Book Reviews
Craftsman, by Richard Sennett
Title: The Craftsman Author: Richard Sennett Publisher: New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008 Reviewer: Josh Sweeden, Ph.D. student in Practical Theology Primarily through a historical lens—though never neglecting philosophy, theology, economics, and politics—Richard Sennett explores the implications of craftsmanship, “an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake” (9). Sennett finds this to be an Enlightenment belief, “that everyone possesses the ability to do good work of some kind” and “that there is an intelligent craftsman in most of us” (11). He states his two main theses in the prologue, both of which, I believe, are... More
Church, World, and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology, by Nicholas Healy
Title: Church, World, and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology Author: Nicholas Healy Publisher: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Reviewer: Nell Becker Sweeden, Ph.D. student in Practical Theology In Church, World, and the Christian Life, Nicholas Healey offers a practical-prophetic ecclesiology that engages a theodramatic approach in actively addressing the concrete, everyday reality of the church within the world. Healey specifically challenges a modern blueprint or epic ecclesiological approach because it offers a reductively abstract and theoretical view of the church (38). Acknowledging the work of Avery Dulles, Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, John Zizioulas, Jean-Marie Tillard etc. in understanding the church as Body of Christ, More
Chasing the Wild Goose: The Story of the Iona Community, by Ronald Ferguson
Title: Chasing the Wild Goose: The Story of the Iona Community Author: Ronald Ferguson Publisher: Glasgow, UK: Wild Goose Publications, 1998. Reviewer: Josh Sweeden, Ph.D. student in Practical Theology Ronald Ferguson, leader of the Iona Community from 1982 to 1989, presents the Iona Community’s story through the image of the wild goose (the Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit). The Iona Community has a long history, beginning with Columba who left Ireland for Scotland and was content to come ashore at Iona where “Ireland could not be seen.” Columba established the first community on the island and its Celtic spirituality was only invigorated over... More
Catholic Worker after Dorothy, by Dan McKanan
Title: The Catholic Worker after Dorothy: Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation Author: Dan McKanan Publisher: Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008 Reviewed by: Josh Sweeden, Ph.D. Student in Practical Theology This text serves as the culmination of Dan McKanan’s eight years of research on The Catholic Worker Movement and its communities. In the Acknowledgments McKanan states that the basis for this text was to make use of material previously developed for Touching the World, his book published in 2007 on Christian communities and transformation (225). Readers might expect this text, therefore, to seem contrived and dispassionate, as if what is being... More
Caminemos con Jesus, by Roberto S. Goizueta
Title: Caminemos con Jesus: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment Author: Roberto S. Goizueta Publisher: Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003 Reviewer: Nell Becker Sweeden, Ph.D. student in Practical Theology In Caminemos con Jesús, Roberto Goizueta offers the U.S. Hispanic popular Catholicism as a lens through which to engage theological aesthetics, anthropology, and rationality. Goizueta works toward a theological and cultural pluralism founded in a preferential option for the faith of the poor through the process of acompañamiento. Central to his exploration is U.S. Hispanic popular Catholicism as a particular socio-historical context through which Catholic Latinos and Latinas do their theology. This theology is set... More
After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre
Title: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theology, 2nd Edition Author: Alasdair MacIntyre Publisher: Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984 Reviewer: Nell Becker Sweeden, Ph.D. student in Practical Theology In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre takes to the task of exposing modern liberal societies, born out of Enlightenment individualism, as morally vacuous. Their moral lack arises as a result of a society’s denial or neglect of its own narrative history and the impetus to fragment persons from their historical narrative and community for the perpetuation of the individualist modern myth. MacIntyre looks to the Aristotelian virtue tradition as one in which virtue remains encompassed... More