The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Post-Bourgeois World by Johann Baptist Metz (review)

308 BOOK REVIEWS The Emergent Chut·ch: The Future of Christianity in a Post-Bourgeois World. By JOHANN BAPTIST METZ. Translated by Peter Mann. New York: The Crossroads Publishing Company, 1981. Pp. ix + 127. $10.95. The Emergent Church gathers together eight talks given by Metz in recent years. At first glance, the subject-matters are quite diverse: the tensions between messianic and bourgeois religion, Christian and Jewish relations after Auschwitz, the Eucharist as a sign of anthropological revolution , the contemporary significance of the Reformation, the importance of basic communities in the Church, the work of Ernesto Cardenal, the struggle between traditionists and reformers among Roman Catholics. However , Metz himself sees the talks as unfolding one central issue : " the beginnings of a Christianity which frees itself from the captivity of bourgeois religion and precisely thereby manifests its saving and inspiring power at the dawning of the post-bourgeois age." In fact, he overstates this thematic unity, but the thread is generally apparent, to the good fortune of any reviewer who must get a focus on a collection of occasional pieces. The thrust of The Emergent Church is both descriptive and normative. It describes and criticizes the bourgeois religion which Metz takes to be pervasive (although moribund) in first-world Christian churches, and it notes a curative messianic Christianity arising in the third world, above all, in Latin America. An important first question, then, concerns the nature of bourgeois religion. It is religion which supports "the actual valuestructures and goals of the bourgeois way of life (autonomy, prosperity, stability, success)." Within it, the Christian subject becomes transformed into the individual of the Enlightenment pursuing his own salvation and secure in his future. Religious lire is thus a private matter or at best a family matter with little connection to " any comprehensive claim of justice in the world." Authentic messianism, in contrast, looks to a future beyond human control, a future which disrupts individual plans, which gives primacy not to the successful but to the poor and the oppressed. It attacks the dominant patterns of barter and exchange and calls people to discipleship, to the actual practice of "the merely believed-in messianic virtues of conversion, selflessness and unconditional love." Such a discipleship must appear as a betrayal of some of the main values of bourgeois society. The juxtaposition of bourgeois religion and messianic Christianity pervades all the essays of the collection. Metz takes privatism and egoism as key factors in the tragedy of Auschwitz, in the continuing tension of Jewish-Christian relations, in the ecological crisis, in political and religious oppression, in the struggle between rich nations and poor nations, in the BOOK REVIEWS 309 stagnation and escapism of the Churches; and, for him, the only way out of this many-sided predicament is a conversion, not just of hearts but of domestic and political life. The change depends on God, but a particular earthly vehicle for grace is the challenge which third-world Christians are now presenting to the first-world. In their struggle against injustice and oppression, the Christians of Africa and Asia and especially of Latin America force Central Europeans and North Americans to see the connection between their wealth and comfort and the sufferings of others. This conversion would be a second reformation, and it would remove the contradiction from religious life and particularly from the eucharistic celebration of the bread of life. The Latin Americans, for their part, do more than just challenge; they provide models in individuals like Ernesto Cardenal, who risk themselves for peace and justice, and in institutions like the basic communities, where small groups of people can take responsibility for their response to the gospel. A secondary thread running through The Emergent Church is Metz's criticism of contemporary Roman Catholic authorities for their implication in a petty rendering of the Gospel and for their fearfulness in the face of theological diversity and new church forms. Indeed the epilogue is a short piece of self-defense against some voices in the German hierarchy . The censure against which Metz defends himself is that he advocates an easy Christianity, and it is obvious from reading this book and others like Theology of the World...