Daniela Augustine's work on the Spirit and the common good offers a vision for the transformation of society through the transcending of one's own ego for the flourishing of the anthropic and non-anthropic other. This work is inspired by the peacebuilding endeavours of a Pentecostal community within the region of Eastern Slavonia during and after the 1990s war in the former Yugoslavia. Thus the reconciliation work of a Christian community in post-war Europe serves as a catalyst for a theology of kenotic and altruistic self-giving.
The backdrop is the brutal conflict in Europe where rampant nationalism combined with the driving force of a religious crusade created warring Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim factions, which, in turn, gave rise to horrific crimes. Augustine argues, however, that in this context the Spirit was also able to inspire in humanity a sense of wonder in relation to the other, revealing human beings one to another as also made in the image of God, thereby enabling ‘genuine forgiveness and reconciliation in the form of unconditioned hospitality towards the other – ethnic, religious, political, cultural – even the enemy’ (p. 4). She then further extends this principle from humanity to the non-anthropic other, constructing a broad and grand theological vision.
This vision of realisable shalom and cosmic renewal centres on the potential of a human life given over to Christ and the Spirit to give rise to kenotic and other-centred lives capable of profound forgiveness and reconciliation. This is the means by which God is able to call human beings into their destiny, through the priestly ministry of those who mediate this forgiveness: ‘Thus, the life of the saint becomes not only a moral imperative for its addressees but a summoning into their theotic eschatological destiny, and Spirit-saturated means for their divinely ordained theoformation’ (p. 7). This is what Augustine calls a ‘socio-transformative pneumatology’. She draws on an impressive array of diverse sources to present a rich and complex theological apologetic for the potential of saintly lives. Although many traditions are evident within the work, the strongest theological themes are rooted in a blend of Orthodox and Moltmannian perspectives on the Trinity, theosis, participation, the eucharist and theological anthropology.
In chapter 1 she argues that a free-willed, christoform, Spirit-empowered human agency will be the means of cosmic healing. The kenotic and cruciform Christ allows humanity to see the suffering of others through his eyes, and to embrace an ascetic and kenotic solidarity with the suffering other. In her view, Christian lives come together to have a cosmic span, spreading ‘beyond the human community to embrace the rest of creation’, encompassing redeemed humanity transgenerationally and stretching from heaven to earth (p. 24).
In chapter 2, she undertakes an interesting study of the causes of violence and the interplay of violence and power on the human stage. Here she includes a study of violence and fratricide from Genesis, discussing a Christian response the distorting iconoclasm of human violence. The antidote, for Augustine, is the Sprit-created sobornost of the redeemed human community. This is realised through the human community marked by ‘consubstantiality, coequality, and perichoresis expressed in loving kenosis and askesis’ (p. 108), with perichoresis being seen as a relational concept in the Godhead mapped on to human relations.
Chapter 3 offers a sacramental approach to consumerism in which Augustine addresses the economy of human desires and the relentless, avaricious drive to gain more and more. In an insightful critique of the ‘undiscerning marriage between western Christianity and the neoliberal market economy’ (p. 123), she proposes that communities formed around the eucharist will serve to restrain greed, self-indulgence and violence. Further, she draws on elements of the narrative of the first Pentecost to argue for a move from market to household, with the latter defined by interdependence, and a shared identity transcending gender, ethnicity and economic class.
Chapter 4 is a moving reflection on forgiveness, where she examines some of the more complex issues around forgiveness and reconciliation without evading the more challenging aspects of this process. The book concludes, briefly, with examples of self-sacrifice, courage and forgiveness, in lives shaped by the proclamation and living out of the gospel.
Augustine's work is a study in hope, unfurling, as it does, the iconic mediatorial role of humanity in the world. As such, it offers a wealth of material on what it means to be a Spirit-filled creature. As with all hagiographical literature, however, she also follows a tendency both to emphasise the perfect over the imperfect, and to obscure the more tangled and messy nature of the church with an expansive, eschatological vision.
