This is an interesting but ill-focused and ultimately unconvincing book. Anthony Harvey sets out ‘to identify the theological grounds on which church judgements are made on social and economic issues’ (18). In doing this he covers (too) much ground, exposes some churches’ dubious theological analyses but leaves the reader frustrated with the brevity of his explorations and dissatisfied with his final conclusions.
In 163 pages, Harvey deals with ‘alleged sources of authority for Christian comment’, such as the Bible and Natural Law (ch. 1), the theology of work (ch. 3), marriage, sex and the family (ch. 4), human rights (ch. 5), the voluntary sector (ch. 6), social justice and Christian ideas of stewardship (ch. 7), not to mention a significant number of major Church reports (Faith in the City; The Common Good; Laborem Exercens; Unemployment and the Future of Work, etc). In amongst this he also ventures into liberation theology; the history of human rights; changing concepts of humanity; the ideological basis of conservative and socialist thinking; ecology; ecclesiology and the relational nature of reality. Virtually any one of these subjects would merit a book of its own and Harvey’s treatment of each is almost always insufficient.
The book fails to engage seriously with fundamental roots of the debate: the nature of biblical authority and the right approach to hermeneutics. Harvey never asks how far biblical teaching should be regarded as authoritative over our contemporary moral, social and political circumstances, although it soon becomes clear that his preferred answer would be ‘not very’.
He insists instead that ‘churches are entitled to speak only to their own faithful’ (110), that the moral code of the early church ‘was basically the same as the best which existed in the culture in which they lived’ (159) and that if today’s church wishes to proclaim on contemporary issues it must do so:
not by seeking to commend a distinctively Christian or “theological” solution, but … by lending the weight of their own convictions … to an ethical judgement which will command assent from many outside their own membership (114).
There is no sense in which the church can or should be seriously counter-cultural in any of its proclamations.
One of the reasons Harvey can advocate that is a wholly unconvincing faith in a broad, sound moral consensus. He talks of ‘those ideals and values which are generally shared by the citizens of any civilised society’ (129), without any sense that these may be anything less than absolute. He (rightly) says that church reports must ‘be tested against political realities’ (161) but shows little recognition that these ‘realities’ are themselves highly conditional, such as the ‘political reality’ expressed by many respectable figures that the Victorian economy would collapse without child labour. His ultimate advice is that religious people should be constantly alert to ‘erosions of the great moral principles which they share with an often silent majority of their fellow citizens’ (163). There speaks comfortable, 21st century Western man.
In spite of these points, the book has its merits. Harvey rightly questions the church’s over-eager adoption of contemporary categories, such as ‘work’, ‘crime’ or ‘family’, and suggests that the biblical understanding of each is subtly different and often rather more nuanced. He is also very good on showing how Genesis 1–3 has been the victim of more questionable exegesis than any other section of Scripture.
Overall, however, the impression the book left me with was of an inadequate treatment of too many subjects and an author who has greater faith in common decency than Scripture.
