378 Ecclesiology Reviews 379 Not Individualist

378 Ecclesiology Reviews 379 not individualist. Rights language can also be conflictual. Barrera bolsters his argument by setting in place an understanding of social justice that depends on David Hollenbach, the Jesuit theologian, as well as his own writings on economic ethics. This approach is consonant with the late John Paul II’s view that business ethics required ‘ethical discernment aimed at protecting the environment and promoting the full human development of millions of men and women, in a way that respects every individual’s dignity and makes room for personal creativity in the workplace’ (address to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association in 2001). However, it would have been helpful if Barrera had addressed the issue of how economic rights function in contemporary moral philosophy, and in particular address the debate about the conflict between political and economic rights. But this is not his intention. Instead he gives us detailed analysis of agri- cultural protection worldwide, perhaps the most impressive part of the book. This is a most illuminating account of how economic reform is interwoven with degrees of protection, and the clashing justifications offered by different economic interests. This book offers a moral defence of a reformed capitalism but it draws on a wide range of disciplines to advance its cause. It is also a deeply practical book. It makes the point on p. 216 that the world’s richest economy has seen a precipitous decline in the textile industry, in a very short period. It is not enough to argue for assistance, or to deny its validity, for what Barrera is concerned with is much more how human beings as a collective safeguard their human capital, preserve their dignity with one another, and adjudicate needs against wants. This book makes a powerful case for the duty of Christians to respond to the continuing imperative of being the agents of divine providence in economic insecurity. It also is a good example of how moral theology can be informed by a cosmology that allows human beings freedom of action as the means by which their moral formation is secured. PETER SEDGWICK Principal, St Michael’s College, Llandaff, Cardiff [email protected] Duncan B. Forrester, Theological Fragments: Explorations in Unsystematic Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2005), x + 201 pp. £19.99. ISBN 0–567–03077–6 (pbk). uncan Forrester has recently retired from the chair of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology in the University of Edinburgh. This book Dgathers together fourteen papers, all previously published from 1981, apart from the introductory chapter. If they embody fragments of his thinking 378 Ecclesiology Reviews 379 over the past twenty-five years, they are fragments in a deeper sense. Forrester shares the modern suspicion of grand narratives, or comprehensive theological systems. This is partly because of the impossibility of drawing the multiple theological insights abroad today into a meaningful synthesis. Contemporary theological diversity is to be seen as fundamentally enriching, if nevertheless challenging for both Church and theology. He is motivated here by a desire to avoid the withdrawal of theology within its own intellectual walls, a mistake he associates especially with Alasdair MacIntyre, but also to a degree with Stanley Hauerwas. He also eschews the prospect of a theological grand narrative because recent historical experience has revealed the potentially oppressive character of self-contained ideological systems. Questions can be asked about this underlying approach. Is it humanly possible to achieve an understanding of reality, human or divine, without relying, however tacitly, upon a complex and reasonably self-consistent narrative which one inhabits? Is language, at least a language with the potential to explore and communicate creatively, not representative of the much deplored grand narrative? There is a danger that having swept the room clear of devilish presences, others quietly take up residence. Life itself certainly has the character of a grand narrative; if this is obviously the case from a scientific perspective, it would seem also to be so from many anthropological or sociological perspectives. This book has the subtitle ‘explorations in unsystematic theology’. There may be a greater, if unacknowledged, underlying systematic framework to Forrester’s theology than he acknowledges. It could also be suggested that the unsystematic fragmentary explorations which are claimed for these essays are only possible because they rely, almost parasitically, upon those who have attempted more joined-up theologies. Be that as it may, certain themes recur in this rather disparate collection of pieces. As part of the suspicion of idealism, Forrester emphasizes the reality of sin, as a limiting factor in all human endeavour. This is tied in with an eschatological emphasis: all may not be entirely well now, and not least on the back of the moral disasters of the twentieth century, but there is a fundamental Christian hope. In an interesting section, he gives qualified support to Frank Field’s critique of the current welfare state in the UK, and his plea that welfare policy should not be based on too naïve a view of human goodness. Forrester argues, with Field, that at this point a theological account of human nature has much to offer in public debate. The aim is to recognize the general priority of self-interest over altruism, but to attempt to satisfy self-interest in a way which is consistent with the public good. Elsewhere there is the usual ritual denunciation of Thatcherism, but there may be more in common between Forrester’s outlook and Margaret Thatcher’s Edinburgh ‘Sermon on the Mound’ than he would readily admit..

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