Justice After War: Jus Post Bellum in the 21st Century, David ChiwonKwon, Washington DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2023 (ISBN 9780813236513), 306 pp., Pb $29.95

Rae explores the New Testament affirmation that the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead has astounding consequences.This starting-point means that 'because Jesus was raised the world is not the same as it would have otherwise been.The whole course, and indeed the very nature of human history has been radically transformed ' (p.xi).This book is 'an attempt to give an account of that transformation' (p.xi).The focus is not to 'investigate whether the resurrection really happened'; others continue that quest.Rather, recognizing Jesus has been raised 'depends, ultimately, not on the well-considered results of historical inquiry (valuable though those otherwise may be) but on encounter through the Spirit with the risen Lord himself' (p.xii).This encounter is what brings 'minds and hearts' to be 'converted to a new understanding of the world, an understanding that is founded upon, and is shaped in its distinctive particulars by, the resurrection itself' p.(xii).The resurrection is 'to be proclaimed rather than proven' (p.xiii).It means a '"going forward" to a transformed kind of bodily existence that is no longer subject to death' (p.xiii).This new life is the exploration pursued here.What emerges is a biblical theology focusing on aspects and themes of the New Testament message.The announcement of angels that Christ has been raised, actually 'changes the course of world history' (7).Among the nine chapters are discussions of the Gospel accounts, Old Testament promises to Israel fulfilled, and how Christ's resurrection revolutionized the life of Paul giving him a new theology of God, Christology, soteriology, eschatology, missiology, ecclesiology and the Christian life.Creation is made new, and history and ethics take new shapes for God's people.Those called into a new community with the risen Christ and each other are 'called into a new way of being' (p.149).Christian hope is a present and future reality since Jesus' resurrection 'provides a glimpse of the future to which the whole of creation is directed' (p.163).All is from Jesus' life, death and resurrection which is 'the definitive disclosure of who God is and as the salvific working out of God's purposes' (p.78).