Religion booknotes.

The French family that "owned" Pierre Toussaint fled the island of Haiti in 1797 following a slave rebellion. Not long after, Toussaint emigrated to New York, where according to his biographer he had four strikes against him: He was "black, a slave, a foreigner who didn't speak English, and a Catholic." Those were formidable liabilities which limited his social mobility and made him a target of white prejudice and nativist hatred of Catholics. Not only did Toussaint find his place in that unpromising environment, he flourished. He became a hairdresser to the upper class, accumulated substantial wealth (he lost nearly $1 million in an insurance collapse some years before his death), and served as the protector and counselor of Africans from the Caribbean, France, Canada, and New York. When he died in 1853, a New York newspaper wrote that "for more than sixty years [he] had been the most respected and beloved Negro in New York."

Pierre Toussaint: A Biography

Arthur Jones 

Doubleday, $24.95, 352 pp.

During his industrious life, Toussaint attended 6 a.m. Mass every morning, helped found the first religious community of African-American women, raised funds for orphanages and schools for abandoned black children, ministered to the sick, and oversaw funerals for the destitute. With his wife Juliette, he made his home a refuge for the needy and was a driving force in the benevolent society attached to his parish church of St. Peter. One of his hairdressing clients was so impressed with him, despite her own staunch Protestant pedigree, that she kept a memoir of what he said and the deeds he performed.

Arthur Jones recounts these aspects of Toussant's life in sympathetic detail. In addition to providing an account of Toussaint's years in the Caribbean and New York, Jones describes the character of slavery in the islands, the social condition of Catholics in New York, the intersecting stories of Elizabeth Ann Seton and Toussaint (they belonged to the same parish), and life in New York in the founding years of the Republic. (Jones notes that Toussaint lived under fourteen of the first presidents of the United States.)

In 1993, the Positio for the beatification and canonization of Pierre Toussaint was presented in Rome. His body was exhumed and now rests in a crypt under St. Patrick's Cathedral. Jones reports that Toussaint never sought American citizenship. There is evidence that he considered himself a citizen of France; and he certainly could claim Haitian citizenship. (When he left the island there was no Haiti; the whole island was simply known as St. Domingue.) What that means, as Jones notes in this wonderful book, is that if Pierre Toussaint is canonized he could be designated the patron saint of green-card holders.

The Oxford Movement: A Thematic History of the Tractarians and Their Times

By C. Brad Faught

Penn State University Press, $29.95, 184 pp.

I frequently teach John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. One problem that students have with Newman's autobiography (if that is the correct genre) is that they usually do not have a grasp of its social, political, and ecclesiastical context. Who are the Noetics? What is the Broad Church? Who are the "Two-Bottle Orthodox"? This information can be found in the abundant biographies of Newman, but only after diligent searching. Faught's study is a boon because, in five tidy chapters, he describes the matrix out of which the Tractarian movement emerged and what its long-term impact was.

The book is organized thematically; the five chapters are titled "Politics," "Religion and Theology," "Friendship," "Society," and "Missions." Friendship may seem an odd choice for a entire chapter but Faught makes a good case that the personal loyalty that existed among Hurrell Froude, John Keble, and Newman was at the heart of the Oxford movement. The problem with a thematic approach, though, is that it forces the author to repeat certain information in order to bring the reader up to speed. Faught is guilty of this offense, but the sin is a venial one. The final chapter--on the missionary outreach of Anglicans, which was strongly influenced by the Tractarians--includes information with which I was not familiar. (The earlier chapters draw upon research already available; Faught pays fair tribute to Ker, Gilley, Chadwick, and others who have worked here before him.) In all, this is a well-told story free of the reductionism and tendentiousness that often mar studies in this area. Because the book is both well written and economically told, I shall recommend that my students read it before tackling that imperial intellect who is John Henry Newman.

Faith Transformed: Christian Encounters with Jews and Judaism

Edited by John C. Merkle

Liturgical Press/Glazier, $23.95, 216 pp.

Among the many things for which Pope John Paul II will be remembered are his persistent attempts to heal the deep rifts between Catholics and Jews. This pope has done more for Jewish-Christian relations than any other pope in history. His efforts derive both from personal conviction and from the impetus provided by Nostra aetate, Vatican II's statement on non-Christian religions. In this country, many Christians have helped the healing process. John Merkle, with the encouragement of the American Interfaith Institute, has gathered a series of essays by Christians on their own engagement with the Jewish community in general and with like-minded Jews in particular. The overarching motif is that dedication to conversation and study has deepened rather than flattened out their Christian life of faith. In the words of the editor: this dialogue resulted in a "faith transformed."

One reason a different understanding of Judaism was possible for Christians is that twentieth-century Judaism produced a number of religious thinkers whose learning was both prodigious and pertinent to a world beyond their own faith. Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig both had an enormous impact on Christian thinkers. Gershom Scholem's studies of Jewish mysticism were powerful. In the postwar period, the French writer Emmanuel Levinas (often quoted by Pope John Paul II) had (and continues to have) an influence on contemporary intellectual life. By far, the most influential Jewish thinker was Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose books on the sabbath and the prophets are still indispensable.

