In 1983, the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s landmark book Until Justice and Peace Embrace was published by Eerdmans to the praise of scholars and practitioners in the United States and throughout the global church.  Originally delivered as the 1981 Kuyper Lectures at the Free University of Amsterdam, the book mines the resources of the Dutch Reformed, neo-Calvinist tradition to address contemporary challenges and conflicts in Christian faith and practice. 

“Now forty years after its publication, does Until Justice and Peace Embrace still speak to our times?” Dr. Mark Gornik asks in a recent essay, which we are delighted to share. 

Gornik answers in the affirmative. Wolterstorrf’s enduring significance is his crafting of a political theology and a piety rooted in grace – “and a project of hope marked by struggle to continually hear and live the Word in and for changing times.”

Mark Gornik is the director of City Seminary of New York. He has spent his life as a pastor, community developer, teacher, and scholar of world Christianity. His 2005 book Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City, originally appeared as his doctoral dissertation at the University of Edinburgh, and it was revised for publication during his fellowship with the PLT Virginia Seminar.

Dr. Gornik also contributed a deeply personal and moving essay on the late Allan Tibbels in our recent volume People Get Ready! Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.