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Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation. By Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2013. xix + 309 pp. $22.00 (paper).
Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda presents Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation as a wake-up call to people who feel stuck by the current, seemingly impossible conundrum of the ecological crisis. The result is a theological ethics that can be utilized to navigate various economic and ecological ills in a responsible way.
Moe-Lobeda's argument consists of three distinct steps. First, she sets the parameters for what she views as structural sin. Essentially, she collapses everything into a structural account, understanding sin as participation in structures that cause violence, whether to other people or to animals or to the earth. This participation is unavoidable. At times, the account also seems to point to the fact that these sinful structures will never be overcome. Thus, part of her task is to provide an account for navigating structural evil rather than simply overcoming it.
The second part of her argument is the proposition of a framework for thinking through these issues, which she terms "critical mystical vision." This critical mystical vision contains three aspects necessary for thinking through how to confront structural evil in our world. First, this vision contains an...