Luke BRETHERTON, Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. pp. 522. $35 pb. ISBN 9780802881793. Reviewed by Alessandro ROVATI, Belmont Abbey College, Belmont, NC 28012.

Luke Bretherton wrote Christ and the Common Life to examine “different theological ways of answering questions about how to respond to poverty and injustice, how to form a common life with strangers and enemies, and how to handle and distribute power constructively.” (2) The book masterfully accomplishes such tasks by weaving together theology, political theory, philosophy, scriptural exegesis, and analysis of current political phenomena. In doing so, Bretherton guides the reader into a sustained and profound dialogue with different voices from across history, traditions, and perspectives - from pivotal figures in Western theological tradition like Augustine and Aquinas to underrepresented yet essential contemporary voices like womanist and mujerista theologians.

Overall, Christ and the Common Life serves multiple purposes at all once. First, it is an insightful introduction to some of the most influential perspectives in contemporary political theology: humanitarianism, Black Power, Pentecostalism, Catholic social teaching, and Anglicanism. Second, it defines and thinks carefully about foundational political concepts Christians need to understand to contribute to their societies in a meaningful way, such as class, secularism, toleration, humanity, economy and debt, populism, and democracy. Third, it builds a vision of politics as a relational craft directed at forming a common life among neighbors who might have reasons to be antagonists and charts the path necessary to embody it in the current political and cultural situation. Accordingly, the book is part theory, part dictionary, part field guide, and part spiritual reflection. Bretherton has a keen ability to look at the things we usually take for granted and shed light on them in a way that makes the reader exclaim, “of course this is the case.” He communicates a new vision of the world that is hard to unlearn, albeit one might want to criticize it in this or that detail. There is no other work quite like it, and Christ and the Common Life establishes itself as required reading for those who want to think carefully about Christian life in the contemporary world.

The book is long, treats a diversity of topics and approaches, and is thus too rich to summarize or fully engage with it in a short review. I will simply highlight some of Bretherton’s key insights and proposals that I found especially compelling and have echoed in my mind since I studied them.

First, Christ and the Common Life shows that political theology is necessary not just because Christianity influences the political realm and vice versa but, more foundationally, because talk about God and talk about politics are mutually constitutive. Second, Bretherton emphasizes the contingency of human life, in general, and political life, in particular. The Christian engagement with politics must always have an ad-hoc character, recognizing that the formation of a common life invariably involves particular people, at a particular time, and under particular circumstances. Accordingly, Christians must resist totalizing accounts that either miss the complexity and fragility of current political arrangements or the penultimate character of all political goods. A Christ-orientated form of social relations never overlooks the eschatological horizons towards which the whole of history moves and thus treats politics as the realm of the contingent in-between. Furthermore, Bretherton encourages his readers to avoid reductions and ideological binaries and exemplifies such commitment to complexity and nuance throughout his book.

An example of how Bretherton’s analysis embodies the insights described above can be found in the chapter “Secularity, not Secularism.” In it, Bretherton avoids any simplification that would explain the process of secularization as a monolithic reality that is either entirely good or entirely bad to let the reader see how multifaceted and ever-evolving it is instead. The result is an articulation of secularity as a political good, the opening up of a space that Christians need to “coordinate with non-Christian others the pursuit of the kingdom of God with the pursuit of penultimate goods. To ordinate these dual foci demands constructing a common life that is not dominated by the church yet which is open to transcendent claims.” (229) The vision Bretherton articulates stirs away from either wholly embracing or rejecting the present circumstances and strives to craft a faithful way forward instead.

Drawing and building upon the author’s past work on hospitality, consociationalism, and the pursuit of goods in common through the practice of broad-based community organizing, Christ and the Common Life calls all Christians to a way of being church that is committed to the goods that democratic politics makes possible. The goal is to free ourselves both from segregationist forms of Christianity and falsely universalized ones and thus become attuned to the Holy Spirit’s work in the world. It is such a conversion that will allow Christians to bear witness to Christ within their societies and to become committed to politics as an arena of human flourishing to which the church can contribute by “healing wounds, exercising oppression, and bringing new life.” (7)