Theology for a Nomad Church by Hugo Assmann (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 447 Theology for a Nomad Church. By Huao AssMANN. Trans. Paul Bums. Maryknoll: 1976. Assmann begins by calling the reader to a deeper understanding of the political dimensions of the Christian faith and to the task of developing a political theology. The call for a political theology, however, is subject to all sorts of misunderstandings. It could be interpreted as a call to return to the theocratic society of the middle ages-a society of a Constantinian or Byzantine sort. It could also be interpreted as a call to develop a 'leftwing Constantinianism," as Assmann calls it (p. 100). According to such a political philosophy, the Church would simply switch its loyalties from right to left, but would once again exert the same sort of heteronomous authority which she exercised in the middle ages. Assmann is not interested in this type of political theology or in the restoration of " Christendom," to which it leads. In that respect, in spite of his severe criticism of the theology of the secular (p. 57) , he nevertheless affirms the attempt of the theologians of the secular to redefine the relationship between the Church and the world. In an attempt to clarify his understanding of political theology, Assmann refers to the " new European political theology " of Metz and Moltmann. He is in essential agreement with several of the main theses of this new theology, particularly Metz's attempt to break free of the privatized understanding of Christian faith, his quest to recover the "dangerous memory, the subversive contents ... in the Christian message" (p. 81), and his understanding of the Church as an institution of social criticism. Assmann also utilizes Moltmann in later sections as he continues to develop his understanding of political theology. He is particularly appreciative of Moltmann's distinction between religions of promise, with their focus on the future, and epiphany religions, which are essentially the pagan religions so severely attacked in the Biblical writings and which function to legitimate the status quo. Assmann begins the development of his own political theology where Moltmann and Metz end theirs. Although he sees their work as a positive contribution which moves theology away from identification with the status quo, he is critical of both theologians at several points. He accuses Metz of retrenchment in the face of the attacks by reactionary theologians. Metz's distinction between political theology (theory) and political ethics (practice) comes in for particularly heavy criticism by Assmann who sees it as a retrenchment with regard to his position on the relationship of theory and practice. He also criticizes European political theology for its failure to relate itself to any systematic social analysis and for its fear of any and all ideological commitments. Although he himself is aware of the excesses to which an ideological approach can lead, Assmann believes 448 BOOK REVIEWS that ideological insights, properly used, can serve a positive function (p. 93) . He is of the opinion that the Europeans' avoidance of sociological analyses and their excessive fear of ideology have resulted in sociological vagueness on the one hand and an inability to name the agents of oppression on the other. This vagueness and this inability in turn have done much to weaken the revolutionary impact of their writings and thus to diminish their practical relevance. Expanding on the efforts of Moltmann and Metz, Assmann continues his own attempt to develop a Latin American political theology. He first addresses himself to the problem of a redefinition of the terms " politics " and " political." These words, according to Assmann, must be understood in such a way as to enclose within their meaning both those acts which are ordinarily thought of as private and those which are understood as public or political in the strict sense. Assmann is concerned to point out that in this new and broader definition of politics, the intention is not to repress or deny the importance of intimacy or of personal and interpersonal relalations in human existence or even to lessen the intensity with which this dimension of life is experienced. Rather the intention is to call attention to the fact that all so-called personal relationships also have a political side. As an example...