These two books deal with suffering and redemption. One shows us how, with God’s help, we can do something about the pain, anguish, and loneliness among refugees and immigrants; the other theologizes about both suffering and redemption.  Both may be read as primers in respect to their main objectives: How to respond with God’s love for us by loving some of the millions refugees; How to think about  “… the loss and suffering that is such an intrinsic part of an evolutionary view of the world.” (p. xvi)

Annan’s You Welcomed Me provides us with seven short chapters and a list of organizations and resources to help us deal with refugees and immigrants. Each chapter begins with a short story followed by data and reflections pertinent to the topic; followed by practical steps to put it into practice. The first chapter deals with the current division between those for and against accepting refugees into North America. It  shows us how to see ourselves in the lives of refugees. Chapter two provides us with two scales for judging our reaction to refugees and immigrants: the famous 1961 Milgram study of obedience to authority figures and the Good Samaritan Scale. Chapter three describes the actual challenges of bringing refugees into our community and ways to reduce the conflicts that arise when we do. The next chapter urges us to learn how to listen to the stories of others as well as our self. Annan reflects on the need to hear and engage in these stories to help reduce the fear and hate that sometimes possesses us in the face of the unfamiliar. Chapter five, once again, emphasizes the necessary practical, everyday things we have to do in dealing with the suffering of the refugee: how to partner for change, how to evaluate one’s talents for such an endeavor, and what to do right now to encourage our community to accept refugees . Six deals with how to work with others to achieve what is practical within our community. Something done is always better than nothing done. The final chapter details a life lived in sharing God’s love of us with others. This is an excellent book: easy to read, engaging in its story telling, realistic in its expectations, and offers topics for sharing with others. Get one for yourself and maybe you can use it with those you work with for making this world a better place.

Deep Incarnation is the book version of Edwards’ Duffy Lectures in Global Christianity at Boston College.  Its intent is to help understand that the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ has significance for the whole universe not just humanity (10). It argues that, for the most part, older theologies focused on humanity alone when theologizing about creation, incarnation, and resurrection. A theology of “deep incarnation” is necessary in the light of the truths of evolution, the challenge of ecological diversity, and “… the pain, extinction, and death that are part of evolutionary emergence” (1). It elaborates on this theology by reviewing authors Edwards believes are in tune with deep incarnation and then summarizing them in his own theology.

A short history of recent theologians at work developing “Deep Incarnation” is provided in chapter one. Seven of these are reviewed: Niels Gregerson, Elizabeth Johnson, Celia Deane-Drummon, Christopher Southgate, and Richard Bauckham. Chapters two, three, and four deal with Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Karl Rahner. Each of these chapters deal with the author’s view of incarnation in the light of the main principles of deep incarnation, then both the differences between the author and deep incarnation and, finally, insightful connections between the author’s theology and that of deep incarnation.  In the final chapter, five, Edwards treats us to a more detailed view of his understanding of the theology of deep incarnation. The title of the chapter, The Cross: Sacrament of God’s Redemptive Suffering with Creatures.

It seems to me that this is a theology in search of an appropriate metaphor for a world of continual pain and suffering. As one who has written and taught courses dealing with suffering I kept remembering similar past searches for example,  Gerald O. Collins’  book Revelation (2016) or his entry on redemption in the Encyclopedia of Catholicism  (1995). Books in the Catholicity in an Evolving Universe engage the themes of evolution and ecology more extensively as well as those with a Process Theology base. At the same time, a theology that does not confront pain and suffering has lost touch with reality. This book does offer a serious effort to confront this reality and should be praised for it.