The compelling legacy of William Stringfellow was set in motion when the great German theologian Karl Barth, who met Stringfellow on a panel discussion at the University of Chicago in 1962, turned to the audience and pronounced, You should listen to this man! Many have done just that. This collection of essays honoring the life and work of William Stringfellow, who was for thirty years an activist lawyer and widely read theologian, points up recurring themes in Stringfellow's theology, recounts the experiences of colleagues and friends, and focuses on the legal profession. The following are the well-known lawyers, theologians, and social activists contributing to this volume: Walter Wink, Stanley Hauerwas, Jeff Powell, Elizabeth McAlister, Mel Schoonover, Andrew W. McThenia Jr., Bill Wylie Kellermann, Mary Lou Suhor, Jim Wallis, Daniel Berrigan, Thomas L. Schaffer, Emily Fowler Hartigan, Edward McGlynn Gaffney Jr., and Milner S. Ball

Since the 1973 publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s groundbreaking work A Theology of Liberation, liberation theology's central premise of the preferential option for the poor has become one of the most important yet controversial theological themes of the twentieth century. As the situation for many of the world’s poor worsens, it becomes ever more important to ensure that the option for the poor remains not only a vibrant theological concept but also a practical framework for living out the gift and challenge of Christian faith. The Preferential Option for the Poor beyond Theology draws on a diverse group of contributors to explore how disciplines as varied as law, economics, politics, the environment, science, liberal arts, film, and education can help us understand putting a commitment to the option for the poor into practice. The central focus of the book revolves around the question: How can one live a Christian life in a world of destitution? The contributors address the theological concept of the option for the poor as well as the ways it can shape our social, economic, political, educational, and environmental approaches to poverty. Their creative examples serve as an inspiration to all those who are seeking to put their talents at the service of human need and the building of a more just and humane world.

This volume, which fills a gap in the current literature, will be essential reading for third-year undergraduates and above in Biblical studies.

'Moral Memoranda from John Howard Yoder: Conversations on Law, Ethics and the Church between a Mennonite Theologian and a Hoosier Lawyer' compiles fifteen years of advice and comment on law and government in the United States from a leading theologian who was as prominent for the wisdom he offered to mainline Christians as he was a resource and teacher within his own Mennonite Church. This volume of letters, notes, and essays combines deep understanding of Professor Yoder's Anabaptist tradition with insightful, sometimes wry, observation on modern American Catholicism, and an occasionally caustic but more often open, inquiring interest in law, lawyers, and legal education.

Examines sagas from the Bible and how they shed light on the practice of law and on meaning of life in the legal profession.

This unique theological biography traces the emergence of William Stringfellow's theology and the place of biblical politics within it. It highlights the centrality of life and work to his theology, and the inseparability of one from another. It tells the story of an ordinary life made less ordinary, radicalized through becoming a biblical person. Amidst periods in America of threat and prosperity (1950s), and later dissent and protest (1960s), Dancer examines not only how Stringfellow held America to account, but the way in which he offered a hopeful alternative in which the place of the Bible and the world were both central. It explores the way Stringfellow learned that the Bible makes sense of us and not us of it. This is biblical politics--a radicalizing, organizing engagement with the person and the world of which the church seems to sadly have lost both sight and interest.The advocacy of Karl Barth, his love of the circus, his scholarship to LSE, the National Conference on Religion and Race, his love for his parable of hope, Anthony Towne, and his prophetic confrontation with Johnson's "Great Society," all offer clues and insights into this radicalizing force at work in his life. Yet it was a life-threatening illness and personal confrontation with death in many ways became the final point of radicalization that lead to the production of Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land-ethics as pertinent to today as they are to any age.

Who was William Stringfellow? Like most prophets, he was brilliant. But he was also, like most prophets, difficult, irascible, suspicious, contentious--and full of courage. He was a lawyer, a social activist, and a dedicated communicant of the Episcopal Church. He graduated from Harvard Law School in the 1950s but put aside the promise of a lucrative career and went to work in East Harlem, one of New York City's poorest neighborhoods. At the height of the Vietnam War, he took the Reverend Daniel Berrigan into his home and was indicted for harboring a fugitive. In the 1970s, while the Episcopal Church was struggling with such issues as the ordination of women and the funding of programs for minorities, he accused the ecclesiastical hierarchy of arrogance, duplicity, and lack of leadership. Everything William Stringfellow said and did was grounded in his profound belief in the Incarnation and the Eschaton. He knew Jesus Christ to be the Word of God, who is in all things and who challenges the powers and principalities of this world, calling people and institutions to repentance and newness of life. In Prophet of Justice, Prophet of Life editor Robert Boak Slocum has gathered a diverse group of clergy, legal scholars, and seminary faculty to produce this stimulating and provocative series of essays on the life and work of William Stringfellow.

Linking critical legal thinking to constitutional scholarship and a practical tradition of US lawyering that is orientated around anti-poverty activism, this book offers an original, revisionist account of contemporary jurisprudence, legal theory and legal activism. The book argues that we need to think in terms of a much broader inheritance for critical legal thinking that derives from the social ethics of the progressive era, new left understandings of "creative democracy" and radical theology. To this end, it puts jurisprudence and legal theory in touch with recent scholarship on the American left and, indeed, with attempts to recover the legacies of progressive era thinking, the civil rights struggle and the Great Society. Focusing on the theory and practice of poverty law in the period stretching from the mid-1960s to the present day, the book argues that at the heart of both critical and liberal thinking is an understanding of the lawyer as an ethical actor: inspired by faith or politics to appreciate the potential and limits of law in the struggle against economic inequality.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO SEMINARY PROFESSORS LEAVE their classrooms and spend time among the homeless people and teach on city streets? In this unique collection of essays and sermons, Stanley P Saunders and Charles L. Campbell reflect on their encounters with the homeless folks in Atlanta and seek to discern the way of Jesus on the streets of the city. These passionate, often moving writings demonstrate the power of Scripture to shape the way we see the world, and they explore the significance of social location for exegesis, ethics, worship, and preaching. From the perspective of the street, central Christian practices such as baptism, Eucharist, and preaching come to life in new ways. Scripture takes on fresh meaning too, while ancient insights into the principalities and powers, the practice of scapegoating, and the organization of households become contemporary and immediate. Even theological themes--grace and discipleship, sin and forgiveness, crucifixion and resurrection--look different when take to the street. Accented by six powerful artworks from Christina Bray's exhibit Street Prayers/Spiritual Journeys, this book also sheds light on the problem of homelessness in America and calls the church to action. Through their reflection on personal experiences and their interpretation of biblical texts, Saunders and Campbell provide meaningful theological categories for addressing pressing social issues in the urban context, making The Word on the Street a helpful resource on the realities of poverty, race, and injustice.