David Bentley HART and John CHRYSSAVGIS, editors. For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2020. Pp. 112. $14.95 pb. ISBN 9781935317807. Reviewed by Richard B. STEELE, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA.

Several years ago, I took a group of Protestant Evangelical theology students to a Russian Orthodox monastery near our campus. At the outset, most of them felt a mixture of idle curiosity and deep suspicion: curiosity over what they thought would be little more than a living tableau of Christian antiquity, and suspicion at what they assumed was the moral and political irrelevance of monasticism. They were in for a surprise. The abbot welcomed us warmly at the gate and ushered us into the temple. The liturgy, in all its visual, auditory, and olfactory splendor began, and my students found their curiosity giving way to spiritual wonderment and deep prayer. Time came for the sermon, and the abbot, who serves as a chaplain for the local police and fire departments, explained that he had just returned from a conference on sex trafficking. He then preached powerfully on the evils of the modern slave trade and on the Christian responsibility to oppose it with might and main. So much for the notion that the brethren were indifferent to the ills of society! My students learned from this experience that worship is the fountain from which Christian social action springs. Doxology prevents prophetic preaching from degenerating into carping moralism; prophetic preaching prevents liturgical celebration from drifting into effete aestheticism.

What my Protestant students discovered at an Orthodox monastery is foundational to this wonderful new book, and it is brilliantly exemplified therein. The authors are a twelve-member team of theologians, who were commissioned in 2017 by the Ecumenical Patriarch “to prepare a formal document on the social doctrine of the Orthodox Church, as this has been reflected and expressed in the tradition through the centuries and by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in contemporary practice….” This work, which seamlessly blends Scripture, Patristics, liturgics, and the modern social and natural sciences, is the happy result of the commission’s labors.

The title is borrowed, of course, from Scripture, but it also recalls Alexander Schmemann’s seminal work in liturgical theology. And the subtitle tells us that the book is mapping a social ethos—not merely a social ethic—for contemporary Orthodox Christians. A “social ethic” might consist in little more than a set of formal principles or a menu of specific programs. But a “social ethos” encompasses an entire way of life, namely, that comprehensive array of faith convictions, moral values, and devotional/ascetical practices that have characterized Eastern Orthodoxy throughout its unbroken tradition, and in its diverse, worldwide contemporary expressions. Thus, we are given not just the official “what” of Orthodox social doctrine, but the concrete “how” of Orthodox social engagement. Yet this “how” is aspirational, not self-laudatory: the document reflects the best in actual Orthodox practice, but it also acknowledges the tradition’s shortcomings and blind spots and calls its readers “toward” a more faithful future.

But to say that this book presents a “social ethos” is not to deny that it deals with the conventional themes of “social ethics.” Rather, it is to indicate how such themes are dealt with. For example, the chapter titles, which identify these themes, are supplemented with epigraphs taken from Scripture or the Divine Liturgy. The chapter on “human rights” opens with a prayer based on Genesis 1:27, and the chapter on “science, technology, and the natural world” begins with a quotation from the Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom. Thus, the book is urgent in its prophetic challenge and yet edifying in its pastoral style; both erudite in its scholarly apparatus and yet engaging in its popular appeal. Furthermore, the book is elegantly produced. Its cover carries a stylized reproduction of the central panel of the Resurrection fresco from the Chora Church in Istanbul; heavy paper stock is used; the typeface is visually appealing; the chapter titles and epigraphs, the page headers, and the marginalia are all printed in red letters. Yet the purchase price is modest, making it ideal for its intended audiences such as seminary and Christian college social ethics classes, parish adult education programs, and interfaith social action groups.

Accordingly, I enthusiastically recommend this work for its much-needed words of hope and encouragement, and for charting a positive way forward in this time of social crisis, while remaining true to the best in the Eastern Christian heritage.