Customer Reviews

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay

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James Alison's latest offering completely lives up to the praises on its book jackets. Joined to his profound interpretation of the New Testament, betraying an almost encyclopedic knowledge of scripture and the Catholic Tradition, is his firm grasp of the Girardian vision. But that is not all: the style of this masterpiece is witty and deeply personal, written from the ruins of contemporary culture and religion as well as the 'heart crack' of the self-identified 'much-loved queer.' Alison is asking questions that others have asked but, unlike so many others, he refuses to play the sacred victim in his critique of the church's attitudes towards homosexuality. At last we have a 'hermeneutics of suspicion' which is also turned upon the one who is suspicious, an unheard of gift in a time when so many church critics are possessed of such self- righteousness and infallibility as would make a grand inquisitor blush. The concluding section is surreal, springing perhaps from the author's time in Latin America; it is bizarre but instructive, a tragic-comic conclusion to a work of theology which is determined to burrow under the reader's skin. These 'fragments' are bombshells, exploding religious idols and making way for a whole new appreciation of the place of desire in our life with God.

Everything James Alison writes has enabled me to see what Jesus is up to in a new refreshing and challenging way. He has helped me to reject bad atonement theory -- the sort of theory that makes God out to love sacrifice, the bloodier, the better, even the sacrifice of his beloved because his justice and honor requires such a sacrifice. In that understanding, Jesus' death becomes the best example of sacrifice. He has helped me to see Jesus' death as the subversion of the sacrificial system, as the end of the system of exclusion of a victim rather than the divine example of sacrifice. Jesus is up to ending a system of social solidarity from exclusion and violence and enabling humans to live based on gratuity. In brief, when I read James Alison, I ask myself -- perhaps I should become a Christian some day.

I have read all of James Alison's books and, as Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams said in the November 10th, 2001 London Tablet of this book, "The very best theological books leave you with a feeling that perhaps it's time you became a Christian; this is emphatically such a book."

Intellectualy very attractive and much more than intellectual considerations. Alison really explains Gospel to me so that it becomes a really Good News. And does it with brilliant style, a bit camp, what i like very much.

I bought this book because it was required for a class and the professor felt that this author is an up and coming one in the field of theology. That having been said, this book is written in a way where you have to suspend all your previous beliefs and enter into the world of the writer. As such, he has some interesting points to make, however, there are many places where he has clear "flights of fancy." Don't expect this book to confirm traditional biblical teaching or create rational argument for new ideas. This is part philosophy and part fantasy in its presentation.