BOOK REVIEW: „Apostolatul antisocial. Teologie și neoliberalism în România postcomunistă” (‟The Anti-social Apostolate. Theology and Neoliberalism in Post-communist Romania”) by Alexandru Racu, Tact Publishing House, 2017, 275 pages

Sorin GOG

Authors

Sorin GOG Sociology Department, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, e-mail: sorin_gog@yahoo.com

Abstract

Alexandru Racu’s book ‘The Anti-social Apostolate. Theology and Neoliberalism in Post-communist Romania” represents one of the few successful attempts in contemporary Romanian social sciences that analyses the post-communist political developments within Eastern Christianity and its relationship to the capitalist transformations and radical neo-liberal reforms that took place during the last decade at the periphery of European Union. The book focuses on the writings of some of the most prominent Orthodox intellectuals and theologians from Romania and carefully scrutinizes the religious and cultural legitimations of capitalism which they produced after the fall of communism. The study also details the ways in which these new religious arguments and narratives depart from previous Orthodox tradition and practice. Drawing on the work of Cornel Ban (2014, 2016), who masterfully analysed the neo-liberal specificities of economic reforms and brutal shock therapies implemented in Romania, and more generally on Tawney (1938) Karl Pollany (2013) and Peck (2010), the book discuses the emergence of cultural and religious forms of neo-liberalism that accompanied, and gave extensive credit to, the implementation of one of the most radical neo-liberal projects in Central and Eastern Europe.

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