Reviewed Book: Dorrien, Gary J. Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990

Cole-Arnal, Oscar

English

Scholars Commons

Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 21Issue 2 Aspects of Ecumenity Article 1211-1-1995Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology andthe Social OrderOscar Cole-ArnalFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationCole-Arnal, Oscar (1995) "Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order," Consensus: Vol. 21 : Iss. 2 , Article 12.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol21/iss2/12Book Reviews 121Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and theSocial OrderGary J. DorrienMaryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1990viii + 222 pp.Dear Gary,I write this review in the form of a letter because my purpose is thatof dialogue between brothers. My concerns with your book are not chieflyintellectual. Instead my issues are those of faith and militancy. I too am aChristian as well as a democratic socialist, and I too am concerned aboutpraxis or what the Capuchin radicals call a “theology of the feet”.From a positive standpoint your book makes a significant contributionto the necessary alliance-building required by the theological left if it isgoing to make a more significant contribution to North American Chris-tianity. Further, you do a service by your biographical cameos which helpto resurrect the tradition of Christian socialism. Indeed, I am grateful thatyou have spent some time in grounding these figures in the incarnation oftheir own activism or lack of it. By doing this you are helping to keepthis movement alive in hard times. Your incorporation of feminist socialistChristians in the last chapter was especially useful. All in all, you havedone a fine job in advocating democratic socialism from a Christian per-spective, and you have been open in your criticism of those theologians youhave sought to link together.In spite of these fine qualities I have some serious reservations about thebook. Your reasons for choosing some theologians over others strikes me ashaphazard. For example, why not pick Dorothee Soelle over Jurgen Molt-mann? She is a feminist; she has spent more time in North America; andshe is a more militant democratic socialist than Moltmann. In fact, I amperplexed by your choice of professional intellectuals exclusively when youhave so many choices of socialist Christians who acted and then reflectedon their actions—Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr.to name a few. In short, your book seems a bit thought and idea oriented;that is, it reproduces the old style theology of a professional academic elite.My. second critique is the suggestion that your book reproduces muchof the prejudices of American democratic socialism with respect to com-munism. I hasten to add that I share much of your criticism about Soviettyranny and imperialism, yet I refuse to continue uttering the shibbolethsand glittering generalities hurled against communism by the standard “red-baiters” of your country and mine. Communism, even in the years of theThird International, was never a monolith. This has been especially trueafter World War II. In third world countries the socioeconomic gains ofcommunist regimes are to be commended, and the record of Eurocommu-nism in the 1970s is better than the continuing tired compromises of the122 Consensuswestern socialist parties including the two to which I have belonged (theD.S.O.C. and the New Democratic Party).In conclusion, I welcome your book. I see it as a positive contributionto a Christian vision that I espouse personally and that needs to be heardin the middle class mainline churches to which we belong. Solidarity!Oscar Cole ArnalWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryCut Loose Your Stammering Tongue: Black Theologyin the Slave NarrativesDwight N. Hopkins and George Cummings, editorsMaryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1991165 pp.The reputation of Orbis Books as a publisher of texts actively commit-ted to the liberation of people from oppression is enhanced by the printingof this excellent work. Initially the firm was dedicated chiefly to the pub-lication of translations of Latin American liberation theology. Increasinglyits presses are turning out books geared primarily to the North Americanscene. In the case of Cut Loose Your Stammering Tongue we see a powerfulattempt by radical black theology to link up with its roots in the black slaveculture of the United States. As a white middle class male Christian I rec-ognize my inability to deal with this work in all its profundity. Nonetheless,I can still offer it praise and laud its pioneering contribution to an area ofhistorical recovery critical to a church history determined to resurrect theradical and grass-roots character of the Christian gospel.There is a movement afoot which examines popular religion in all itsvariegated facets both in the United States and Canada. It is often soci-ological and descriptive, but its agenda remains vague and uncommitted.Once again we are witnessing history done from a distance and for its ownsake. Such is not the case with this book. The editors make their pointswith clarity. Their work is a process of “learning from the liberating faiththat comes out of the actual mouths of the poor”,a faith that compels blacktheologians to honour “the struggle for black liberation and full humanity”and “to mediate and privilege poor people’s silenced voices” (p. xv).They fulfill this task admirably. Not only do they uphold rigorous andscholarly methods, but they also provide a forum and structure wherebythe ex-slaves are able to articulate the faith held while they were in chains.The old notion that white Christianity enchained the slave culture withremarkable success is challenged by this work. There seems to be no doubtthat the white slave-owning elites sought to use the faith in this way, buttheir efforts were mostly in vain. In fact, the slaves used a powerful blend

https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1672&amp;context=consensus

Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Scholars Commons

Wilfrid Laurier University