Book Reviews   185
A further engagement with humans and the ele-
mental, ‘Of Clouds and the Cloud’, is, for me, the
finest chapter. Beginning with the representations
of clouds in art, then moving to man-made clouds,
the mushroom cloud, and the Arpanet (the ancestor
of the Data Cloud), before drawing parallels with
Joyce’s notion of the ‘etym’ and the destructive
potential and realisation of the atom, we are shown
as John Durham Peters describes in The Marvelous
Cloud the necessity of opening ‘the relation of media
to nature’.
‘Pop Eschatology’ boldly starts with the idea that
Richard Hamilton’s art work offers a powerful style
of religious representation, bringing the viewer into
contact with the here-and-now, and the immediate,
and develops this along Latourian and Agambenian
lines claiming that the Independent Group’s ‘bunk
art’ is thoroughly religious.
It’s a natural step, then, to Gere’s chapter on pho-
tography, ‘Photography in the Time that Remains’, in
which he suggests that the photographing of the Turin
Shroud (an image of which somberly adorns the front
cover of Unnatural Theology) and Nietzsche’s dec-
laration of the Death of God to be more than coin-
cidence. Gere goes on to argue that photography is
connected with the advent of a different idea of time
and duration in which rupture rather than continuity
marks the end of onto-theology.
‘Whore Text’, on pornography in culture, invites
the reader to think on being confronted by the ‘other’
and how, in our culture, the female body has become
Plundering Egypt: A Subversive Christian Ethic of Economy. By G.P. Wagenfuhr. Pp. xvi, 258, Cambridge: The
Lutterworth Press, 2016, $33.00.
‘Plundering Egypt,’ Presbyterian minister G.P.
Wagenfuhr writes, ‘is a better image for the task of
the church and Christians than stewardship’ (p. 205).
In passionate, sometimes erudite and sermonic, but
often odd, if not disappointing stances, Wagenfuhr
argues that all economic relations are tainted because
they support ultimately empty metaphysical and
ontological conceptions about humanity, good and
evil, a universal ethic, and most problematically, any
notion of restorative justice. Wagenfuhr never speci-
fies kinds of justice, but he wants the focus to be on
reconciliation (and not redemption). Such reconcilia-
tion is always focused on God, which should always
be the main initiative and thrust of all meaningful
actions and relationships.
Anything related to money is already tainted; at
best a necessary evil—though an evil, he is clear, of
our devising. Showing hints of a lazy (at best) super-
sessionism, Wagenfuhr argues that Christians, unlike
the Jews who plundered Egypt by taking and using
an image of the divine. This is a wide-ranging chapter,
beginning with the medieval concept of the ‘eternal
feminine’, and looking at the work of Lacan, Georges
Bataille’s Madame Edwarda, and Marcel Duchamp’s
Étant Donnes before closing with Derrida’s decon-
struction of the merging of the feminine and truth.
This is a veritable tour de force, one of the shortest
chapters, yet still ably managing to convince.
Gere ends with ‘Conclusion: God in Black and
White’ in which the problem of religious violence is
examined and God is seen as an expression of the
energetic violence of the universe, comparable to a
nuclear explosion, or a blank screen which could be
black or white.
The book is an important contribution to politi-
cal theology, resonating with radical theologies that
challenge the reader, and is thoroughly enjoyable as
well as being thought-provoking. It includes, in addi-
tion to a comprehensive Bibliography and Index, a
Glossary for those coming new to the field.
Each chapter may be read on its own but reading
the book through in one sitting clearly and penetrat-
ingly expresses what Mario Tronti, a Marxist phi-
losopher, said in a recent interview, ‘I am neither
a believer nor a non-believer. I am, so to speak, on
a kind of border, like Simone Weil described it: do
not cross it, but do not turn back. At the same time, I
think that the ‘crooked timber’ of humanity, in order
to survive, needs some form of faith’(13).
The Julian Centre, Norwich Luke Penkett
their material wealth in the Exodus, must instead
subvert any material longing or ownership to ‘use
money to devalue Mammon for others by announc-
ing and living the reconciling love of God in Christ’
(p. 205). While opposed to advocating any golden
mean between the extremes of selling everything
for the poor and spending one’s life simply amass-
ing wealth—as ‘moderation is an economic virtue’
(p. 226), Wagenfuhr disappointingly settles for con-
fusing, if not stale advice: ‘Instead, Christians par-
ticipate to lovingly subvert’ (p. 226). Christians (and
it is only Christians he addresses), can, for example,
‘live in a way that undermines the value of tech-
nology, using it as a means to create interpersonal,
face-to-face, and local relationships, whether it be in
a protest, an office building, a high-power meeting
room, or a homeless shelter’ (p. 227).
