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PRESBYTERION: COVENANT SEMINARY REVIEW 46/2
REIMAGINING TRADITIONS: REFORMED AND EVANGELICAL THEOLOGIES OF LIBERATION Andrew C. Stout*
Children of the Waters of Meribah: Black Liberation Theology, the Miriamic Tradition, and the Challenges of Twenty-First-Century Empire, by ALLAN AUBREY BOESAK. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019. Pp. 266. ISBN 9781532656712 Evangelical Theologies of Liberation and Justice, edited by MAE ELSIE CANNON and ANDREA SMITH. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019. Pp. 376. ISBN 9780830852468 Reformed evangelical theology is liberation theology. Is that a hyperbolic statement? Maybe. However, if we take the arguments and perspectives of Children of the Waters of Meribah and Evangelical Theologies of Liberation and Justice seriously, it is a surprisingly defensible statement. Gustavo Gutiérrez clearly understood his own initial articulation of liberation theology to be a contemporary and contextual application of traditional Catholic teaching.1 Similarly, these two recent titles are investigations of the themes of liberation and justice that seek to be faithful to the Reformed and evangelical traditions in a contextual way. Take this observation and combine it with the Reformed tradition’s roots in resistance to tyrannical political regimes, Calvin’s insistence on God’s concern for the oppressed, and the robust criticism of tyrannical rulers in his commentaries, and the claim that Reformed theology and liberation theology are synonymous takes on a certain plausibility. In discussing Carl Henry’s call for evangelical social engagement and the formation of the religious right, Lilian Calles Barger notes that the first generation of liberationists eventually “found that they were no longer alone, and their call for a politically committed theology emboldened others to forward alternative visions for the social order under the authority of God.”2 In a previous issue of this journal, I reviewed Barger’s book on the history of liberation theology, along with James Cone’s posthumously published memoir Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody.3 Both those titles * ANDREW C. STOUT is Associate Librarian for Public Services at the J. Oliver Buswell Jr. Library at Covenant Theological Seminary. 1 Gutiérrez quotes John Paul II’s favorable assessment of liberation theology’s “preferential option” for the poor as he responds to Catholic criticisms in the Introduction to A Theology of Liberation, 15th anniversary ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), xxvii. 2 Lilian Calles Barger, The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 255. 3 James H. Cone, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018).