This collection of essays is a worthy memorial to Dorothee Soelle (1929-2003), theologian, poet, political activist, mystic, church woman. The essays, submitted to the press before her sudden death on 27 April 2003, provide the first English-language volume of original essays analysing Soelle's work. The book opens with the funeral sermon, delivered by the Right Reverend Baerbel von Wartenberg-Potter, bishop of Nordelbien. This inspiring introduction to Soelle's life and spirit is followed by the editor's overview of Soelle's career and the structure of the book.

Dorothee Soelle was a remarkable woman, a pioneering figure who cannot be easily categorised. She was a German political theologian who grappled with the collective shame of Auschwitz, one who taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary in New York where she was influenced by the women's movement and became more consciously feminist. She was truly an international activist and scholar concerned for global economic justice, while as a contextual theologian she responded to very particular situations. She developed a ‘first world’ liberation theology in conversation with ‘third world’ struggles. This collection of essays allows the reader to meet this amazing woman.

The work is divided into five parts. In Part 1 we hear Soelle's own voice in three recent pieces newly translated into English by Barbara and Martin Rumscheidt. The titles reveal Soelle's passion: ‘The World Can Be Different’, an address delivered after September 11, 2001; ‘The Guarantor of Poor People's Rights’; and ‘Breaking the Ice of the Soul: Theology and Literature in Search of a New Language’.

The twelve commissioned essays that follow provide detailed analysis of Soelle's corpus.

Part 2, ‘New Forms of Theological Language’, explores Soelle's approach to biblical hermeneutics as presented by Luise Schottroff, her theology of prayer as seen by Andrea Bieler, and her use of poetry as key to contemporary God language considered by Martin Rumscheidt to be her special calling. For Soelle poetry is prayer, prayer is poetry.

Part 3, ‘Suffering and Redemption’, considers themes prominent in Soelle's theology. Drawing on trauma theory Flora Keshgegian presents a critical analysis of Soelle's theology of suffering. Dianne Oliver describes Soelle's christological vision, beginning with her early work, Christ the Representative. For Soelle the cross is a symbol of oppression and resistance throughout history. She understands the incarnation to be a continuing phenomenon. Our God is a God who suffers with humanity. Sarah Pinnock presents Soelle's postmodern response to suffering after Auschwitz. Soelle rejects theodicy, relocating discussion of evil and suffering to the level of narrative discourse.

Part 4, ‘Mysticism’, presents Soelle's appropriation of medieval women mystics as recounted by Christine Gudorf, her appropriation of Meister Eckhart as described by Nancy Hawkins, and the creation of her own mystical vision as analysed by Anne Llewellyn Barstow. For Soelle all true mysticism involves resistance. Her desire is that mysticism be ‘democratised’. Rather than seeing mysticism as the experience of a few privileged persons, Soelle saw that religion must incorporate mysticism or die. She experienced mysticism as the necessary grounding for everyday resistance to the alienation that surrounds us.

Part 5, ‘Theological Liberation’, presents three essays by American contemporaries of Soelle, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carter Heyward and Beverly Wildung Harrison, women who share Soelle's liberationist and feminist commitment. Ruether views Soelle as ‘one of the foremost theologians of the twentieth century’(p. 205). Carter Heyward sees Soelle as an important resource for Christians at the turn of the twenty-first century, one who provides ‘a theological language that reflects the actual lived experiences of countless men, women, and children whose spiritualities and politics are trivialized or rejected by those who see themselves to be guardians of Christian orthodoxy’ (pp. 222–3). Beverly Harrison considers Soelle as ‘a public theological voice, perhaps the first genuinely public theologian in the postmodern era’ (p. 242).

Pinnock acknowledges in her Introduction that the essays were written by authors who substantially agree with Soelle. She notes three probing questions that emerge from the essays: Does Soelle portray an overly ‘positive’ vision of faith? How is her work connected with other contemporary theologians and philosophers? Are there gaps in the development of her thought? Pinnock refers to the contributing authors who address these concerns. Throughout the book Soelle comes across as a prophetic Christian contextual theologian who responded to contemporary Christian moral apathy and secular indifference to injustice. As Pinnock points out Soelle followed her own muse. She rejected established patterns of theological writing, choosing what Beverly Harrison describes as a ‘“testimonial voice” in which Christian theology called us to and evoked a deeper humanity and an ongoing solidarity with real suffering in our actual historical moment’ (p. 247). This collection of essays allows us to hear this prophetic voice and encourages the reader to read or reread Soelle's own works.