Fr. Barron's most recent work is one of the most approachable, yet incisive and intelligent accounts of the most exciting movements in recent theology. I have studied with Fr. Barron, and without hyperbole I often remark to friends how he was the best professor I ever had--passionate and excitingly contemporary, immersed in the tradition yet generously critical. A wonderful priest and a masterful teacher.
This book delivers the same invigoration. Fr. Barron's chapters range wide: from the postconciliar liturgy, to Joyce and narrative, to postmodern non-violence. Underlying his various treatments is an attempt at recovery: opposing the often narrow and always self-reflexive modern hermeneutic, begun in Descartes and apotheosized theologically in Schliermacher, Fr. Barron wishes to return us to a more humble, reverent posture before the universe, each other, and most especially, God.
The subtitle "post-liberal, post-conservative" brings this critical, even playful, acumen to bear on current American ecclesial concerns. You will find no naive polemics here: Fr. Barron's attempt to recover a theology (even more: an adequation with reality) that transcends these jejune dichotomies opens the reader to a invigorating purview that commands such different resources as Teilhard, von Balthasar, Bob Dylan, Chesterton, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Aquinas.
Fr. Barron has particular debts as well to the best in recent Protestant theology: a plus that should make this book a resource to those Catholics who stopped with Tillich. No stranger to Rahner, Fr. Barron is also able to underscore the insights he brought, while reading him within the tradition, noting various lacuna. His knowledge of von Balthasar is especially helpful here, and a needed corrective to an often one-sided emphasis in recent Catholic theology.
In short, if you would like to gain a perspective into what is most exciting, most relevant, and most important for not only Catholic theology, but the life of the Church, you will find no better guide than Fr. Barron.
