Pontifical Readings
The Legacy of John Paul II: An Evangelical Assessment
edited by Tim Perry
InterVarsity Press, 2007
(327 pages, $25.00, paperback)
reviewed by Graeme Hunter
Tim Perry, an Evangelical theologian who teaches at Providence College in Otterburne, Manitoba, had the fine idea of asking some leading Evangelical thinkers to comment on the encyclicals of the late Pope John Paul II. It was a safe bet for a book.
Each encyclical (thirteen in all), from Redemptor hominis (1979) to Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), is sensitively summarized. Even readers familiar with the encyclicals will learn something from most of the presentations. All are done with care and most reflect real engagement with the material.
Among the authors are the Methodist theologian William Abraham, the historian Mark Noll, the apologist Nancy Pearcey, “open theist” Clark Pinnock, and social activist Ronald Sider. The Southern Baptist theologian Timothy George supplies an epilogue titled “Our Common Teacher.”
Fraternal Engagement
The critical parts, predictably, are less successful. Not that they are harsh. No, they are too half-hearted. Too often the criticisms are merely wooden recitations of Catholic principles to which Protestants—generically conceived—would not assent.
Missing is discerning critical engagement with the thought of John Paul II, motivated by heartfelt Protestant conviction. Noll comes nearest in his criticism of Ecclesia de Eucharistia. There he ably contends that “the great remaining divide between Catholics and evangelicals who share the ‘mere Christianity’ of Nicene faith” lies in their different conceptions of the Church, rather than, for example, in doctrines about Mary or sacraments or Scripture.
The cooperative, fraternal ecumenism of which John Paul II was such a symbol is everywhere evident in this book. The writers are wide open to Catholic thinking.
Commenting on the different responses to the question of technology, for example, Derek Jeffreys writes that “few evangelicals have contemplated its meaning,” whereas “John Paul II was fully aware of technology’s dangers.” Philosophers Michael Beaty and Stephen Evans contrast what they see as the “anti-intellectualism” of Evangelical scholarly life with the “much more robust understanding of faith and reason articulated in Fides et ratio.” Oxford ethicist Andrew Goddard, writing about Veritatis splendor, refers to “the sad fact that moral theology, and particularly methodology in ethics, has not been a great evangelical strength.”
Such remarks (and there are lots of them) are attestations of the authors’ candor, impartiality, and good faith. But they also point to a widespread impatience with denominationalism among Evangelicals, an impatience acutely felt, and part, indeed, of the traditional desire of radical Protestantism to get to the core of Christian faith.
Graeme Hunter is a contributing editor to Touchstone and Research Professor of Philosophy at Dominican University College in Ottawa. He is the author of Radical Protestantism in Spinoza's Thought (Ashgate).
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