Passionate Steward: Recovering Christian Stewardship from Secular Fundraising, The

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 2004 by Morgan, Donn F

The Passionate Steward: Recovering Christian Stewardship from sec ular Fundraising. By Michael O'Hurley-Pitts. Toronto: St. Brigid Press, 2001. 169 pp. $19.99 (paper).

At first glance, a review of O'Hurley-Pitts s book may seem a bit different for the Anglican Theological Review. This is not a book that explores a radically new theological perspective or method. Written by a Roman Catholic out of his experience with that church, it surely does not claim to have a particular Anglican character. Finally, one of its central topics, fundraising, is hardly a common one in the pages of this journal. But the central importance of a theologically grounded concept of stewardship as set forth by O'Hurley-Pitts, and the fact that virtually all of the readers of the ATR are in one way or another involved in fund-raising for the church, make this book pertinent and important to review.

O'Hurley-Pitts has written this book to address a fundamental problem: the confusion and conflation of the concept of Christian stewardship with the theory and praxis of secular fund-raising. In so doing, he claims, the church has lost or forgotten the theological character of stewardship as vocation. The purpose of this book is to set forth a biblically and theologically grounded theory of stewardship in deliberate juxtaposition to, and in dialogue with, contemporary fund-raising practices and theories common for so many in the church. The first two-thirds of this book (chaps. 1-9) deal primarily with the theoretical, suggesting over and over again that a more inclusive concept of stewardship is preferable to secular, and less holistic, models of fund-raising. The last third of the book (chaps. 12-15) addresses the more practical issues of "how to do" an annual stewardship appeal, a capital campaign, and so on.

O'Hurley-Pitts is not afraid to espouse and advocate an explicitly theological understanding of stewardship and to criticize the ways in which the church has misled itself. For example, in discussing the use of gift charts to determine a parish's ability to raise money, he states: "The gift chart method may be easy, but expediency makes a poor GoJ" (p. 89). And again, in thinking about major gifts, he states: "If promotion of Christian generosity were taken seriously, the Church would receive many more 'major gifts' than it does" (pp. 98-99). Throughout this book O'Hurley-Pitts is relentless in his focus on the difference between a secular approach to fund-raising which focuses on the gift rather than the giver, and a concept of Christian stewardship which focuses on the giver (God) and the difference this can, has, and could make for both individual Christian lives and the church as a whole. The concepts of steward and stewardship focus on the mission of the church, on its particularity and difference, and the ways in which they can be far more effective than contemporary fund-raising in achieving financial stability and spiritual health for the church.

For those of us who have responsibilities in other church-related institutions, O'Hurley-Pitts provides much food for thought. In what ways should seminaries, for example, be using the concept of stewardship as a way to understand fund-raising needs, versus the models so common in the university? And, no matter the answer to that question, seminaries and other faithbased organizations related to the church are challenged to be involved in the teaching of stewardship as a theological concept central to Christian faith and vocation, something the author sees little evidence of at the present time.

O'Hurley-Pitts has written a provocative book which provides much food for thought as well as some concrete strategies for the understanding and the doing of Christian stewardship, wherever we find ourselves.

DONN F. MORGAN

Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Berkeley, California