In the introduction, Stephen Pattison traces his decision to write a book on faces to the fact that biblical passages like Acts 20:27 (‘By now they were all in tears; they put their arms round Paul's neck and kissed him; what saddened them most was his saying they would never see him again’) and the last two lines of John Henry Newman's hymn, ‘Lead, Kindly Light’ (‘And with the morn those angel faces smile, / Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile’) have haunted him since childhood. Unable to hear them without a mixture of sadness and joy, he suggests that in the case of the lines from Newman's hymn that this ‘is probably because I see the angel faces in my mind's eye as a sign of coming home, a mediation of the shining, smiling face of God, enjoying and accepting humanity in mutual joy’ (p. 1).

Citing Jesus’ promise that the pure in heart shall see God (Matt 5:8), he notes that for centuries the direct, face-to-face vision of the face of God was the aim and end of Christian life. It is therefore curious ‘that both human and divine faces have been almost wholly absent in recent Christian theology and practice’, with post-Enlightenment Western Protestant theology in particular emphasising the word of God and giving little attention to the vision of God. Saving Face, then, is intended ‘to do something to restore face to a more central, conscious place in Christian theology and practice’ (p. 2). Specifically, it seeks to show that saving face is central to the theological concept of redemption and is vitally important to pastoral practice because ‘the loss of face as a category not only denotes disinterest in face’ but ‘also serves as an important sign and accompaniment for shame and exclusion’ (p. 2).

Thus, it is an exercise in practical theology, a theological discipline which proceeds from description, understanding, prescription, to action, and the structure of the book reflects this very process. Chapter 1 focuses on perceptions of the human face, with particular emphasis on how it has been conceived in different historical periods and cultures. Chapter 2 is concerned with the biological and physical facts and the social functions of the face, with particular emphasis on the relation of the physical face to one's inner identity and on the ways in which the face functions as a mask or veil. Chapter 3 centres on the loss of face (defacement), and emphasises its implications for shame, with its attendant experience of estrangement and alienation.

Chapter 4, which serves as a hinge to the more theological part of the book, is concerned with the ‘fundamental ambivalence’ of the face, that it is an obvious, physical entity in the world but that it also represents and signifies mystery and the unknown, thus ‘acting at least as much as a barrier as door to the desired “other”’ (p. 6). Gaining a sense of its ambivalence is important for understanding the ideas in the Judaeo-Christian tradition concerning the presence and absence of God.

Chapters 5–7 are concerned with Christian teaching and experience relating to the human face and the face of God. Chapter 5 considers biblical and early theological evidence for thinking about the face of God. It emphasises that the face of God was not merely a metaphorical way of speaking about God's invisible presence but was integral to the biblical theme of the visible glory of God, with Jesus himself seen as the living Temple, the locus of God's visible glory. In this chapter Pattison focuses on the issue of shame and honour in peasant societies such as Palestine around the time of Jesus, noting that Jesus challenged the customary shaming of the poor, abused and alienated and, in effect, enabled them to save face. Through his interventions, ‘The faces of those who have dwelt literally and metaphorically in the non-being of shame are illuminated and shine in response to the love of God’ (p. 104).

Chapter 6 examines the theological tradition of the visio dei which was integral to the early church and reached its zenith in the thirteenth century. Here, Pattison notes that around the fourth century images of Jesus’ face and body began to proliferate, but the very instability and changeableness of his physical depiction indicates that such representations had to do with imagination and the perspective of different viewers. This also implied that ‘salvation did not depend upon visual verisimilitude or likeness as it was the invisible divine image in Jesus that accomplished reconciliation with God’ (p. 117).

Chapter 7 considers why the vision of God, and the face of God, became so neglected and lost in the Middle Ages, and suggests that ‘the decline in the possibility of seeing God may have contributed to a lack of interest in human faces that has continued largely unbroken to the present day’ (p. 7). On the other hand, this chapter focuses on the existence of modern theological resources for taking the face of God and human faces seriously, i.e. more materially and less metaphorically. These resources include books such as David Ford's Self and Salvation (1999), Roger Scruton's The Face of God (2012), Jürgen Moltmann's Sun of Righteousness, Arise (2010), Melissa Raphael's The Female Face of God in Auschwitz (2003), and LeRon Shults and Steven Sandage's The Faces of Forgiveness (2003). Pattison celebrates the fact that they, collectively, take important steps towards the restoration of the face of God to its earlier theological status, yet he believes that they do not do enough to alter existing practices. He notes, for example, that greater attention to shame as a visual and facially related emotion would have enabled them to offer insights and proposals for changing facially based practices (p. 147).

Thus, chapter 8 ‘outlines some of the theological horizons and questions that might allow for the emergence of a more practical theological approach to faces, human and divine’, and employs the image of ‘shining up the face of God’ to bring attention to ‘the mutual creation and recognition of faces shared between humans and God’ (p. 7). Aspects of oblivion, objectification and appearing are discussed in relation to shame and exclusion, with particular emphasis on facial interactions, and this discussion of the relationship of face to shame leads to consideration of the development of ‘more conscious and subtle ways of looking and engaging with faces so that we begin to gain more awareness of what the significance of our own and others’ faces might be’ (p. 165). Pattison suggests that he is offering here ‘a practical hermeneutics of face’. The chapter and the book itself conclude with several practical suggestions about looking at and taking in faces and persons, including (1) viewing faces and bodies as integral to persons, and not as adjuncts to be seen through and past; (2) avoiding the opposite tendency to overrate the significance of faces; and (3) developing ways of enhancing our appreciation of faces, which includes overcoming our prejudices and difficulties with faces of persons whose faces are deemed ugly, disfigured or in other ways problematic (p. 176). He acknowledges that these suggestions are somewhat vague and inadequate, but they are at least a step towards ‘developing better and more just ways of seeing and appreciating human faces’, and thereby ‘constructing and realizing the vision of the face of God witnessed to in important parts of Christian tradition’ (p. 178).

Pattison concludes that it is our vocation ‘to create spaces where we can appear to one another and to God so that God's face can appear to us’ (p. 177). It is perhaps somewhat ironic that he uses words to make the case that this is, indeed, our vocation, but I seriously doubt that there was any other viable way for him to make it. More importantly, he has succeeded in his goal of identifying a central problem in theology and practice (the neglect and alienation of faces), and by means of description, understanding and prescription, offering new perceptions and practices for addressing the problem, perceptions and practices which will manifest themselves in the acceptance and inclusion of faces, human and divine. Perhaps these perceptions and practices will foster our anticipation of our heavenly home by enabling us to be more at home in the world we presently inhabit.