On the surface this seems common sense and
sound advice, but collapsing the examples as equal
is only the start of the unhelpful ambiguity. While
186    Book Reviews
predominantly dependent on arguing through biblical
examples (even as he notes that the Bible cannot be a
source for any universal ethic), Wagenfuhr’s extended
talk of Adam and Eve and an Eden (that can never be
recovered) paints a very negative if not cynical view
of our world. There is no link or connection of ‘thy
kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ Our world
is helplessly corrupt and broken—again, all our fault
as evil can only be laid at the feet of humanity, and
in any event, we must transcend notions of good and
evil, which are mired in economic relationships.
He doesn’t want us to be monks, but any actions
in this world should be subversive in showing it is all
false and empty. While careful not to support (explic-
itly) original sin through the eating of any piece of
fruit, Wagenfuhr’s lost world that can never be recov-
ered sadly makes a muddle of this one. Our role is,
it seems, to wait. We cannot liberate; we can do very
little. All is tainted, even nonviolence. While God
has no obligation to us (because this, too is linked
to economics; p. 99), we can continue to subvert the
values of this world. In a very messy example, he
speaks about a homeless man, George, and contends
that the priority is not giving George food, house, or
a job, but helping George fix what no doubt are his
broken relationships—especially and pre-eminently
with God.
Wagenfuhr is right to acknowledge some will find
this a problem of proselytization (p. 212)—it also
seems to presuppose that homelessness is somehow
linked to relationship with God—another example of
the ambiguity, if not confusions of the text. He wants
to argue that we should disengage ourselves from the
economic goals and means of this world, and yet why
presuppose, or give as an illustrative example, of a
homeless person who really needs to be reconciled
toward God? Sadly, there are many homeless people
as I write whose relationship and understanding of
God may make theologians envious, but who still
slept rough last night while I had a roof over my head.
It also presupposes that mere speaking of Christ is
Religion in the Public Square: Sheen, King, Falwell. By James M. Patterson. Pp. viii, 240, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2019, $49.95.
In three fairly concise, but heavily footnoted chap-
ters, Patterson examines Fulton Sheen, Martin
Luther King Jr., and Jerry Falwell in terms of how
their religious beliefs and dogma formed, instructed,
or even lead public opinion on moral (and inevitably
political) issues in the American public square. The
three Christian men represent Catholic and Baptist
(evangelical) believers. In a book with a very gen-
eral title—Religion in the Public Square—limiting
himself to only these three individuals and only
Christianity raises immediate questions.
somehow the panacea, which raises unaddressed, but
uncomfortable questions about the salvific role and
value of other religions in Wagenfuhr’s world—not
to mention the problems of Christian evangeliza-
tion with no social justice imperative or ambiguous
respect for other ways.
Social injustice, which Wagenfuhr repeatedly min-
imizes, can benefit from deep reading in restorative
justice, especially in the work of Daniel Philpott,
among others. Contra Wagenfuhr’s tendency, there
need not be a clash and negative zero sum game
between reconciliation and justice, or a need to
forego justice, using Jesus as an example (p. 165).
The question of Jesus and judgment in the Christian
Scriptures is often contradictory, and promoting a
Jesus who (simply) foregoes justice is not helpful in
a world often unjust.
Wagenfuhr does helpfully clarify that justice needs
reconciliation (p. 223), but even here, I hesitate. The
evil he strongly places only at humanity’s feet is tell-
ing. In short, to expect the individual whose family
has been slaughtered in a genocide to forego justice
or only focus on reconciliation is a very problematic
claim. Wagenfuhr never addresses such cases, but he
should have.
Ultimately, if one wants close readings of eco-
nomic principles and theories by a theologian, I
recommend the work of David Hollenbach. I also
recommend deeper reading of Jewish ethics, espe-
cially towards business and the rabbinic blessing of
the role of work and purpose in this world. On social
ethics, Sabbath economics, and the Jubilee, Ched
Myers is very helpful and challenging—­especially
in his reading of the widow’s contribution to the
Temple Treasury (a passage surprisingly not cov-
ered in a book full of biblical examples). Liberation
theology and the writings of Dorothy Day would
also be essential. None of them are referred to in
Wagenfuhr’s book.
Dublin City University Peter Admirand
In the introduction, Patterson tries to justify his
choice of these three ‘popularizers’ (p. 3). Choosing
Sheen over Monsignor John A. Ryan, Dorothy Day,
John Courtney Murray, or Thomas Merton, he con-
tends that Sheen’s ‘career in apologetics’ was longer
than Ryan, inserted itself deeper in national issues
than Day, and unlike Murray’s more academic and
intellectual legacy, Sheen had a broader and deeper
‘appeal to national audiences’ (p. 17). One could
quibble, but if someone had to only choose one
Catholic individual who contributed widely to the