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Sanctification & liberation: Liberation theologies in light of the Wesleyan tradition
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 9, 2022
From front to back this is a critical resource for anyone who calls themselves Wesleyan. I have always seen intersection of liberation and sanctification is a site of abundance, and this text doubled down on this sweet spot. I particularly loved the chapters from Madron, Hardesty, Cone, and Kirkpatrick. For far too long contemporary Methodism has neglected experience as a point of departure, this text is a crucial reminder that lived reality, specifically from an oppressed positionality, is always compatible with Christian teaching.
March 15, 2013
There is some good; there is some mediocre.
The first thing to note is that the title of the text is misleading. The intention is the examination of liberation theologies in the light of Wesleyan perspectives and vice versa, which the subtitle does acknowledge better. However, the main title seems to equate sanctification with Methodism and/or Wesleyanism, which is not accurate and skews one's potential expectation of the text.
To be blunt, some of the essays were simply uninteresting. This doesn't mean they're bad or useless, but it does make them difficult to work through at times. Others were less so, and I suppose this is simply the nature of an anthology.
I found I disagreed with various theological perspectives throughout, including a number of assumptions about social and personal dynamics, which implied some flawed, oversimplified, or extremist anthropologies. At the same time, some of these essays do bring to the table perspectives that still, even in their flaws, have some truth to them, and these perspectives are often lacking in less recently-devised theological stances. In particular, while I found Dow Kirkpatrick's final essay an oversimplification that fails to deal with the complexities of social categorization, it still had some very valid and convicting issues to present that should be considered by theologians and Christians of some means in general.
So it's a mixed bag, but again, that's a bit of what you ought to expect from an anthology. Had the title been more carefully chosen, I'd have rated it higher.
The first thing to note is that the title of the text is misleading. The intention is the examination of liberation theologies in the light of Wesleyan perspectives and vice versa, which the subtitle does acknowledge better. However, the main title seems to equate sanctification with Methodism and/or Wesleyanism, which is not accurate and skews one's potential expectation of the text.
To be blunt, some of the essays were simply uninteresting. This doesn't mean they're bad or useless, but it does make them difficult to work through at times. Others were less so, and I suppose this is simply the nature of an anthology.
I found I disagreed with various theological perspectives throughout, including a number of assumptions about social and personal dynamics, which implied some flawed, oversimplified, or extremist anthropologies. At the same time, some of these essays do bring to the table perspectives that still, even in their flaws, have some truth to them, and these perspectives are often lacking in less recently-devised theological stances. In particular, while I found Dow Kirkpatrick's final essay an oversimplification that fails to deal with the complexities of social categorization, it still had some very valid and convicting issues to present that should be considered by theologians and Christians of some means in general.
So it's a mixed bag, but again, that's a bit of what you ought to expect from an anthology. Had the title been more carefully chosen, I'd have rated it higher.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews