Daniel P. CASTILLO. An Ecological Theology of Liberation. Salvation and Political Ecology. Foreword by Gustavo Gutiérrez. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2019, 227 + xxviii pp. ISBN 978-1-62698-321-2, soft cover. Reviewed by Anthony J. BLASI, 4531 Briargrove Street, San Antonio, TX 78217.

We usually approach that aspect of nature that we call ecology with poetry and music. However, as threats to the physical environment and sustainable life arise, we may resort to the less inspirational discourses of physics and biology. The liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez draws from both kinds of discourse—cold sober description of the environmental crisis and its social causes, and the poetry and analogical imagination of biblical lessons. In this book by theologian Daniel P. Castillo of Loyola University Maryland, the reader is challenged to be both cold sober and an afficionado of poetry and myth. Almost every page is generously footnoted with references to political, economic, biblical studies, and theological literatures, often with follow-up discussions.

In a world of profit-driven instrumental rationality, one would dump toxic waste in poor and underpopulated nations, and pay them for the service. One would exploit mineral and agricultural resources in those same nations as hinterlands to core nations, much in the manner of the colonialism of old. Humanity is reaching the limit that such practices can go without producing planetary devastation that would impoverish and decimate center and periphery peoples alike, and elicit resistance from non-elite  people and those elite who have scientifically-informed minds and sufficiently-informed consciences. While fragmentary efforts to avert or control ecological disasters are good, the author calls for a fundamental alteration in thinking. He would have a reversal of the underlying problem of profit-driven instrumental rationality, replacing it with a consciousness of the common human situation.

The first chapter, "Toward an Ecological Theology of Liberation," takes such themes as cosmic evolution,  the connectedness of all things, and creation as sacrament from such authors of Teihard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, and Ivone Gebara. It notes that these themes and authors had been ignored in recent years, as has social ethics. The result has been a failure to ask who suffers when corporate actors exploit and pollute the environment. Now there is a need for an anthropocentrism, not one that emphasizes human domination over nature but one that gives form to an ethic of responsibility.

A component of an anthropocentrism that is up to the challenge of the times involves a re-examination of what comes through revelation. On the one hand there are scriptures plus the process of tradition interpreting them over time, and then there is the book of nature, creation as an opening to the mind of the Creator. Recently theology has emphasized the former, often failing to get beyond matters of individual sin and salvation. The social, economic, and political sciences have left social ethical concerns to non-scientific practitioners, often agents of multinational corporations and the politicians whom those agents influence. Gustavo Gutiérrez has a different idea:  a community of faith as a servant of the world, a salvation expressing God’s love in and for the world. He, as well as recently Pope Francis, refer to the parable of the good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke in connection with this kind of salvation. Castillo speaks of a new discourse in this connection, not that of developmentalism and modernization, which perpetrate an underlying plundering of the former colonies, but liberation.

The second chapter speaks of "integral liberation," a term taken from Gutiérrez. It involves social structural-level liberation, cultural/psychological –level liberation, and a theological-level integration. The last of these is a liberation from sin and a communion with God and neighbor realized through the other two levels. Contrary to Marxism, the structural and cultural/psychological levels are united; it is not a matter of the former driving the latter. Moreover, the cultural/psychological and theological levels are also united, in the eccleasial community; they feature a theme of spiritual poverty that makes freedom a freedom for God and neighbor, especially the poor. Castillo notes that this paralleles the unitary crisis of the social and the natural in Pope Francis‘ Laudato Sí.

The author turns to the content of this kind of salvation with a reading of the creation narratives in Genesis. That content takes the form of the mythic or poetic meaning of the narratives. While other neareastern creation acounts tell of struggle and violence, Genesis describes a peaceful creating of a world that is good. The terms in Genesis 2:15 translated as dominion and subdue come from the Hebrew for a shepherd’s care for a flock and taking possession. It is not a matter of ruthless exploitation. The second creation account describes a gardener-like God who would have humans be gardener-like also. And there are two unique trees, a tree of life and a tree of knowledge that is both good and evil. Eating of the fruit of evil knowledge, of self-serving guile, results in a series of catastrophies. One can readily see where this is going, with reference to ecology.

Chapter 4 dwells upon the liberation of the Hebrew people from the pharaoh who did not know Joseph, the Joseph who secured Egypt from famine. That pharaoh is punished with the seven plagues. It is not the soil of Egypt that is ultimately saved, however, but the chosen people. Castillo admits that the narrative of exterminating and supplanting the Canaanites poses a theological problem. Nevertheless he goes on to describe the Jubilee Years that were to preserve the land and reinstate ancestral lands and thereby restore communal relationships. Castillo cites passages in the Second Testament that speak of all things coming together in the Christ (Colossians), the restoration of the divine order in a New Jerusalem that has two trees of life (Revelation). All this is underdetermined with reference to an ethic insofar as it remains a matter of poetry and mythic imagery.

Chapter 5 takes the reader to a contemporary ethic for the "anthropcene age" with its heightened human impact on the earth. Castillo taps into Pope Francis‘ critique of the technocratic paradigm  that would see the world and even its people as an it, desicated of any sense of the human subject. The market society that arises from such a paradigm makes society an adjuct of the market, rather than vice-versa. The it-things in the world become commodities within the systems of colonialism, slavery, extractive industries, etc. Such destroy the land, pollute, create monocrop economies, and justify it all with racist ideology. The underlying problem of the technocratic paradigm persists despite the remediative efforts of developmentalism. At the global level, the it mentality is driving an unsustainable project. Because of an inherent increasing inequality within and between peoples, it may be driving the world to violent revolutionsas well.

Chapter 6 calls for conversion to a utopian vision that undermines the everyday world. Rather than seeing capitalism as a monolith and maintaining a false dichotomy between revolution and reform, Castillo advocates "revolutionary reforms," directed by the perspective of the poor. What the author describes reminds one of the praxis of neo-marxian thought, blended with some grateful joy from Christian celebration. The vision from below will include restorative rest, mercy, protest, solidarity, discernment, communal convocation, and celebration.

Daniel Pastillo intended to go beyond the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, and he has done so in admirable fashion. However, there remains much work to be done. Scripture includes many narratives that are difficut to reconcile with a liberative perspective; should one pick and choose among scriptural passages? The place of Laudato Sí  in the development of the argument needs to be explained; is the argument a development of official magesterium, or are the pope’s arguments simply some among the many other works cited? Shouldn’t Dr. Marx be credited with the concept of praxis, and shouldn’t that concept be subjected to an examination and critique? And what about the exercise of power? Should Christianity mix explicitly with politics or stay sidelined out of a fear of Savanarola redivisus?