Vulnerability and Glory: A Theological Account.

McManus, Kathleen

VULNERABILITY AND GLORY: A THEOLOGICAL ACCOUNT. By Kristine A. Kulp. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010. Pp. v + 221. $30.

Kulp's rich theological account of Vulnerability and Glory, written from the perspective of the Protestant Reformed tradition, is concerned with "life before God" in the context of suffering and ambiguity, grace and glory. At the heart of her account is the thesis that creatures and the cosmos are vulnerable to both devastation and transformation amidst a field of tensions and conversions embraced by God's sustaining and redeeming activity. K. develops this thesis in a spiraling movement, methodologically mirroring her image of salvation as something that is "lived more than possessed" (105).

While the book is compellingly oriented by the globalized suffering of our contemporary world that cries out for a response in solidarity, its deep theological engagement of this reality only begins to emerge in chapter 5. Initial chapters expose the reader to the suffering and vulnerability of early Christian communities, first amid persecution and gradually from assimilation to the dominant culture. In retrospect, K.'s contrasting of "vulnerability" and "invulnerability" as characteristics of the church vis-a-vis the world, and then of the Reformers vis-a-vis the Roman Catholic Church, effectively functions as the nucleus of her own constructive and expansive vision of creation and cosmos as the realm of God's activity. In this construction, she draws heavily on Luther and Calvin, but with critical nuance; for instance, while positively engaging Calvin throughout her text, K. critiques his emphasis on suffering as divine pedagogy.

K.'s own creative theology of suffering emerges in the second half of the book, beginning with the vulnerability of Jesus as a "kenosis of divine possibility." From modern Protestant to contemporary feminist and Catholic Liberation theologians, K. illuminates the life-affirming value of resistance and protest as instruments of agency and conversion, a way of living that "creates a sheltering space." Ultimately, resistance is balanced by delight and gratitude in a world in which God's glory is revealed in and through vulnerability. This challenging book is well worth reading.

KATHLEEN MCMANUS, O.P.

University of Portland, Oreg.