Book Reviews

(Review: Theologians in Their Own Words. Edited by Derek R. Nelson, Joshua M Moritz, and Ted Peters.) [1] Teacher, social activist and womanist author bell hooks writes, “When professors bring narratives of their experiences into classroom discussions it eliminates the possibility that we can function as all-knowing, silent interrogators. It is often productive if professors […]

John Carlson (an ethicist) and Jonathan Ebel (a historian) have brought together a rich collection of essays examining the intersection of religion and violence in America. An early goal of this book was “to show that September 11th was not the United States’ first experience with religion and violence,” through the expertise of scholars writing from within their own disciplines. They discovered that this multidisciplinary approach also brought “new and compelling insights into the complex historical and moral legacy of the United States.”

Instead of focusing his project narrowly on the hot-button sacredness-of-life topics, Gushee comes at the topic more broadly: “If any human life is sacred, every human life is sacred” (3). The sacredness of human life, in this construal, is not simply a religious conviction held only by Christians or certain kinds of philosophers but an ancient conviction of most cultures, period.

[1] In her recent and important book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness (reviewed in this issue), attorney Michelle Alexander calls for a movement on par with the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century in order to overturn the damage caused by the unprecedented incarceration of large portions of […]

​[1] The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world; more people are incarcerated in this country, as a percentage of the population, than in any other nation.[1] The prison population in the U.S. has quadrupled since 1980.[2] Currently, 2.2 million people are incarcerated in prisons and jails in the U.S.[3] In terms […]

[1] The very heart of Christopher Marshall’s latest book, Compassionate Justice, explores two beloved parables in which the main characters are “moved by compassion” to show mercy and do justice. As with Beyond Retribution, Marshall eloquently juxtaposes detailed exegesis with insight into the theory and rich religious underpinnings of restorative justice in modern legal systems. […]

[1] Whenever an author’s work is reviewed by an academic peer, a measure of collegial respect and thanks should be registered. This is so because the art of the book review (when offered with integrity, sincerity and a good critical eye) advances important discussions and debates related to human survival, justice seeking and flourishing. I […]

[1] The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-Incarceration presents a rare, unflinching, and provocative confrontation of White Catholic complicity in the contemporary U.S. scourge of mass incarceration. Catholic theologians Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Margaret Pfeil (after an incisive foreword written by Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame) offer with this text […]

[1] Moral Issues and Christian Responses is a very comprehensive and practical one-volume introduction to the field of Christian ethics. This version, updated from their 2002 edition, brings together many of the well-known thinkers in the field from a wide variety of perspectives. Likewise it also covers the range of hot ethical topics of general […]

[1] Andrew Sung Park is one of a handful of theologians in the U.S. who have tried to bring the Korean understanding of han into Christian doctrine. He is a Korean-American theologian who thinks that in order for Christianity to become more intelligible, it must rely upon non-Western sources as well as Western ones. [2] […]