scholars and is suitable for usein graduate and advanced undergraduate classrooms.

Christine E. McCarthy

Fordham University

FLOURISHING: HEALTH, DISEASE, AND BIOETH-

ICS IN THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE. By Neil

Messer. Grand Rapids, MI: William. B. Eerdmans PublishingCompany, 2013. Pp. vii + 238. $35.00.

Neil Messer surveys theological perspectives on health,disease, and disability in this text, giving prominence totwentieth-century Protestant theologian K. Barth and to theteleological vision of Aquinas, highlighting the Dominican’s view that human life is a proximate good, not a final one.Messer uses an interpretive framework called “BarthianThomism” to parse common terms in bioethics and health-care discourse, words like “health” and “flourishing” that

sound noble, but nevertheless call for critical appraisal andintentional use. Notably, he disputes the concept of well-being as it is used by the World Health Organization, and hetakes issue with the Hebrew term shalom or “wholeness,”fearing that such definitions of health restrict the concept tocreaturely human existence, rather than expanding theconceptto include the divine. Instead, Messer prefers Barth’smuscular definitionof healthas “strength forhumanlife” anddraws on Barth’s ethics of creation to promote a theologicalinterpretation of health as freedom within limits. Hisapproach to Barth borders on hagiographic, and it remainsunclear howBarth’s focus on freedom offersa model of healththat supersedesthe globalrelevance of the capabilities modeldeveloped by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum or the

WHO’s multivalent understanding of health as having social,political, economic, and personal dimensions. Overall, Mess-er’s framework contributes to bioethics literature throughhisrecognition of an aspect of human life that secular modelscuriously ignore: humans are religious creatures and oftenuse religious categories to interpret the meaning of disease,disability, healing, and health.

Tara Flanagan

Loyola University Chicago

DEATH BEFORE THE FALL: BIBLICAL LITERAL-

ISM AND THE PROBLEM OF ANIMAL SUFFERING.

By Ronald E. Osborn. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,2014. Pp. 195. Paper, $25.00.

Ronald Osborn focuses in this volume on the issue of theodicy from the perspective of animal predation. Headdresses the issue of how we can interpret the biblicalcreation story that still permits us to have a benevolent God.A bit polemical at times, he is primarily speaking to biblicalliteralists whose literal interpretation of the Bible leaves uswith a malevolent God who punishes theanimal kingdom forthe sin of humans. His Christian religious perspective takesseriously the primacy of Scripture, the theory of evolution,as well as philosophical and theological insights in light of which Scripture needs to be interpreted. He does not providepossible solutions to the problem of animal suffering anddeath, but he does state at the outset that this is not hispurpose. Rather, he has provided a scholarly, well-researched text which offers a compelling case for a different

understanding of theodicy with regard to animals, and whichstill maintains the primacy of Scripture but without prob-lematic theological conclusions. This text would be of par-ticular interest to conservative Christians (including a in aclassroom setting) concerned about animal suffering anddeath who are willing to move beyond literal interpretationsof the creation story.

Donna Yarri

Alvernia University

FAITH IN THE FACE OF EMPIRE: THE BIBLE

THROUGH PALESTINIAN EYES. By Mitri Raheb.

Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014. Pp. vii + 149. $24.00.

Palestinian Christian and Evangelical Lutheran Raheboffers a striking and personal perspective on the tenuoussituation in present-day Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the WestBank. Introducing Israel as an occupying force similar to theancient powers of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, andRomans and the latter Byzantines, Crusaders, Ayyubides,Ottomans, and British, Raheb identifies the struggles genera-tions of Palestinians have endured. In the first six chapters,the author establishes the geo-political situation of Israel: themilitary development since 1967, the dispute over naturalresources and control, the absence of freedom for a largemajority of the Palestinian population, etc. Portraying theIsraeli government as an occupying force over that of the(native) Palestinians permits Raheb to thenexplore the scrip-

tural similarities associated with both sides of the dispute.For example, the 1967 war of outsiders claiming the land astheir own has been portrayed as David (Israel) versus Goliath(the native inhabitants), a myth that would follow the 1948establishment of Israel as a state. Likewise, Raheb portraysthe suffering Palestinians to the peasants and the marginal-ized with which Jesus worked throughout his ministry. Bothportrayals offer the reader an insight into the tenuous situa-tion in which the Palestinians find themselves, with little

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room to identify publicly as other than terrorist, a term Rahebsuggests is used incorrectly. Though missed by many mediaoutlets and politicians, Raheb explores the Palestinian situa-tion through the lens of their own suffering by recoveringScripture in the context in which it originated: among thesuffering people in an empire for which they did not ask for.

