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In “Globalization and the Mission of the Church,” Neil Ormerod and Shane Clifton, Australian theologians from Catholic and Pentecostal traditions respectively, articulate and defend a vision for the church’s role in a globalized world. Their central argument posits that the church’s mission is fundamentally defined by the core values of Christian faith. In response to the distinctive challenges posed by globalization, the authors contend that the church is primarily responsible for proclaiming and embodying these constitutive values. Furthermore, they emphasize the church’s task of mediating “the essential ingredient of grace to the people, to cultures and to social structures,” aiming to overcome evil and facilitate the permeation of life and love throughout the world. This framework offers theological guidance for the 21st-century church, advocating for a mission rooted deeply in Christian principles. Despite the collaborative effort of Catholic and Pentecostal scholars, the reviewer notes a significant theological imbalance, finding the book predominantly Catholic in its orientation. Critically, there is a perceived lack of engagement with distinctive Pentecostal theology, with the Holy Spirit often conceptualized within the “Christian tradition of grace.” The reviewer poses several rhetorical questions, suggesting alternative avenues the authors might have explored: incorporating Andrew Walls’ analysis of the Holy Spirit’s work at the Christian peripheries, focusing the church’s mission on marginalized communities, examining the alignment of globalization’s *telos* with the Holy Spirit’s work towards a New Jerusalem, or broadening the scope beyond right doctrines and praxis to encompass “right pathos.” Nevertheless, the reviewer acknowledges that the proposed framework of values for critical engagement with globalization holds relevance for both Pentecostals and Catholics, serving as a valuable starting point for defining an ethos for an emerging global common good centered on human flourishing. However, the book’s philosophical and theological depth draws sharp critique. The reviewer rates its philosophical erudition as “a notch below” that of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s *Empire* and suggests its theological sophistication falls short of works like Max Stackhouse’s *God and Globalization* series or William Schweiker’s *Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics*. A notable disappointment lies in the authors’ failure to engage with important recent theological-ethical contributions to the globalization discourse. Furthermore, Ormerod and Clifton introduce a “borrowed framework” from Bernard Lonergan/Robert Doran’s theology of history without adequately justifying its adoption or discussing why readers should prefer it over alternative perspectives. Their “theology of history,” described as a twofold movement of “creative” (upward) and “healing” (downward) vectors of values, is ultimately characterized as an “ethological analysis of the history and culture of globalization,” rather than a carefully defined theology of history, lacking a robust framework for interpreting historical dynamics or globalization’s place in the eschatological trajectory. The review concludes by contrasting Ormerod and Clifton’s conception of the church’s mission with an alternative rooted in Pentecostal theology, specifically referencing Wolfgang Vondey’s *Beyond Pentecostalism*. Vondey advocates for a shift away from a “performative and task-oriented character” of contemporary theological enterprise toward a “playful participation in the joy of God,” guided by pneumatological, eschatological, and ethical imagination. This approach aims to open ecclesiology to the “novelty and surprise of divine encounter” and the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” The reviewer suggests that had Ormerod and Clifton adopted such a perspective, they might have interpreted globalization as a deepening and complexification of social structures, envisioning the church and emerging global civil society as a “playground” that invites the world to engage with the “play of the Word and Spirit,” thereby enabling individuals to transcend themselves. Ultimately, while the book offers an elegant initial premise, its limitations in theological integration, methodological justification, and engagement with broader scholarship, particularly within its purported collaborative scope, are highlighted as significant shortcomings.
