Take & read: New books in practical theology

The confluence of pastoral, prophetic, and political theology animates much of the most exciting recent work in the field. How can we live faithfully in the context of social and political systems that promote white supremacy and prize financial gain over care for the common good? What does ministry mean in the context of these systematic realities? In Radical Discipleship: A Liturgical Politics of the Gospel (Fortress), Jennifer M. McBride takes on such larger questions with gusto, writing out of the conviction that lived theology involves “placing oneself in situations of social concern as one responds to Jesus’ call to follow him there.”

McBride bases her account on her 2008 postdoctoral fellowship year at Emory University, where she led the theology certificate program at a women’s prison in Atlanta, Georgia, while simultaneously participating in Atlanta’s Open Door Community, a 35-year-old intentional Christian community that works to reduce the distance between people across socioeconomic and racial lines. McBride offers an extended liturgical narrative, stretching from Advent through Pentecost, in which she reflects on the meaning of discipleship in the midst of her daily rounds. She includes an important account of mass incarceration in the United States, along with particular prisoners’ stories of their lives, their hopes, and their fears. She asks, what does the hope of Advent or the peace of Christmas mean behind bars?

Bringing her experiences of prison teaching and community life into conversation with the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr., McBride defines discipleship as the embodied commitment to follow Jesus into the places where people suffer. This involves drawing near to prisoners and homeless persons, in order to reduce the social, material, and spiritual distances that poverty, racism, homelessness, and the criminal justice system impose. The day-by-day reflective tone of the writing models a kind of integrated, thoughtful faith for our times. McBride gains the courage to connect across social boundaries through her relationship to the Open Door, a spiritual community that engages in sustained and rigorous social analysis along with equally thorough theological reflection.