« Back to Issue 39

Fundamentalism, Terrorism & the Future of Humanity

Author:	Leonardo Boff
Published By:	SPCK (London)
Pages:	94
Price:	£8.99
ISBN:	0 281 05797 4

Reviewed by Kevin Scott.

Leonardo Boff will be known by many readers as the Brazilian Liberation theologian.  Some will be concerned, and others encouraged, that in his time Boff has been investigated by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This is a slim volume (94 pages including copious endnotes and bibliography). In it Boff makes a compelling argument that human existence is threatened in our generation by the clash of fundamentalisms. He is clear from the beginning that these include political as well as religious ideologies, and identifies their common features. He also describes the threat they pose to humanity and, potentially, to the whole biosphere.

What might otherwise be a bleak scenario is saved by the second half of the book.  Here Boff describes the remedy which, in effect, is a working towards the Christian eschaton: a coming together of human minds and wills in acts of mutual submission and service.  Some readers may feel uncomfortable that Boff draws more frequently on the likes of Teilhard de Chardin than on explicitly biblical texts. Yet others may be dismayed by suggestions of universal salvation. Nevertheless it is remarkable to find such a radical theologian so committed to the possibility of hope and the actuality of divine providence in human affairs.

Deceptively easy to read, this work will offer ministers a helpful and sharp analysis of our global situation. Seldom explicitly Christian in a manner which some might demand, it is nevertheless firmly underpinned by Christian theology and values.  Moreover, it offers possibly world-weary ministers a vision of the Kingdom of God which is not only possible, but even likely.