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Book Review: Faith's Freedom: A Classic Spirituality for Contemporary Christians

World diet regiments ("belt-tightening") to obscure the reality of their brutal loan repayment terms. He takes Pope John Paul II to task for his aggressive affirmation of Humanae vitae, and he points to the passivity of the Aquino government in its failure to address the problem of deforestation. Section 2 selects material from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and Christian traditions to fashion a theology that might serve as a foundation for the responsible stewardship of nature. Although I believe M. is on the right track here, I would criticize this theological section for not going far enough. M. affirms the traditional image of God as Lord, and yet such an image presents us with an idea of a hierarchical universe that legitimizes certain forms of domination. Wouldn't Sallie McFague's depiction of God as mother, lover, and friend in Models of God send us further along the road toward a democracy of being in which humans, the natural world, and the divine might all escape the fate of being only means rather than ends? Among the many strengths of this book, the most important is probably the careful forging of links between the traditional themes of liberation theology and the concerns of environmentalists. E.g., M. shows how the terms of debt repayment set by First World lending institutions not only impoverish humans beings, but impoverish the environment as well. In a circular fashion, economic pressure on people causes environmental degradation that further pauperizes them. We see this when Third-World farmers, driven to desperation by conditions related to national debt, resort to slash-and-burn techniques that decimate the rainforests. This temporarily provides plots of land to farm, but the topsoil quickly wears away, leaving natives with neither the farmland nor the food, medicine, or firewood that the forests traditionally provided. M.'s linking of the demands of social justice and environmental integrity is particularly important, given the argument that environmentalists are First-World elitists more interested in pleasing scenery than in the well-being of the poor. M.'s accomplishment is to show that justice for the poor won't be possible without a deep and long-term commitment to the healing of nature.