Book Review: The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology:

The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology. Edited by Craig Hovey and Elizabeth Phillips. Cambridge Companions to Religion Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. xiv + 305 pp. $29.99 (paper).The editors of this volume had the daunting task of bringing order to the chaotic world of political theology. They have succeeded for the most part, and they managed to do so in a fraction of the pages one might expect. The companion focuses on "political theology as a focus of Christian theology" (p. xi) while giving the reader a sense of the concepts long-term history, its twentieth-century emergence as a theological discipline, and many of the perspectives it includes today.The beginning of the volume is especially strong. The editors argue that three streams have significantly influenced the shape of political theology-political theology in Europe, liberative political theologies in Latin America and the United States, and public theology in the United States- and so dedicate the first part of the volume to exploring each one in tum. In clear prose, the rich opening chapter by Jurgen Moltmann describes first the long-term history of the term "political theology" and then the "new political theology" that arose in Germany in response to the atrocities of World War II. As Moltmann and Johann Baptist Metz, both young German soldiers turned postwar theologians, reflected on what the role of the church should have been during the rise of the Nazi regime, they shifted political theology from its historic focus on "the political religion of the power of the state" to theological reflection on the church's role within society (p. 9). Ultimately Moltmann offers this as the definition of political theology he now holds: "a designation for theological reflection on the concrete political practice of Christianity" (p. 14).While one form of political theolog/ was developing in Germany, another version was being articulated in Latin America. Miguel A. De La Torre invites us into the history behind the development of what we now call "liberation theology." He highlights the role of Christian Base Communities in the late 1950s, which sought to turn Christian convictions into liberation from communal and individual sins, and the importance of the economic development conversations spawned by Vatican II, leading to the publication of A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutierrez in 1973. De La Torre describes liberation theology as "a spiritual response to the everyday sociopolitical realities of oppressed people.... More than simply liberation from sin, personal or corporate, salvation is achieved through the consciousnessraising process of learning how oppressive structures prevent the abundant life promised by Christ" (p. 28). De La Torre also examines how different contexts have led to the formation of other versions of liberation theology, from U.S. feminist theologies to black theologies, Hispanic theologies, and Asian American theologies.Hak Joon Lee addresses the third main stream of political theology with a chapter on "public theology," which may be the least well-known stream of the three, at least by name. While at times I wondered if it was given more prominence within the volume than was warranted, the term does usefully capture an array of Catholic and Protestant thinkers who believe that Christianity ought to contribute to the common good of society and who generally advocate for "a constructive public role for religious discourse in a pluralistic society, neither suppressing religious expressions nor dismissing democratic values such as human rights, tolerance, and equality" (p. …