JosephWalker‐Lenow, An Augustinian Christology: Completing Christ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, 458pp. 150. 00

Protestant suspicions of totus Christus are hard to shake. Contemporary Reformed theologians have expressed their concern that this Augustinian theologoumenon collapses the Creator/creature distinction (John Webster), diminishes the singularity and sufficiency of Christ's person and work (Kevin Vanhoozer) and simply paves the way to Rome (Michael Horton). Despite Karl Barth's repeated endorsement of totus Christus throughout Church Dogmatics IV, these concerns persist. But Joseph Walker-Lenow hopes to change that, developing the first book-length treatment of the issue and showing not only how it is meet but also why it matters. An Augustinian Christology: Completing Christ advances a simple yet staggering claim: Christ is not who he is, and does not do what he does, apart from us. Our lives are constitutive factors in Christ's identity and the world's redemption. Walker-Lenow develops and defends this claim under the aegis of Augustine's signature notion – that Christ is both Head and Body, one corporate person. He argues that totus Christus is ‘far bolder than a mere metaphor or hermeneutical strategy’ (p. 246): it is an ontological claim about the church's role in extending the incarnation and completing Christ, a vision that bears both rapture and risk. The book unfolds in three parts with a roughly Nicene structure – God, Christ and Spirit/Body – and while Walker-Lenow holds to the conciliar christological pronouncements, his goal is to identify and explore their horizon and roominess. Since Reimarus and D. F. Strauss, much modern christology has been preoccupied with making sense of conciliar claims in light of the implications of historical contingency and social context. Walker-Lenow sets out on the waves of these implications, tacking against three prevailing winds – christologies ‘from below’, ‘from above’ and those of divine identity. He takes his bearings from the proponents of non-competitive transcendence (e.g. Ian McFarland, Kathryn Tanner and Rowan Williams), whose work offers a vital framework for rethinking the depth of Christ's receptivity in the incarnation. Following McFarland, Walker-Lenow describes this approach as a ‘Chalcedonianism without reserve’, yet argues that even its most incisive exponents ‘have not gone far enough’ (p. 18) in integrating their accounts of divine and human agency with a more robust vision of creaturely participation in the work of redemption. Walker-Lenow's central claim is that Jesus Christ ‘became who he is… through the contingent and unpredictable events of life, through his relations to those around him, through his relations to the whole of the created order’ (p. 4). This includes people and events before and after his sojourn on earth. Just as he picked up his Galilean accent and mannerisms through the community that raised him, Christ continues to develop and change at the right hand of God through his interactions with the people he has raised. Not only is the final redemption of the world an eschatological event, so too is Christ's human life: only then will Christ fully be who he is. Such a broad vista opens up from the telescopic compression of Augustine's suggestive claim that Christ the Head ‘was prepared to be complete with us as well, though even without us he is always complete’ (p. 118). Walker-Lenow astutely clarifies this paradox by distinguishing between the act of incarnation and the work of incarnation. Parsing and unpacking this distinction is the central task of the book. The former refers to the unrepeatable assumption of human nature by the eternal Logos in the womb of Mary; the latter refers to the shape of Jesus' particular human life. The latter is not a unilateral act of divine agency – it unfolds through a receptive dynamic of bidirectional influence, such that our lives and loves contribute to the identity of Christ and, ultimately, to the salvation of the world. In this vision, Christ's own acts of willing and loving are responsive to and constituted by the lives of those whom he has incorporated into himself. In the second half of the book, Walker-Lenow moves from the work of incarnation to the work of redemption – a distinct but inseparable idea – which he casts as a variation of the great exchange formula. Here again is an expansive view, for the work of redemption vastly exceeds the time of the Paschal Triduum. Walker-Lenow expands Augustine's ideas of the dispensatio similitudinum and ordo amoris to show how all created things point us to Christ and draw our hearts back to God – from works of art to a child's voice. God redeems the world through all things in the world, not only natural entities but also contingent human productions, each creature assuming ‘an unsubstitutable role in God's redemptive work’ (p. 244). This is not limited to the calm of individual reflection or a ‘solipsistic focus on interiority’ (p. 283), for the work of redemption also involves resisting and dismantling the death-dealing forces of a culturally regnant or state-sponsored libido dominandi. Receptivity to the Spirit must become solidarity with a crucified people, in which Christ meets Christ in the dignity and compassion of self-recognition. Completing Christ offers a judicious analysis of what is most luminous and most lacking in the Augustinian tradition, attending both to its liberative potential and to areas of ‘culpable inattention’ (p. 330). The book's significance and power lies in its combination of analytic precision, theological imagination and contemporary concern (e.g. questions about justice, social structures, environment, identity and art). While the book is heavy on Augustinian exegesis and contemporary application, the middle section (Chapters 4–5) includes four case studies that anchor the argument in Scripture. New Testament scholars will find much to ponder in these sections, as Walker-Lenow is a careful reader of these pericopes. The analysis is perceptive and, at times, bracing. For instance, in a lengthy section on the troubling interaction with the Syrophoenician woman – through which Jesus comes to understand more fully his own divine will – Walker-Lenow concludes that ‘even sinless action, when performed within a sinful social context, may cause harm’ (p. 203). The book excels at teasing out such underexamined implications for those who would take totus Christus seriously. A major lacuna in Walker-Lenow's otherwise compelling argument is the absence of any substantive treatment of deification as central to the reality of the totus Christus (e.g. David Vincent Meconi). Yet in this volume, the term appears only in a smattering of footnotes. While Walker-Lenow's logic and language place him firmly within the deification tradition, a more explicit account of how his project aligns with Augustine's and other classic accounts of deification would strengthen the book further. Completing Christ is beautifully written, clearly structured and well balanced in its thrusts and parries. It is full of cleverly conceived illustrations and extended metaphors that aim to make metaphysical claims accessible. Walker-Lenow's engagement with Augustine is deeply learned. He keeps the reader oriented by circling back at key junctures to summarize arguments and connect the dots before moving forward. In pursuit of thoroughness, the material occasionally becomes diffuse and meandering. Still, the vision remains stunning and engaging throughout. The book opens up numerous lines of inquiry and is likely to retain a central place in future discussions of the totus Christus.