A Liberationist Manifesto Peter Heinegg Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World. By Rebecca Todd Peters. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014, pp. xx + 141. $39 (paper) In Matthew 25.31–46, Jesus seems to sum up his ethical message with what Catholics would later call the corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, taking in strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and imprisoned (plus one extra mitzvah, burying the dead). All these actions, or habits, are often labeled “charity” and considered central to Christianity; but Rebecca Todd Peters (Religious Studies, Elon University) wants to move beyond both the term and the narrow notion of (sometimes complacent) personal virtuousness associated with it: Not that charity is bad, but that charity is not enough. The issue is one of moving people's thinking and actions from focusing exclusively on charity to considering how we are called to transform the world in ways that reflect social justice. An ethic of solidarity that arises from the moral value of mutuality moves people from a practice of doing for others to a practice of working with others. Peters’ argument is at once strongly ecumenical—open to practically every position along the religious‐to‐secular spectrum—and, for committed liberals, all but indisputable. She backs it up with analyses of the selfish blindness and outright oppression built into the globalized economy and its American fountainhead. Her tone is moderate, even at times a little verbosely bland; but her case is solid. The only (inevitable) problem is that when you present sweeping formulas for universal transformation (salvation? redemption?), there are bound to be lacunae and unresolved issues. It's easy enough for Peters to ground her manifesto in the cluster of crises now bedeviling the planet: malnutrition, greenhouse gases (with factory farms the single greatest contributor), catastrophic environmental degradation, exploding Third World (or “two‐thirds world”) indebtedness, the ever‐expanding gap between rich and poor, the persistence of slavery and near‐slavery, etc. Peters claims that the cure for this (if there is a cure) is the ethics of solidarity, which she breaks down into four “tasks”: metanoia, honoring difference, accountability, and action. The first means less old‐fashioned “repentance” than a much taller order: “a radical transformation of heart, mind, and soul that literally makes one a new person.” For First World Christians, this involves seeing the evils of “neoliberal globalization” and abandoning a whole inherited package of naïve attitudes toward “economic development, consumerism, growth, and happiness.” “Honoring difference” is something beyond mere multicultural sensitivity. It's sympathetic sharing of the perspectives of all the people whom white Americans (and white Christians) tend to view as Outsiders (racial, sexual, ethnic, economic, and so on), but who offer “unique perspectives … that help in understanding the world, and its problems in new and different ways.” “Accountability” is owning up to the multifarious avenues by which individual citizens, churches, and the nation as a whole have helped to drive, and have profited from, worldwide injustice. “Action” is, not surprisingly, the trickiest category of all, with a vast and vague menu of possibilities: lifestyle changes, volunteering, reaching out to poorer communities around town or across the oceans, and efforts to change the “global market economy.” (Peters gently faults that favorite bourgeois response, writing checks, though sending money to groups like Doctors Without Borders sounds reasonable enough.) All this is positive and convincing, but various rough or fuzzy points remain to be worked out. Peters vigorously condemns “paternalism” in dealing with poor societies, which is fine. But what if the “perspectives” such cultures offer include (as they do) things like female infanticide, FGM, child marriage, homophobia, and gross scientific ignorance? It's not p.c. to say it, but the West really is, in certain areas, more advanced than a number of Third World peoples: for instance, westerners seldom murder persons under suspicion of witchcraft. America's bloated military budget certainly qualifies as serious sin, but Peters ignores the enormous amount of ongoing low‐tech violence unrelated to the Pentagon. This approach is part of the wholly‐innocent‐victims meme that can refuse to address major disasters like Third World overpopulation because, as Peters says...
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Jan 1, 2016
David Lilley 
Open Access