This is the book we have been waiting for, whether we realised it or not. Those of us who have been dismayed by the ineffectiveness of public theology and/or have been exhausted by the backlash against gender equality will find that Carbine here proffers a compelling and inspiring path towards a reenergised and thoroughly feminist public theology. Insightfully analysing the failure of many public theologies to fully challenge the status quo, this book develops an alternative, more capacious and genuinely countercultural approach to public theology. Moreover, Carbine does not merely delineate a new theological method, important though this contribution is. She also presents concrete examples of socio-political movements that embody her approach to public theology, detailing how they incorporate but expand beyond a narrowly academic approach as they recreate public life through practices of solidarity.
Carbine’s first two chapters are impressively thorough in their assessment of the strengths and limitations of discursive public theology (in the first chapter) and of the trajectory of feminist theology (in the second chapter). She adeptly identifies the shortcomings of an anaemic and exclusionary public theology that focuses on rational discourse (and which is especially ineffective when reasoned debate has little to do with political policies). She then provides a theological analysis of the contributions of feminist, womanist and mujerista theologians, demonstrating that, in addition to providing more adequate interpretations of central Christian doctrines, these theologies are inherently public in their methods and concerns. Bringing her astute analyses of public and feminist theologies together, Carbine convincingly defends a feminist public theology that combines rhetorical, symbolic and prophetic practices not only to critique social injustice but also to do the ‘ekklesial’ work of creating communities of equality and solidarity. Challenging yet again the divide between theory and praxis, Carbine clearly demonstrates that it is not enough for public theology merely to argue for better public policies: public theologians must also engage in the work of creating the more inclusive and just communities we desire.
The remaining five chapters analyse the rhetorical, symbolic and prophetic practices developed and deployed in various 20th- and 21st-century religiously based social justice movements in the United States. These movements include the Catholic Worker Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the Poor People’s Campaign, the United Farm Workers’ Movement and the New Sanctuary Movement, the Plowshares Movement and the more recent work of ‘Green Nuns’ and ‘Nuns on the Bus.’ In each of these cases, Carbine presents a brief history of the movement before turning to an illuminating analysis of the movement’s use of rhetorical practices (including theology and story-telling), often religiously rooted symbolic practices (such as voluntary poverty, pilgrimages and fasting) and prophetic practices identifying and opposing injustice. These movements thus interrupt an oppressive status quo while also doing the genuinely sacramental work of constituting the liberating and inclusive relationships that are a foretaste of the reign of God.
Even though, as Carbine contends, aspects of official Catholic teaching and practice discount the possibility of women doing this ekklesial work of public theology, she reminds us of the fact that women have been and continue to be important and effective public theologians, especially as leaders and co-leaders of these various movements. Dorothy Day, Dolores Huerta, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Liz Theoharis, Elizabeth McAlister, Sr. Simone Campbell and the ‘green nuns’ are among the women who emerge here as dynamic public theologians. Carbine shows how they each contribute to the development of various and integrated rhetorical, symbolic and prophetic practices that begin to create the peaceable communities they dare to imagine.
It is worth noting that Carbine’s capacious public theology deftly avoids the self-defeating binary between an engagement in public life that relinquishes a distinctly Christian hope, on the one hand, and the sectarian Christianity that withdraws from the broader public, on the other hand. As she carefully demonstrates, public theology best achieves its goals of bringing faith to bear on public life when it is enriched by rhetoric that draws on and develops the meaning of specific Christian doctrines, is expressed in symbolic actions embodying these beliefs and engages in faithful practices that unite rather than pit people against each other.
Carbine’s envisioned public theology combining rhetorical, symbolic and prophetic practices has set quite a task for us, but it is a task that, as she convincingly argues, those committed to Christianity’s public role must take up. Although she focuses on the U.S. context and its social justice movements, I believe Carbine’s defense (and examples) of a more engaged and active public theology will be helpful to theologians in other countries. This book deserves a wide audience and should be read by all theologians and lay leaders concerned with the mission of the church in the world today. This thoroughly researched book would be an excellent text for graduate students in classes on feminist, political and liberation theologies, while individual chapters would be very helpful for teaching undergraduates about the role of rhetorical, symbolic and prophetic practices in faith-based social movements.
