The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins That Sabotage Divine Love by Matthew Levering (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 161 The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins That Sabotage Divine Love. By MATTHEW LEVERING. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011. Pp. x + 219. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-60258-356-6. Matthew Levering has written a unique and engaging book which is creative in its treatment of sins against the theological virtue of charity. The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins That Sabotage Divine Love evidences Levering’s intellectual acumen, as he brings Thomas Aquinas into conversation with current scholarship and current issues. In the process of doing so, Levering shows himself, not only to be a thoroughly competent Thomist, but also to be conversant with a significant amount of current scholarship. Levering’s own scholarship is meticulous, and the number and variety of works he cites also evidence a wide-ranging approach to the subject matter. In the introduction, Levering states that the purpose of his book is “to reclaim the centrality of love for moral theology and indeed for all areas of theology” (2). To do so, Levering attends especially to St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of charity, in which Aquinas not only examines the effects of charity but also gives attention to charity’s opposites: hatred, sloth, envy, discord, contention, schism, war, strife, sedition, and scandal (ibid.). Levering notes that the sins against charity have not received much attention, even in studies of charity (10), but he claims that “nonetheless, each of them has a prominent role within specific contemporary discussions” (2-3). He then lists the contemporary discussions that he examines throughout the book: As we will see, hatred comes up in recent critiques of monotheism by such scholars as Regina Schwartz, Laurel Schneider [chap. 1], and Harold Bloom [chap. 2]; the problems associated with sloth are raised by Timothy Jackson’s effort to dissociate Christian charity from belief in life after death [chap. 3]; envy plays a major role in American understandings of self-reliance, informed by Ralph Waldo Emerson [chap. 4]; ecclesial discord and contention form the subplot of John O’Malley’s presentation of the Second Vatican Council ’s breakthroughs [chap. 5]; Walter Brueggemann and others critique liturgical hierarchy as a masked power play that foments schism [chap. 6]; the theology of John Howard Yoder aims to help Christianity embody an alternative to war, strife, and sedition [chap. 7]; and René Girard’s theology of the cross hinges on his interpretation of scandal [chap. 8]. (3) Levering acknowledges that these discussions “are widely separated, so that their leading figures rarely interact with each other” (ibid.), but he sees a unifying thread in all of them, claiming that “controversy over the nature of charity (and thus of the sins against charity) drives the discussions” (ibid.). It is here that Levering evidences a creative approach 162 BOOK REVIEWS to bringing compartmentalized discussions into dialogue with a common theme that is central to Christian theology. In his introduction, before delving into any of the contemporary discussions that he relates to charity, Levering provides a fine overview of Aquinas’s theology of charity. He stresses that “as a participation in the divine love, charity enlarges our hearts and enables us always to increase in charity during this life, but charity also can be lost” (7). Included in this synopsis is an excellent explanation of how Aquinas delineates sins against charity according to whether they oppose the interior or the exterior effects of charity (9). Levering also explains the benefits of studying sins against charity (10-12). However, the final section of the introduction, dealing with “The Spiritual Soul and the Sins against Charity,” which addresses whether persons suffering severe neurological damage can sin against charity, while making some important points, seems somewhat disconnected from the rest of the introduction. Throughout the eight main chapters of the book, Levering enters into specific contemporary discussions that he sees relating to charity, using Aquinas as his main reference point. While this approach is effective, it would strengthen the text to refer also at times to officially defined Catholic teaching, at least to prevent the perception that Aquinas is to be equated with the definitive word in Catholic theology. In the first chapter, “Is Charity Violent?” Levering responds to...