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BOOK REVIEWS

Finally Pattison seeks to translate this theorising into practice with

reflections on the relationship of technology to: ethics (drawing on Habermas's Kantianism), the University (including a fascinating account of the
debate between Fichte and Schleiermacher on the University of Berlin),
and art (where he argues, against Benjamin, that even the most technological arts such as cinema can still possess an c aura'). In all three cases Pattison
makes an important, if rather weak, argument that despite the sense that
dehumanising technology is subjugating these cultural realms, in reality a
certain weak sporadic resistance, or at least 'otherness 5 , remains possible,
and that such otherness is similar to the position of 'thinking about God'
under technology Yet it is here that the extreme theological reticence we
noted earlier causes problems. Ultimately his weak optimism seems like a
survival from the humanism of the secular theologians which continues to
fail to comprehend the nihilism of what it faces and so has no grounds for
the more radical hope that it needs. Given the angst-ridden, existentialist
vision of the human religious condition according to Pattison, evident both
in the postscript's reference to there being no City of God and in the discussion of the Tarkovsky film Nostalgia, from which the cover image of a man
struggling to carry a candle across a wasteland is taken, we might well ask
what are these moments of 'epiphany' which have some 'otherness' to the
world of technology? And why should we even want them at sill?
Diocese of Exeter

John Hughes

Brian J Walsh and Sylvia C Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the

Empire.
Illinois: IVP Press Downers Grove, 2004. Pp.256. 12.99.
The authors, Walsh a chaplain at the University of Toronto, and
Keesmaat, who teaches at the Toronto Institute for Christian studies, have
combined to produce an accessible and challenging volume reading the
message of Colossians in stark antithesis both to the first century Roman
Empire and also to the consumer driven imperialism of contemporary
North America. This political reading of a shorter New Testament letter
gives a good account of the all-pervading ideological claims of Roman
Imperialism and likewise a sharp analysis of contemporary ideologies and
value systems.
The stance adopted by the authors is of an enthusiastic conservative
Christian ethos combined with a liberal social agenda. Paul is presumed to
be the author of the letter and the format adopted leaves no space to discuss

BOOK REVIEWS

69

the differences between this and his other letters, nor the close parallels with
Ephesians. The conversational narrative form in which the contents of
Colossians is direcdy related to contemporary issues has the merit of bringing two widely distanced worlds into immediate conversation, thereby
removing some of the strangeness of the first century whilst setting out the
challenges of the gospel. I applaud the authors' imaginative attempt in this
difficult enterprise.
One of the problems of setting the gospel message within the narrative
of the story of Israel (not unique to this publication) is that this brief
retelling of the story of Israel can easily be distorted so that we are left
simply with a takeover of the identity and heritage of Israel by the Church.
I could see no signs of such an outcome in this volume. I did question,
however, whether the myth that Israel was in exile until New Testament
times was not suggested by the statement 'Under that shadow Israel longed
for a true return from exile . . .' ( the shadow referred to was the experience
of empire) (p.69). I am always suspicious when scholars supposedly writing
about historical events have to enlist the aid of adjectives such as 'true'.
'Post-exilic' is still a valid term in Old Testament study in the works of leading scholars such as Rolf Rendtorf or Walter Bruggeman (who is listed as
having read some of the early drafts of parts of this book).
Although I recognise the merits of this creative writing and its conscious
attempt to promote the Christian message, I am still somewhat uneasy
about the rapid transition from exegesis to contemporary ethics that the
adopted format entails. As to readership, I hope it will reach the muddled
and those not yet committed to faith, but I suspect it will serve more towards
confirming in faith those already on the way. Personally, I wonder how such
an approach would apply to a longer letter such as, for example, I Corinthians.
University of Wales, Lampeter

William S. Campbell

Thomas P. Rausch, Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Eccksiology for the Third
Millennium.
Collegeville, Minnesota: Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 235.
$24.95.
In this book, Rausch offers the reader an ecclesiology developed from
his own perspective (an American Jesuit and Professor of Catholic Theology) heavily influenced by the voices of other academics, from Orthodox,
Protestant and Evangelical traditions.

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