Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins - Softcover

Peter Slade (editor)|Charles Marsh (editor)|Peter Goodwin Heltzel (editor)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1617038598 ISBN 13: 9781617038594

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2013

Synopsis

Born into a sharecropping family in New Hebron, Mississippi, in 1930, and only receiving a third-grade education, John M. Perkins has been a pioneering prophetic African American voice for reconciliation and social justice to America's white evangelical churches. Often an unwelcome voice and always a passionate, provocative clarion, Perkins persisted for forty-years in bringing about the formation of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA)-a large network of evangelical churches and community organizations working in America's poorest communities-and inspired the emerging generation of young evangelicals concerned with releasing the Church from its cultural captivity and oppressive materialism. John Perkins has received surprisingly little attention from historians of modern American religious history and theologians concerned with questions of race, justice, and reconciliation. In 2009, the Project on Lived Theology hosted academics and practitioners for its Spring Institute on Lived Theology (SILT) at the University of Virginia. This book project grew from the rich interdisciplinary conversations that took place as participants considered the significance of Perkins's life and work. Mobilizing for the Common Good is an exploration of the theological significance of John Perkins. With contributions from theologians, historians and activists, this book seeks to understand Perkins's life in theological and historical context. It contends that Perkins ushered in a paradigm shift in twentieth-century evangelical theology that continues to influence a growing movement of Christian community development projects and social justice activists today. Contributions from Michael Anders, Mae Cannon, Kelly West Figueroa-Ray, Lisa Sharon Harper, Paul Louis Metzger, A. G. Miller, Lowell Noble, Ted Ownby, Soong-Chan Rah, Chris Rice, Cheryl J. Sanders, Ronald J. Sider, Christian T. Collins Winn, and Lauren Winner

About this title

About the Author

Peter Slade, Ashland, Ohio, is an associate professor of religion at Ashland University. He is the author of Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and a Theology of Friendship.|Charles Marsh, Charlottesville, Virginia, is a professor of religious studies and the director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of multiple titles including Reclaiming Dietrich Bonheoffer: The Promise of His Theology.|Peter Goodwin Heltzel, New York, New York, is associate professor of theology and the director of the Micah Institute at New York Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics and Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation.

From the Back Cover

Essays on the famed activist and preacher, among the first to call for relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution in a post-civil rights America

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1617038598
• ISBN 13: 9781617038594
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240