Reviewed Book: Shaull, Richard. The Reformation and Liberation Theology: Insights for the Challenges of Today. Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991

Cole-Arnal, Oscar

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Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 19Issue 1 Martin Luther and Spirituality Article 165-1-1993The Reformation and Liberation Theology:Insights for the Challenges of TodayOscar 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 (1993) "The Reformation and Liberation Theology: Insights for the Challenges of Today," Consensus: Vol. 19 : Iss. 1, Article 16.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol19/iss1/16180 ConsensusThe Reformation and Liberation Theology: Insightsfor the Challenges of TodayRichard ShaullLouisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991U.S. $11.95The work of Richard Shaull is especially vital in western middle-classculture today. Whether in Canada, the United States, Japan or westernEurope, ruling economic and political elites are joining in a global effort tomaximize profits at the expense of justice issues. In our own society theyare utilizing massive manipulative advertising to encourage the affluent andrelatively affluent to fulfil their needs by buying consumer products be theymaterial or emotional. Meanwhile, social welfare legislation and labourunions are being undermined in the name of “global competition”. Whatdoes the Christian church have to say to all this? Can it offer any messagebeyond a more religious version of “cocooning” which is so appealing to themiddle-class sectors of our culture? Richard Shaull, in his published books,holds that the church can and must offer an alternative answer to theseforces in our culture. For him, being true to the Gospel means offeringand living a response which draws from the experience of Latin Americanliberation theology.However, in The Reformation and Liberation Theology he adds anotherdimension to his vision. This time he appeals directly to those churches,including his own, which embody the heritage of the Protestant Reforma-tion. He is convinced that what sixteenth-century Protestant movements !experienced is captured today by the radical Christian base communities ofLatin America and elsewhere. The book has its weaknesses. Sometimes it |falls into the trap of broad generalizations without providing the requisitenuancing, and at other times, the reader could use more information.However, such imperfections are hardly devastating to the overwhelm-ingly solid character of the book. First of all, it is exceedingly well written.It is terse, clear and inspiring. Its design ensures the possibility of wideusage—from church study groups to seminary classrooms. Also, he recap-tures the spirit and history of Protestantism in two ways: (1) he summarizesvery effectively the enduring and major motifs of historic Protestant revolt;(2) he recaptures for sacred memory and usage the fundamentally revolu-tionary character of Protestantism both in its principles and in its differentmanifestations. This second contribution is habitually ignored by a Protes-tant tradition grown comfortable with the status quo. As well, the authoris profoundly ecumenical. On the one hand, he does not use the Refor-mation against Catholicism, nor does he use it to prop up any moribundProtestant traditions. On the other hand, he does not dismiss the Anabap-tist heritage, a practice so common in mainline Protestantism. Instead, helauds that revolutionary tradition and calls on Protestant communions ofall kinds to resurrect the heritage of the Radical Reformation.Book Reviews 181In fact, the last two chapters of the book dealing with the Anabaptistsmay be the best section of the book. Above all, Shaull’s book is a workof partisan advocacy. He is not calling upon Protestants to celebrate theirheritage in quiet and safety. He is calling for a new Reformation involvingdiscipleship under the cross for the sake of the oppressed and marginal-ized. All Christians, Protestant or otherwise, need to hear his propheticchallenge. His own words bear rich testimony to that biblical commission:Committed Christians are citizens of another world. The state isthe realm of power and domination; the church, a community oflove and service. The function of the church in society is not tolegitimate these structures of power but to be a prophetic voice,exposing their injustice and corruption. The church is not orientedtoward the high and mighty and the conquest of prestige and powerbut toward the poor and marginal people of the world and an effortto raise them up. Never completely at home in this world, it lives“in the wilderness,” a pilgrim people witnessing to the future reignof God (113).Oscar Cole ArnalWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryMessianic Ethics. Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdomof God and the Church in ResponseBen WiebeWaterloo, Ontario and Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press,1992223 pp.Ben Wiebe, a pastor and university lecturer, has set himself the taskof examining the central significance of the kingdom of God as proclaimedby Jesus. Did Jesus wish to underline the decisive activity of God, or thehuman ethical response? Did he address his ethics primarily to the individ-ual or was he concerned about the wider issues of justice and community?These are the major questions to be explored.The author places his discussion in historical perspective by illustratingin chapter one how scholars in the past have differed in their assessment ofthe ethics of Jesus. From Ritschl to Bultmann, the Kingdom of God hasbeen interpreted as a realm introduced solely at the initiative of God, asa society realized in Christian ethical action in the present, or even as anexperience in the human heart. The ethics associated with the Kingdom,accordingly, has been regarded as an integral part of life in the kingdom, oras intended only for an interim period preceding the soon to be expectedarrival of the kingdom. It has been characterized as an individual ethics bysome, and as a community ethics by others.

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