Chicago Catholics and the Quest for Interracial Justice

In One in Christ, Karen J. Johnson tells the story of Catholic interracial activism through the lives of a group of women and men in Chicago who struggled with one another, their Church, and their city to try to live their Catholic faith in a new way. It started when black activists joined with a handful of white laypeople who believed in their vision of a universal church in the segregated city, and began to fight to make that vision a reality. In the end, not only had Catholic activists lived out their faith as active participants in the long civil rights movement and learned how to cooperate across racial lines, but they had changed the practice of Catholicism. They broke down the hierarchy that placed priests above the laity and crossed the parish boundaries that defined urban Catholicism. In this book, Johnson shows the ways religion and race combined both to enforce racial hierarchies and to tear them down, and demonstrates that we cannot understand race and civil rights in the North without accounting for religion.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Karen J. Johnson’s One in Christ has it all: white versus black and white with black; Catholic versus Protestant and Catholic with Protestant; Catholic versus Catholic and Catholic with Catholic. Widely researched, analyzed with precision, and focused on the magical messiness of everyday life, this book is necessary reading for anyone interested in race, religion, and justice in the past and present.”—Edward J. Blum, co-author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America

“Karen J. Johnson has made a remarkable contribution to scholarship on interracial civil rights activism in the Northern United States. One in Christ is balanced in its attention to clergy and laity, and innovative in its intersectional placement of religion, race, gender, sexuality, class, and place at the heart of its analysis. Rigorous and passionate in its research and presentation, One in Christ will be appreciated as a cornerstone achievement in the history of the Catholic interracial justice movement.”—Omar M. McRoberts, author of Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood

“A tour de force. One in Christ takes us into the streets and parishes of Catholic Chicago, richly exploring the much understudied work of the laity-particularly women-in shaping, defining, and acting for interracial unity and justice. In a delightfully engaging text, Johnson draws us into the messiness of human interaction for change and resistance during the long civil rights movement of the 1930s to the 1960s. Her findings and interpretations have deep meaning for our current times. A must read for anyone wanting to understand civil rights and racial change.”—Michael O. Emerson, author of Divided by Faith, United by Faith, and Transcending Racial Barriers

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis

In The Year of Our Lord 1943, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of five Christian intellectuals who wrote about what the world would look like after World War 2. It had become a common thought among Christian intellectuals that the Allies were not culturally or morally prepared for their success, and a war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. Jacobs has now brought all of these writings into one coherent narrative, as each person presents their views of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies.

Although all five thinkers worked separately, they developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. In this book, Jacobs masterfully shows why they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Alan Jacob’s prose wears immense learning lightly, with great grace and to great effect. To think alongside these writers, under Jacobs’s stage direction, to hear them across a gap of three-quarters of a century think with gravity and sincerity, pondering the nature of the human soul, palpably straining toward the ideal of the common good, feeling the pull of their religion’s perennial pitfalls, in a situation and language different from and yet not wholly unlike our own, is riveting, challenging, and life-giving.”—Lori Branch, author of Rituals of Spontaneity

“Alan Jacobs has written an elegant and deeply learned book on Christian humanism in the critical years of the Second World War. He opens a window into some of the most luminous and profound thinking about the nature and possibilities of civilization during those troubled years. By doing so, has opened a window for thinking about our own troubled times.”—James D. Hunter, author of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World

“Jacobs seems to have written this with an eye to the time between the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the events of 9/11, when it seemed that democracy had finally achieved peace, only to find it widely rejected. His look at how these five figures struggled with similar turns of events is worth pondering.” —Library Journal

For more information on the publication, click here.

Alan Jacobs is a distinguished professor of the humanities in the honors program at Baylor University. His work revolves around multiple interests, primarily literature, theology and technology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement

In If Your Back’s Not Bent, Dorothy F. Cotton, the only woman in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s inner circle, gives her account of the hugely important Citizenship Education Program. The CEP was an adult grassroots training program for disenfranchised citizens created by  the Tennessee Highlander Folk School, expanded by King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and directed by activist Dorothy Cotton. Although this program was critical in preparing citizens to protest peacefully in the face of violence and hatred from others, it is often called the best-kept secret of the civil rights movement due to the media silence at the time and the lack of coverage in history courses today. Cotton aims to change that, detailing CEP training and how the program changed its participants for the better, inspiring them to go and change the country. A timely account of fighting inequality, If Your Back’s Not Bent shows how the CEP was key to the civil rights movement’s success and how the lessons of the program can serve our troubled democracy now.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Dorothy Cotton has given us the story of the heart and lungs of the Freedom Struggle.”– Otis Moss, Jr.