Michael J. McGravey Duquesne University

Religion in Culture

THE DEVIL LIKES TO SING: A NOVEL. Fiction. By

Thomas J. Davis. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014. Pp. 138.Paper, $18.00.

Dramatic deals with the devil are not uncommon in thehistory of the arts. Consider the Faust legend or R. Johnson’scrossroad myth. Yet they are seldom as uproariously funnyas Davis’s novella, which focuses on Chicagoan T. McFar-

land, an unsuccessful theologian turned chart-topping gift-book writer. T. McFarland’s work has sold millions, but heaches to be more than a two-bit scribbler; for him, the task of publishing platitudinous books like 101 Good Things about

Christmas has become grindingly depressing. Then Luciferappears, whistling Wagner and sounding like he has swal-lowed an urban dictionary, and in due course he temptsMcFarland to examine and then writeabout life as though hepossessed a splinter of ice in his heart. He guarantees T.McFarland writerly prestige. And Lucifer makes good on hisfiendish promise. Top-tier magazines rush to publish McFar-land’s compellingly taciturn stories. Candid conversationconcerning his serious writing appears in laudable literaryreviews. The adulation comes at a cost, though, because T.

McFarland eventually wonders if “the cool detachment of thedevil’s kind of writer” compromises his sense of “real humandecency.” There are some shrewd discussions about theol-ogy and vocation within this rewarding story, which comesfrom the pen of the Associate Dean for Academic Programsand Professor of Religious Studies at the Indiana School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University—Purdue University India-napolis. The Devil Likes to Sing: A Novel is warmly recom-mended for all readers, especially those in Adult ReligiousEducation groups, book clubs, and folk in seminary or divin-ity school.

Darren J. N. Middleton

Texas Christian University

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE. Film. Directed by Jean-

Luc Godard. Wild Bunch S.A., 2014.“AH DIEUX.” These words, at once cry and sigh, momen-

tarily fill the screen of Godard’s Goodbye to Language, where“God” and “gods”—uncertain signifiers of a questionablereality—are evoked and denied, called upon and rebuked,affirmed, and questioned. In fact, the movie suggests a rela-tion between divinity and language that moves between the

analogical and the ontological, as indicated in the originalFrench title, Adieu au Langage (“à dieu au langage”). Onefinds here Godard’s hallmark editing style, unconventionalcamera shots and mise-en-scènes, jarringly juxtaposedimages (war machines, forests, naked breasts, splashingblood, a shitting man), and voice overs consisting of textual

fragments from multiple, often conflicting, sources (Freud,Artaud, Cocteau. . .). One also finds Godard pushing forwardwith innovative methods of image making. Most notably, heexploits the possibilities afforded by the two cameras used tofilm in 3D, mixing color palettes and creating overlappingimages that separate and resolve. The results are at oncealluring and challenging, both visually and conceptually.Scholars of religion operating within the “third wave” of filmstudies will thus want to attend to the interplay of thesensual and the cerebral aspects of the movie. Ethicists,philosophers of religion, and students of religion and filmwill find that enduring concerns about sex and death, eter-nity and nothingness, dream and reality, and nature andtechnology underlie Godard’s wider engagements with

ethics, politics, philosophy, religion, and art. Godard’suse of philosophical and other texts invites but finallyrebuffs attempts to translate the movie into propositionalstatements—attempts to articulate a stance or to make themovie “mean.” Goodbye to Language is therefore a difficult,agitating movie, one that will try the patience of those who value orderly narratives, and that will be written off aspretentious tripe by those not willing to dwell with its ulti-mately unresolvable ethical, religious, and aesthetic ambi-guities. But surely the cacophonous images and sounds addup to more than the sum of their fragmented parts—anextra-linguistic surplus of poetic “meaning” emerging from afilm dramatizing a crisis of meaning. Whether a cogent, oreven coherent, ethics or politics lies behind, or can bederived from, the film is, in this sense, beside the point. Likesome of its ingenious 3D shots, meaning fragments andresolves, only to fragment again, painfully and poetically.This is a movie with which one shall not come to terms.

Jeremy Biles

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

ANNABELLE. Film. Directed by John R. Leonetti. NewLine Cinema, 2014.

Annabelle is the prequel to the 2013 horror hit The Con-

juring , which was based on the case files of Ed and LorraineWarren, a real-life pair of Catholic lay exorcists and

demonologists active in America in the 1970s and 1980s.The title refers to a demon-possessed doll that the Warrenskept on display in their private “occult museum” and whichplays a small role in the earlier film. Set in 1969 against thebackdrop of the Manson murders, the film begins with ayoung pregnant woman named Mia and her husband Johnbeing attacked by three Manson-like Satanic cultists whosomehow summon a demonic force into one of the youngwoman’s dolls before the police arrive and kill them. For the

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