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Lisa Sowle Cahill. Family: a Christian Social Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000. Pp. 184. $10.20 (Paper).
Butler, Barbara L.
Butler, Barbara L.
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"At a time in church history when social justice issues have never seemed more prominent, Cahill presents us with a challenge and a choice for new thought and direction. The author guides us through an interpretation of the term "Christian family" weighted on one side by traditional notions of monogamous couplehood to a wider, more inclusive perspective encompassing such groups as single-parent families, post-divorce blended families, and those found in historical and/or cultural derivation as African-American and Hispanic families. The former grounds itself in a hierarchical, boundary-laden unit concept while the latter, bypassing ties of biological kinship, conveys a sense of attachment based on love, nurturance, and inclusion. [2] Cahill's goal is to propose and promote the notion of a gospel message imbuing Christian families to move from the internal focus of nuclear, individualistic behavior toward a nonjudgmental, supporting view of diverse families. In my view, the Christian family is not the nuclear family focused inward on the welfare of its own members but the socially transformative family that seeks to make the Christian moral ideal of love of neighbor part of the common good (xii). [3] Pursuing this line of thought Cahill discusses "domestic church" as a metaphor highly developed in the history of Christian thinking (3). Specific reference is made to its use in the New Testament, the writings of John Chrysostom and Martin Luther, as well as in Puritan and Catholic social teachings. [4] The book begins with an examination of our civil society, the evolution of narcissistic individualism, and the impact on commitment toward mate selection and children. Viewing family as "an institution of civil society" (7), Cahill makes the connection between those values that dominate the larger realms of civil society, their propagation through societal institutions and their inevitable outcomes at regional or local levels. This in turn is balanced by the ability of individuals and groups to influence those larger institutional systems that control and manage economics, politics and religious functioning."(pg 1)
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2001
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With permission of the license/copyright holder