by Gary A. Anderson
Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 232 pages
REVIEWED BY WILLIAM F. MAY
Gary Anderson leads this volume on charity with a quote from the book of Proverbs. “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be paid in full” (19:7). He thereby challenges the classical Protestant (and defends the Rabbinical/Catholic) tradition on the subject of the religious life. Sell all that you have and give to the poor and great shall your reward be in heaven. The grammar is clear; the language is dominantly “if … then … .” Do (or fail to do) this, and rewards or punishments will follow. The imperative sentence comes first, followed by the declarative. This grammatical structure appears in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 25 and in the pastoral letters; it draws on the wisdom literature of Israel and in the Apocrypha.
Classical Protestants reversed the grammar. They argued that the declarative sentence comes first before the imperative. The Ten Commandments do not begin from scratch. They follow from the declaration about God’s prior action, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.” Or again, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God first loved us, so we ought to love one another.”
Both grammatical settings, of course, are vulnerable to a misinterpretation. If the imperative comes first, one may be tempted to reduce charity to self-interest alone. (Give alms simply in order to lay up your treasures in heaven.) Alternatively, if the declarative comes first, one may be inclined to slacken the demand for the following works of charity. As a Catholic, Anderson concentrates on answering the first charge against the Rabbinical/Catholic view for reducing charity to rational self-interest. Charity is not just a good deed pointed toward a pay-off, but a “declaration of belief about the world and the God who created it.” Charity witnesses to grace as embedded in the giftedness of creation itself.
Eventually, Anderson’s full-throttle defense of the imperative to perform works of love leads him into a defense of the doctrine of purgatory. Purgatory provides temporal space after death, in which the soul can continue to engage in the works of love and undergo further spiritual growth. For most of us, the job is not finished at death. Anderson playfully quotes the sly C.S. Lewis, “Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they?” — the arena where the work of transformation can be completed.
Not far removed from such a purgatory lies the storehouse of heaven, where good deeds, most particularly almsgiving and other works of mercy accumulate and can be drawn upon to assist in the further healing and enhancement of one’s own soul and the soul of others.
A short review cannot do justice to the learning and thought invested in this book, as it bridges the Rabbinical and Roman Catholic traditions in their appropriation of Scripture. My own reservation about the book springs from the possessional understanding of salvation that dominates the argument. Our identity does not consist of a bundle of properties, natural and supernatural, which we possess — and which, when lost, must be restored and stored up toward a final repossession and completion, with some credits and claims, cap and traded, in our dealings with God. Salvation points rather toward the triune love of God, unceasingly giving and receiving in the power of the Spirit, in which we participate, not to some “third thing” between us, which we incrementally possess.
WILLIAM F. MAY is a PC(USA) teaching elder and the author of numerous books including “Testing the Medical Covenant: Active Euthanasia and Health Care Reform.”