Contributors to this volume include Alice Eckhardt, Eva Fleischner, Mary Boys, Eugene Fisher, John Pawlikowski, and Michael McGarry. None of the essays could be fairly described as "scholarly," but each of the contributors has a good story to tell. They describe the axial moment(s) when he or she gained a new appreciation of Judaism. Some found that moment in study; others in lived experience; still others by the troubling discovery of the poison of anti-Semitism. What all the authors agree on is that a deep encounter with another faith tradition does not result in what some nervous people fear: indifferentism or relativism. With the 2000 publication of Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, which challenges Jews to reexamine their understanding of Christianity, perhaps we can anticipate a companion volume of Jewish essays on the Christian faith. It would be a wonderful thing.

Mary: A Catholic-Evangelical Debate

By Dwight Longenecker & David Gustafson

Brazos, $14.99, 240 pp.

The Protestant world has recently shown an increased interest in Mary. This book is one manifestation of that interest. Both authors come out of a deeply fundamentalist background (each having graduated from that bastion of fundamentalist orthodoxy, Bob Jones University). Longenecker's long spiritual pilgrimage brought him to the Roman Catholic Church while David Gustafson, deep Evangelical roots still intact, worships in what he describes as a "very conservative" Episcopal parish. Their old college friendship inspired them to enter into this dialogue on the role of Mary in Christianity.

The conversation begins with citations from Scripture, then moves to a discussion of the development of doctrine and the growth of Mariology in the West. Along the way, the two men outline their divergent views. Neither is a professional theologian and both draw on a somewhat apologetic strand of Catholic writing that pays little attention to serious theological scholarship on the subject. Still, they are sophisticated enough not to hurl biblical passages at each other or attempt to make polemical points.

In general, this is a vigorous but genteel exchange between two persons who care deeply about the subject. I must confess, however, that I was bothered by their tendency to take too seriously strands within the tradition that are peripheral, rather than central, to Catholicism. For example, one can be a perfectly orthodox Catholic believer without taking seriously the Marian effusions of St. Maximilian Kolbe. St. Maximilian was a heroic figure at Auschwitz, but his brand of Marian devotion, drawing on the rococo piety of the Montfort school, needs to be assessed gingerly because of its capacity to glide into obscurantism. One could argue that the decision at Vatican II to place declarations about Mary into the larger context of Lumen gentium was an attempt to curb certain excessive tendencies in Mariology and place Mary within the mystery of Christ and the church. That is what Vatican II meant by an order of truths or, in a somewhat new phrase in theology, a hierarchy of truths. Too often, this book treats Marian topics as if they were free-standing truths.

Despite its imperfections, though, I agree with Richard John Neuhaus's cautiously expressed appreciation for this work. Writing in First Things, he said that he would simply like to join in this conversation in order to say things in a somewhat different fashion. That is not a criticism as much as an affirmation that one is engaged with the work--what author could desire more?

Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary

Edited by Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Cynthia L. Rigby

Westminster/John Knox, $19.95, 158 pp.

The collected essays on Mary titled Blessed One are all written by Protestant scholars. In general, they take the position recently articulated by Fordham University's Elizabeth Johnson--namely, that Mary is a sister in Christ who, amid the great cloud of witnesses, was called to be the Mother of God. Each of these contributors wants to bring Mary back into the Protestant tradition where, in reaction against Catholicism in the sixteenth century, she was conspicuously forgotten, despite what Luther and Calvin had to say.

Part 1 of this volume deals with Mary as she appears in the four Gospels. Joel Green does a careful reading of the rich chapters in Luke; Katherine Sakenfield concentrates on the ancestors of Mary in the genealogy of Matthew; E. Elizabeth Johnson writes about the disrupted family in Mark; and Beverly Gaventa, one of the book's editors, provides a reading of John's portrait of Mary at the foot of the cross.

The second part of the volume includes a range of studies of Mary as servant of the Lord, from a Barthian position of election and call to a impressionistic literary/theological riff on Mary as "proud Mary" written by--one could have guessed--a West Coast theologian from the Bay Area. Of particular interest is a study by a Mexican Evangelical who confronts the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexican culture and writes a deeply felt meditation on Mary and motherhood.

The final section consists of three studies. Daniel Migliore's essay, which first appeared in Theology Today, is a readable summary of the role and significance of Mary from a Reformed theologian. Lois Malcolm's study engages the works of Martin Luther on Mary, while Cynthia Rigby approaches Mary as an artist who gives shape to the presence of God in the world.

This bare summary does not do justice to the seriousness with which the authors treat their subject or to the insights they provide. The value of these studies is twofold: they help Catholics see why Protestants may feel uncomfortable with certain trends in Catholic Mariology; and they remind Protestants that Mary cannot be erased from the theological memory of the Christian church.

Lawrence S. Cunningham is John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.