One of the less commendable practices among some Christians has been the tendency to scour Scripture for disagreeable characters by which to identify opponents. Perhaps the most notable example of this was the frequent identification during the Reformation of the Pope with the Antichrist of Revelation. But almost all groups have given into this temptation: Roman Catholicism has been called the ‘Whore of Babylon’, Liberals equated with the church in Laodicea and conservative Evangelicals dismissed as Pharisees. The emotive power of this rhetorical abuse of scriptural symbolism typically colours the language of debate or, worse, closes down avenues of discourse. In almost all instances, it serves to enflame supporters, label opponents, and provide a ready-made moral foundation for one's cause; one might fruitfully engage in a dialogue with the Pope, less so with the Antichrist.

Bishop FitzSimons Allison's small book entitled Trust in an Age of Arrogance, sits comfortably within this tradition. Allison, a former bishop of the diocese of South Carolina in the Episcopal Church (and a leading voice of conservatives there), employs rather dated images of the Sadducees and the Pharisees from the Gospels to launch an often chaotic attack on those segments of the church and modern society that he abhors. Allison lays out his idea in his introduction: ‘We desperately need a new center, a commitment beyond our own selfish nature, the state, or a classless society…. Only in rediscovering the true center can we hope to have justice, mercy, and freedom in a culture where Christianity has been distorted almost beyond recognition’ (p. xvi). He then offers Mt. 16.6 regarding the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as the basis for ‘clarifying myriad complexities that obscure a clear view of the world and of the Christian promise’ (p. xvi).

In the ensuing chapters, Allison begins by identifying the Sadducees with secularism and embarks on a foray through a whole litany of influential thinkers, rarely dwelling long on any single one, to show how they conform to his image of the Sadducees who, in his view, held ‘that material is the only reality’ (p. 20). In other words, for Allison the Sadducees are the original materialists, both foreshadowing and representing the modern, secular age. Whether this is, in fact, an accurate assessment of the Sadducees is neither here nor there since post-Enlightenment secular materialism is really what Allison wishes to challenge. He attacks Barbara Tuchman, Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand, M. Scott Peck, Francis Fukuyama, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and a host of lesser-known writers (all within a space of 12 pages) before linking together classical Greece, revolutionary France, Marxism and Nazi Germany as examples of societies devoted to secular idolatry. These chapters offer little that is new (though Allison presents a series of memorable quotes) and much of it has been discussed much more perceptively by other authors such as Tom Wright and Oliver O'Donovan.

Allison begins his discussion of the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’ by discussing the merits of hypocrisy. To his mind, the supposed hypocrisy of the Pharisees would be an improvement upon what he perceives to be the unabashed and public embrace of vice by our culture. Allison writes, ‘If we never pretended to a virtue above our vices and never covered up our true selves, what would happen to society? Hypocrisy would seem to be one of the essentials of civilized society’ (p. 68). And he concludes that if society were a little more Pharisaic we would have to endure far less ‘sleaze’ and ‘corruption’ (p. 69). While much of this short section reads like a rant against godless immortality, there is just enough of a hint of whimsy to make the reader occasionally smile.

And this is good because after this short section, Allison launches into the heart of his attack, and at once the reader is taken back to well-trodden, theological ground. Interestingly, his interpretation of what the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’ actually means is where he most clearly pins his colours to a particular theological camp. For him, the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’ is ultimately the idea that one can be justified through good works (p. 70). True to his reformed background, Allison concludes (not surprisingly) the only antidote to this belief is the conviction that one is justified by faith alone. Thus, the Pharisees stand in for a kind of medieval Catholicism in which one's salvation is ever in doubt and good works become the boarding pass for heaven. Allison's equation of Pharisaism with a kind of Pelagianism places him firmly on one side of the ongoing debate (carried on vigorously within some quarters of Presbyterianism) between promoters of the ‘New Perspective’ and those of a more traditional understanding of justification by faith. Allison hardly even nods in the direction of E.P. Sanders, James Dunn or N.T. Wright who have seriously challenged the received view of Pharisees within Protestantism. This is a shame, because Allison's rather narrow interpretation (and some would say misinterpretation) of the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’ colours the rest of his book. In the end, his entire screed against elements within Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism turns out to be little more than an old-fashioned Evangelical plea for the necessity and centrality of a belief in both human depravity and justification by faith (complete with an extended discussion of imputed versus infused righteousness (pp. 98–99); only through the free and gracious initiative of God is the depraved human being freed from the bondage of sin. For Allison, any other belief yields to either the yeast of the Sadducees or the Pharisees.

Somewhat surprisingly, when Allison finally turns to offer his alternative to the yeast of the Sadducees and Pharisees, he puts forward a pastorally sensitive interpretation of the doctrine of Predestination that has much to commend it. As he sees it, only by accepting the absolute agency of God in salvation can one escape a kind of moralism that leads either to a burdensome guilt (as one realizes that one is not free always to choose the good) or self-righteousness. Only here in the final two chapters does one clearly see that what has been driving Allison's attack through the first 125 pages is his conviction that moralism is the death of the Christian promise of freedom and salvation. Even if one disagrees with Allison in his particulars (and the complete absence of either an ecclesiological or sacramental dimension to his argument is telling), surely this is a helpful reminder in an age caught between religious/secular and conservative/liberal examples of moralism.

In general, Trust in an Age of Arrogance reads like an extended sermon with the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees functioning as the governing motif. The way in which Allison flits from point to point, inserts often amusing short quotations, makes general observations without much attempt at a convincing argument, and concludes with a call to repentance through the ‘odour’ of Christ's blood all echo elements of a good, Evangelical sermon. Some undoubtedly will find all this heady stuff. Had Allison established his own position at the beginning of his book and limited himself to a more profound critiquing of fewer examples of latter-day Pharisees and Sadducees, Trust in the Age of Arrogance might have proved more insightful and convincing. But in the end, both the sweeping judgments Allison makes of his opponents and the unwillingness to engage with those opponents in any meaningful manner suggest that if Trust in the an Age of Arrogance is best understood as an extended sermon, in the end, Allison intends to preach to the choir.