“Dorothy Cotton is an inspiration to so many. We should all pay close attention to her story.”– Ben Jealous, former NAACP President and CEO

“Dorothy Cotton was as crucial to the Movement as was King, Abernathy and Shuttlesworth in her dogged preparation of the ‘troops.’”– Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, Pastor Emeritus of Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of Christ

“Cotton’s Citizenship Education Program taught ordinary people, most importantly, that they could change both themselves and America.”– Betty DeRamus, author of Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad and Freedom by Any Means

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Radical Christians and Nonviolent Power in the Antebellum United States

Identifying the Image of God, by Dan McKanan, traces the development of a theology of nonviolence in the popular literature of antebellum social reform movements. Between 1820 and 1860, American social reformers pioneered a “politics of identification” that was deeply rooted in liberal Christian theology. Activists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, along with sentimental authors like Catharine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe, drew on the doctrine of the imago dei, or image of God, to argue that God is present both in the victims of violence and in those who use nonviolent means to overcome oppression. Proponents of the new theology can be characterized as “radical Christian liberals.” McKanan explores these roots through the literature of social reform, focusing on sentimental novels, temperance tales, and slave narratives, and invites contemporary activists to revive the “politics of identification.”

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Identifying the Image of God is extraordinarily persuasive in arguing that the imago dei was crucial to the sentimental structure of feeling.”—American Literature

“McKanan excavates a radical liberal Christian theology beneath antebellum reform…presents a convincing case that such antebellum reformers as William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clarke Wright, and Adin Ballou embraced a radical liberal Christian theology.”—American Historical Review

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump

Many people have attempted to use Bonhoeffer to advance or justify their own views in American politics, with secular, radical, liberal, and evangelical interpreters variously shaping the martyr’s legacy to suit their own pet agendas. In The Battle for Bonhoeffer, Stephen Haynes, a recognized Bonhoeffer expert, sets out to offer a clarifying perspective. Haynes examines and analyzes “populist” readings of Bonhoeffer, including the election of Donald Trump and the “Bonhoeffer moment” announced by evangelicals in response to the US Supreme Court’s 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In addition to the analyses, Haynes includes an open letter addressed to Christians who still support Trump, showing that Bonhoeffer’s legacy matters.

For more information on the publication, click here.

Stephen R. Haynes is a professor of religious studies at Rhodes College, where his research interests include Jewish-Christian relations, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and religion and higher education.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community, Expanded Edition

In Welcoming Justice, authors Charles Marsh and John M. Perkins attempt to chronicle God’s vision for a more equitable and just world by reflecting on their own pasts as well as America’s past as a whole. Perkins looks back on his long ministry and identifies key themes and lessons he has learned, while Marsh highlights the legacy of Perkins’s work in our society. Together they show how abandoned places are being restored, divisions are being reconciled, and what individuals and communities are doing now to welcome peace and justice. Now updated to reflect on current social realities, this book reveals ongoing lessons for the continuing struggle for a just society by taking a look at lessons from the past.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“For years, John Perkins and Charles Marsh have been two of our most important figures in the discussion—and pursuit—of reconciliation. Now, from their passion for justice, their love of the gospel, and their friendship with one another, comes this gem, which may be the most important book either of them has written yet.”—Lauren F. Winner, author of Wearing God

“Growing up in a Korean American immigrant church context, I did not hear the name John Perkins all that often. Since those early years, I have made a concerted effort to learn as much as possible about the work of one of the most important American Christian voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book provides important insights into the life, testimony, theology and ministry of John Perkins. It is both a work of inspiration and a work of history (reflecting the leanings of the dual authors) that must be read by any student or practitioner of social justice ministry. The book provides novices, faithful servants and even the weary laborers the inspiration to persevere in God’s kingdom work. John Perkins and Charles Marsh provide for us a view of compassion, mercy, and justice ministry that needs to be heeded in the context of a new evangelicalism in North America.”—Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism, North Park Theological Seminary, author of Prophetic Lament

For more information on the publication, click here.

John M. Perkins is a leader and major figure of the civil rights movement of the 1960s who founded Voice of Calvary Ministries, a Christian community development ministry, with his wife, Vera Mae. 

