Rarely do we situate discussions of Christian ministry within a cosmic context. Inspired by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, this book enjoins us to do precisely that. In The Divine Milieu, de Chardin urged famously for a “divinization of our activities” that sanctified all human work as a participation in the unfolding of the universe and the gradual realization of God's pleroma. Maldari employs this insight in hopes of broadening our ecclesiological horizons.
Maldari observes the interplay of competition and cooperation, selfishness, and altruism in the evolutionary process (33–34). Selfishness always at first appears to be the most advantageous strategy for survival, though, in the face of larger challenges, cooperation becomes an even more effective adaptation for survival. As evolutionary biologists indicate, this fact means that altruism is always tinged with selfishness. Borrowing from Daryl Domning and Monika Hellwig's Original Selfishness, Maldari suggests that, in an evolutionary worldview, the tension between these two instincts characterizes original sin.
The church—which, as the author frequently reminds us of the Thomistic axiom, “existed since the time of Abel”—resolves this exigency. The metanoia of baptism moves us from selfishness to selflessness (104). The cosmic convergence found in the Eucharist, “Mass on the World,” provides a proleptic anticipation of the peaceable kingdom in which competition ceases (178). In the meantime, ministry names anything that cooperates with these divine purposes and brings “creation beyond selfishness into fulfillment in heaven” (46) to participate in the Triune “communion of perfectly altruistic love” (50). To foster this catholicity of cooperation is the charge of the entire people of God, a group that extends far beyond the visible confines of the church. In this way might all our activities be divinized.
To ensure this expansive understanding of ministry, Maldari offers a decline narrative of ecclesial ministry. While New Testament times saw the Christian call to holiness as diverse yet equal, the gradual clericalization of ministry over time narrowed this call to only a select group. Through today, these shifts “have the significant drawback of devaluing the baptismal mission of all people and do not do a good job of recognizing and promoting the church's catholicity” (141). Overcoming the clericalization of ministry might in fact help realize the universal call to holiness. Nevertheless, this intramural discussion of hierarchical structures occupies more than a third of the book, which undermines the author's wishes to broaden our understanding of ministry. Maldari's resolve to use the term “ministry” poses part of the problem; today, ministry cannot but have these “churchy” connotations. As John Collins and Neil Ormerod have shown in their ecclesiologies, not all are called to the ad intra vocation of ministry, “to build up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12); all are called, however, to the ad extra vocation of mission, “to preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Maldari's very brief discussion of the church's apostolicity as a dynamic call “to shed selfishness” carries much potential, as it better names the holiness to which we are all called (178).
The questions begged by this book arise because of the novelty and boldness of its intentions. Apart from Terence Nichols’ That All May Be One (oddly omitted by Maldari), very few ecclesiologies are written from a scientific, cosmic perspective like this one. Christian Ministry in the Divine Milieu could be used in a master's-level seminar on contemporary trends in ecclesiology. Indeed, considerable work remains in articulating ecclesial mission within a constantly evolving and irreducibly complex cosmos.
