Book Review: God and the Art of Happiness

In her previous book By the Review of Your Minds (1997), Ellen Charry constructively proposes that theology has a pastoral function and should serve human flourishing. In the process of making her case, she demonstrates that “classical doctrinal theology” was motivated by this purpose. Now, in her latest book, God and the Art of Happiness, she picks up on her previous argument and more narrowly pursues it with the notion of happiness. Her attention turns to this topic “when [her] beloved husband and companion of forty years died an untimely and pointless death" (p. ix). She laments that much theological reflection on grief and suffering focuses on the traumatic experience and questions surrounding God’s presence in the midst of pain. Charry takes a different tack. She connects the pursuit of happiness to the reality of pain. And, she does so by theologically constructing a holistic approach to happiness. Charry suggests that within Christian theology “happiness has been primarily construed in terms of eschatology.” So, from this perspective, “attending to temporal happiness,” she argues, “is at least beside the point.”