160 - Do Justice: Linking Christian Faith and Modem Economic Life

Do Justice: Linking Christian Faith and Modem Economic Life
By Rebecca M. Blank
Cleveland, United Church Press, 1992. 194 pp. $13.95.

This readable and practical book is an official follow-up to the Pronouncement on Christian Faith: Economic Life and Justice, passed by the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in 1989. Authored by Rebecca Blank, a UCC layperson and an economist who teaches at Northwestern University, Do Justice is written to help facilitate the implementation of the Pronouncement in UCC churches. The book appears under the sponsorship of the UCC's Office of Church in Society.

In ten concise chapters, Blank offers an expansion and interpretation of the Pronouncement. She begins by laying the biblical, theological, and experiential groundwork for a Christian economic ethic. Then she offers an interpretation of the functioning of the domestic and international economy today. Finally, she concludes with normative recommendations for Christian economic thinking and practice at the individual, church, and public policy levels. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for adult education activities. An appendix offers the entire text of the 1989 Pronouncement.

Though billed as a mere "implementation" tool, Blank actually offers an interpretation of Christian economic ethics that in subtle ways is stronger than that offered by the original document. It is more coherent, methodologically careful, irenic, evenhanded, and realistic than the much-criticized Pronouncement. Readers might be well advised to begin with the Pronouncement text itself before turning to the interesting revision/interpretation that Blank offers in Do Justice.

David P. Gushee
Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, PA.