Review
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Title: The End of the World, Plan B: A Guide for the Future
Author: Charles Shirō Inouye
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Genre: Religion
Year Published: 2016
Number of Pages: 123 + x
Binding: Paperback
ISBN13: 978-1-58958-557-5
Price: $13.95
Reviewed by Jenny Webb for the Association for Mormon Letters
Recently, I sat down with an old friend—someone I’ve been talking with and learning from for twenty years. We hadn’t been together in person for some years, and at some point our conversation turned to familiar themes and authors. I mentioned a book that dealt with grace in an interested way, as this was one of those topics we had discussed repeatedly in the past. She turned to me and said, “You know, grace is fine, but I’m not stuck on grace anymore. For me, the question is compassion. That’s the heart of things. Finding compassion in life.”
I thought about this encounter repeatedly as I read Charles Shirō Inouye’s excellent new book, *The End of the World, Plan B*. In it, Inouye makes a strong case for compassion, blending Mormon scripture with a Buddhist-inflected process (or “path”) of awakening, recognition, and turning in order to enter into a cycle of increasing compassion. Throughout the text, Inouye draws out the various thematic and theological connections between a host of religious practices, and in doing so, situates Mormonism within a broad comparative context that highlights Mormonism’s flexibility and strength in its relationship to religious traditions outside the relatively familiar structures of Christianity and Judaism. The thematic connections drawn between Mormonism and Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and other religious practices are both refreshing and engaging. More importantly, such work provides the type of connective tissue necessary for a gospel seeking to build the world-wide body of Christ.
The main thrust of Inouye’s argument here begins with a thoughtful dismantling of a global obsession with justice. Valuing justice above all else leads to a political and cultural context in which aggression and violence are acceptable despite their destructive potential. Inouye recognizes that an argument against justice seems counterintuitive to our modern understanding: “Once again, neither am I saying that a lack of civil rights is favorable, or that racial and gender inequality are desirable. What I am saying is that when we rely solely on justice to rectify our problems, there is no end to our troubles. To put it simply, the problem lies in the way that the equilibrium of justice rarely heals, even when it is fair” (30).
Inouye wants to help his readers think through the emotional and ethical costs to justice. “Our difficulty in grasping the negative aspects of justice comes from how we view fairness as a way—maybe even *the* way—to make life better. […] Who could argue against the determined pursuit of a just and fair world, one that guarantees that certain predictable consequences follow from certain actions?” (23). I must admit that reading this material during the ongoing discussions surrounding rape and the Honor Code at BYU with its repeated appeals to the logic of fairness and consequences was thought provoking to say the least. “This is precisely what I am doing here, arguing against justice as the goal of our earthly endeavors. […] Our whole-hearted pursuit of justice is actually why we are now considering the clash of, and possibly even the end of, civilizations” (24).
Throughout the book, Inouye leads his readers through a cycle of recognition and awareness: seeing justice as potentially problematic opens us to sorrow. The sorrows of experience and life open us to compassion, allowing us to move up the mountain to God and then, importantly, turn around and head back down as we care about other people. And compassion moves us not to just care for others, but to intercede in a Christ-like way, placing ourselves between others and the consequences meted out by justice. Theologically, this all strikes an obvious chord with fundamental Mormon beliefs regarding temples, grace, and atonement, but it’s a Mormonism brought into a particular relief due to the comparative work Inouye performs with a variety of other religious traditions.[[1]] The way Inouye brings out the underlying role of grace within the atonement, for example, is particularly beautiful: “The justifying point of atonement is that anytime someone is lifted up, he or she is getting *more or better than* they deserve. Thus, atonement itself is a radical rejection of good things for good people and bad things for bad people. […] For each of us, compassion is *inappropriately* gracious. It … [is] always better than we deserve” (73).
In the end, Inouye offers up this compassion as an alternate path open to us—the “Plan B” under discussion. “Let justice move us. Let it help us experience sorrow. But then let sorrow guide us toward empathy and compassion for the judged, and to a new understanding of what it means to judge in a different, godly way. […] To return, to become one with the world, we must turn twice: once toward the Truth, and once away from it so that we can become the truth” (104). By following Plan B—by looking at our doctrine, scripture, and theology while attuned to compassion—Inouye invites us to engage in the work of the end of the world, that is, bringing about millennial peace while avoiding the incendiary destruction of unmitigated justice.
Inouye provides a compelling and thoughtful argument. Whether or not the reader agrees with his assessment and assertions, I am certain that the reader will find much to reflect upon and ponder over. The writing is stylistically inviting, with a clarity and directness that allows for complex ideas to be appropriately distilled. There were very few typos or mistakes that I found in the text itself, although the notes could have used one more read to catch minor inconsistencies (e.g., the note on p. 60 is missing a date, something set off by the fact that the note on p. 61 then has the date).
But these matters are offset by the numerous thoughtful additions to the text itself. Angela Robins has provided charming line illustrations that effectively visually underscore the points that Inouye makes; the back material includes a handy “Recommended Editions of Scriptural Texts” for Mahayana Buddhism, Traditional Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Islam, Judaism, and Mormonism; and the presence of both scripture and subject indices is, of course, much appreciated.
In the end, then, I highly recommend this volume for a wide variety of readers, both devotional and secular. If you are interested in viewing Mormonism within a comparative religious context, if you are intrigued by eschatology, or if you are looking for a book that will generously help you to think through questions and ideas in order to develop compassion and charity, then *The End of the World, Plan B is waiting for you.*
[[1]] There were multiple times, particularly during the chapter on compassion, in which Inouye refers to the Three Nephites’ decision to stay behind and minister to others as a model of the intercessory compassion motivated by godly sorrow, where I was reminded of another such comparative work (which Inouye references on page 51): Jad Hatem, *Postponing Heaven: The Three Nephites, the Boddhisattva, and the Mahdi,* translated by Jonathon Penny (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2015). While Hatem’s study is more academic in tone, what strikes me about both works is the way this comparative approach highlights the universal force at root in Mormon theology.