Pope Francis’ focus on a “culture of encounter” has been so central to his ministry that it is remarkable it has taken until 2020 for a book on the ethics of encounter, from the perspective of Catholic moral theology, to come out. Happily, the book has found the right author in Marcus Mescher. He effortlessly weaves first-rate scholarship into accessible prose that, true to his training, is poised to help make a serious difference, both in the field of Christian ethics and in the actual lives of people who read it.
Indeed, the book could hardly have been published at a better time—or a more needed time—what with the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns exacerbating already catastrophic levels of despair wrought of loneliness, of the absence of genuine encounters.
Mescher's argument, at its foundations, is an anthropological one. He starts with the fact that that we are hardwired for encounter, for bonding, for social connection. The culture of encounter that he and Pope Francis call for beckons us away from leading an isolated, individualistic life. Indeed, he reminds us of our special obligation of solidarity with those who are isolated—especially those who are isolated by forces (like age, disability, geography) beyond their ability to control.
Crucially, Mescher articulates what he calls a “culture of belonging” that explicitly goes beyond the procedural fairness and tolerance offered by contemporary liberalism. He instead wants a more aggressive and meaty cultivation of particular networks of belonging at personal, social, and institutional levels—networks characterized by the thick theological vision of the good offered by the gospel. Indeed, Mescher's “theology of neighbor” is genuine theology grounded in specific true-claims of the gospel, not a watered-down appeal to the least common denominator of a pluralistic culture.
Mescher admirably wrestles with many factors contributing to a culture that he rightly sees as problematic for the building of a culture of encounter. One of those factors is the infestation of screens and other technologies that so often mediate and even replace genuine encounters among human beings. While acknowledging that “encounter through a screen” (a major section in the final chapter of the book) cannot or should not replace the embodied encounter of people in one another's physical space, he nevertheless argues for some helpful principles that he thinks can aid digital encounters in better reflecting the culture of belonging and theology of the neighbor he explicates earlier in the text.
A weakness of this section, however, points to a weakness of the book overall. Although several helpful attitudes and strategies are offered for trying to live in a digital world dominated by smartphones and tablets, the power of the sinful social structures doesn't seem to have been fully engaged. If it were, I suspect the book would have to argue for strict moral norms and principles to help people avoid the overwhelming power of these structures. For instance, the epidemic of masturbation to digital porn—and the destruction of dating, relationships, and other encounters it has wrought—is not mentioned in this section of the book. Are attitudes and strategies enough for rescuing especially young people from the damage inflicted by the way the broader culture so casually consumes porn today? Not at all. It requires clear moral prohibitions and even exceptionless moral norms.
That limitation aside, The Ethics of Encounter is a wonderful book—for both professors and their undergraduate students to engage. It is, simply put, a book for our times.