Charles Marsh is the Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and the director of the Project on Lived Theology. His research interests include modern Christian thought, religion and civil rights, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and lived theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

A Discussion of Moral Charisma

In Defense of Charisma, by Vincent W. Lloyd, attempts to discuss moral charisma by bringing together insights from politics, ethics, and religion with reflections on contemporary culture. Although charisma is viewed as an unstable source of authority, and not often used in contemporary politics, Lloyd argues that charisma is still flourishing today in multiple aspects of society. Lloyd also distinguishes between authoritarian charisma, which furthers the interests of the powerful, and democratic charisma, which prompts observers to ask new questions and discover new possibilities. Drawing from classical texts as well as recent tweets from the Black Lives Matter movement, In Defense of Charisma challenges readers to turn away from the blinding charisma of celebrities toward the humbler moral charisma of the neighbor, colleague, or relative.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“In this wonderfully provocative book, Vincent Lloyd explores the theory and practice of charisma in their kaleidoscopically varied forms. Ranging through literary and philosophical and theological texts, through movies and TV and Twitter, through proclamations and arguments and performances, he shows us a big world of ideas. After reading this book I find myself seeing the effects of charisma everywhere. A truly remarkable work of humanistic scholarship, In Defense of Charisma is also a great deal of fun.”—Alan Jacobs, author of The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography

“What is charisma and can it be used well? In this book, Vincent Lloyd offers creative and important reflections for our networked age.”—Cathleen Kaveny, Libby Professor of Law and Theology, Boston College

“In In Defense of Charisma, Vincent Lloyd elucidates a compelling and unique definition of democratic charisma as something overlooked and valuable. It is overlooked partly because it is fleeting, partly because it is overshadowed by the more widely understood and unappealing concept of authoritarian charisma. Democratic charisma gives us an innovative angle on a central concept and could enter the mainstream of discussion in multiple disciplines, perhaps even broader consciousness.”—Mark Roche, University of Notre Dame

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics

In Moral Combat, historian R. Marie Griffith studies the history of the views that many American Christians have on divisive political issues such as Gay marriage, transgender rights, and birth control–sex. Griffith argues that these modern disagreements were started in the 1920s, when liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion. People on both sides of the debate turned to politics to pursue their moral vision for the nation, creating factions we can still see at work today. In this book, Griffith shows how the Christian consensus on sex unraveled, and how this unraveling has made our political battles over sex so ferocious and so intractable.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“The story Griffith tells is crucial…. Her contribution is part of a much-needed sex education, and like all good teachers she presents it vividly.”—Linda Gordon, New Republic

“For those of us wondering how the United States got to be the way it is today–religiously, sexually, and politically–Moral Combat is essential reading. R. Marie Griffith, a distinguished historian of American religion, shows that the fierce and bitter contests among Christians in the twentieth century over good religion vs. bad religion, good sex vs. bad sex, have been and remain at the core of the most explosive issues of American public life. Women’s health, African American civil rights, marriage, the cruel fantasy of white supremacy, workplace behavior, the public reputation of science, and more–God and sex are implicated in all of them. The United States is not a God-obsessed nation, as some would have it; it is a God-and-sex-obsessed nation. And the stakes are high: at the heart of this brilliant work of religious and political history is the question of the future of American democracy itself.”—Robert A. Orsi, author of History and Presence

“Thoughtful study of the great schism between religious conservatives and progressives about women’s control over their own bodies.”—Kirkus Reviews

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist

In this new biography, historian Marcus Rediker, author of Many-Headed Hydra and Slave Ship, documents one of the most idiosyncratic figures in eighteenth-century America, abolitionist Benjamin Lay. Lay was a Quaker dwarf who lived in a cave-like home and was known for his dramatic protests against slavery, once kidnapping the child of a slaveholder to demonstrate the evil of separating families. Lay’s zealous witness against slavery put him into conflict with wealthy slaveholders and many of his fellow Quakers, but it also won him the respect of allies like Benjamin Franklin. Rediker demonstrates how Lay’s Christianity and Quakerism informed his radicalism and inspired a later generation of abolitionists.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“A modern biography of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay has long been overdue. With the sure hand of an eminent historian of the disfranchised, Marcus Rediker has brought to life the wide-ranging activism of this extraordinary Quaker, vegetarian dwarf in a richly crafted book. In fully recovering Lay’s revolutionary abolitionist vision, Rediker reveals its ongoing significance for our world.”—Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

“Lay, a lover of books, would have appreciated this one, less for the praise lavished on him than the attention given his message. As Mr. Rediker says, ‘Benjamin’s prophecy speaks to our time.”—The Pittsburgh Post–Gazette

“The unswerving eighteenth-century abolitionist Benjamin Lay, maligned when not ignored for many generations, has at last found his sympathetic biographer. In this captivating, must-read book, Marcus Rediker shows that Lay’s disfigured body contained a mind of steel and a heart overflowing with compassion for victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Lay’s place in the annals of American reform is now secure. If you’re ready to have your mind changed about received wisdom on the eccentric, lonely early abolitionist who blazed the way for later antislavery stalwarts, read this brilliantly researched and passionately written book.”—Gary Nash, author of Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist

For more information on the publication, click here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.