What do you think?
Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside
Offers a variety of voices from marginalized groups in the United States and their approaches to God, christology, scripture, community, and faith. This updated edition confirms its place as the most important systematic theology reader available with a liberationist perspective. Global in its outlook, Lift Every Voice incorporates the voices of men and women, Native Americans, Anglos, Hispanics, Blacks, Africans, and Asians. The careful organization and choice of essays makes Lift Every Voice a valuable book for a wide variety of courses. Its breadth and timeliness makes it possible to show the liberationist implications of the classic theological curriculum.
339 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1990
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Read
December 2, 2020This collection of essays was my first introduction to the world of liberation theology, and reading through around half of the essays for a theology class was extremely thought-provoking and eye-opening. True to its name, this collection includes writers from diverse backgrounds each offering their unique perspectives. It can be a little jarring going from one essay to the next because the authors don't always come from the same perspective (and also don't engage with each other in this collection), but this serves the purpose of displaying the diversity of thought between different liberation theologies. The introduction is also really helpful in this regard in drawing out the aspects that are similar to all liberation theologies.
To be honest, I couldn't really connect with the first few essays that I read for class (from Isasi-diaz, a hispanic theologian, and Ringe, a feminist theologian). It was difficult for me as an Asian American man to understand the perspectives that the writers were coming from. But when I read the essay from this volume by C. S. Song, an Asian theologian, I started to nod my head in agreement at many of the concerns that he was naming. To me this drove home one of the central insights of liberation theology that Thistlethwaite and Engel mention in the introduction- the insight that all theology, including traditional orthodox theology of all stripes, arise out of contexts and are deeply influenced by those contexts. Although, as someone raised in Christian orthodoxy, many of the conclusions that these writers come to make me nervous (e.g. the willingness to discard parts or all of scripture as non-authoritative, or the belief that political revolution is the only way forward in society), being challenged to think from different perspectives and become aware of different peoples' concerns was a very rich experience.
I especially appreciate what the editors say in the conclusion to the volume. Having heard many different voices that are focused on the struggle for liberation against oppression in their own contexts, the editors also recognize the risk that myopic focus on only one's own perspective or context will result in a failure to understand others or worse a re-assertion that one's own perspective is the only true or universal one. To push back against this tendency, the editors urge liberation theologians to practice listening to one another- as well as listening to traditional theologians as well! The awareness of one's own context as well as the desire to listen is something that traditional orthodoxy would do well to learn from the liberation theology movements.
To be honest, I couldn't really connect with the first few essays that I read for class (from Isasi-diaz, a hispanic theologian, and Ringe, a feminist theologian). It was difficult for me as an Asian American man to understand the perspectives that the writers were coming from. But when I read the essay from this volume by C. S. Song, an Asian theologian, I started to nod my head in agreement at many of the concerns that he was naming. To me this drove home one of the central insights of liberation theology that Thistlethwaite and Engel mention in the introduction- the insight that all theology, including traditional orthodox theology of all stripes, arise out of contexts and are deeply influenced by those contexts. Although, as someone raised in Christian orthodoxy, many of the conclusions that these writers come to make me nervous (e.g. the willingness to discard parts or all of scripture as non-authoritative, or the belief that political revolution is the only way forward in society), being challenged to think from different perspectives and become aware of different peoples' concerns was a very rich experience.
I especially appreciate what the editors say in the conclusion to the volume. Having heard many different voices that are focused on the struggle for liberation against oppression in their own contexts, the editors also recognize the risk that myopic focus on only one's own perspective or context will result in a failure to understand others or worse a re-assertion that one's own perspective is the only true or universal one. To push back against this tendency, the editors urge liberation theologians to practice listening to one another- as well as listening to traditional theologians as well! The awareness of one's own context as well as the desire to listen is something that traditional orthodoxy would do well to learn from the liberation theology movements.
May 20, 2014
Another book that it took over a year to finish, finally complete.
"I also believe that theology is autobiography...when we start out trying to talk about God, we usually wind up talking about ourselves. At least, between the lines. So, I think you can read Oklahoma in what I have to say: and Presbyterian preachers...and Choctaw camp meetings, and some struggle to be made whole." - From "The Old Testament of Native America," by Steve Charleston (p. 50)
"When Native People were denied access to that religious legacy, when they were told that their Old Testament was nothing more than a grab bag of primitive superstitions, when they were forbidden to share the memory with their own children, when they were commanded to undergo spiritual amnesia, to lose their memories, to go blank, to forget their own story and let others do the naming for them, it was exactly at this moment that any "New" Testament was jerked away from them...You cannot have a "new testament if you do not have an "old" testament. You cannot fulfill what you do not have. The shelves are empty of a Native People's Christian theology because the theologians who would fill them...have been told to be content with another People's story, and to forget their own." - From "The Old Testament of Native America," by Steve Charleston (p. 55)
"...Those actively engaged in struggling for justice in the world are 'irritated by the seeming uselessness' of the questions about God deliberated by Western scholars. Liberation theologians frame the discussion of God quite differently. For them it is not the existence of God that needs to be justified, but the continuing existence of injustice. It is with this as their basic question or problem that they develop their idea of God....choosing as their starting point the claim that God is in active relation with the world. Thus it is not the possibility of the existence of God but the character and activity of God that occupy their reflections" (p. 77).
"There's a great line in May Sarton somewhere that in our hurried, industrial, factory-like age, there is a real value, ethical value, to the things that take time, like gardening, or knitting, or making bread or soup. And I think it's sometimes difficult to understand that some things just take mellowing in order to be themselves. This is as important for healing as for making soup...This also applies to theology. Theology is not like mathematics, it's not a discipline for young persons at the end of adolescence. It's a discipline in which you need time to experience and live with some insights, so you know what they mean over the long run." - From "Conversation on Grace and Healing: Perspectives from the Movement to End Violence Against Women," with Mary D. Pellauer and Susan Brooks Thistlewaite (p. 175).
"I must confess that in studying christology I find myself awash in a sea of sexist language and discover that I respond to it much the way I would to tobacco if I were a reformed smoker and were to take another cigarette. Does classical christology lock us necessarily into the relation between Father and Son as the locus of universal redemption? In writing this chapter, I decided not to fight the sexist habit but rather go with it on a hunch that, in its classical terms, christology is actually an exercise in patriarchal logic." - From "Jesus of Nazareth/Christ of Faith: Foundations of a Reactive Christology" by Carter Heyward (p. 195).
"Theological narcissism, the preoccupation with oneself and one's god in one's image--or in the image of one's racial, gender, cultural, or religious roots--is a foundational component of the theological structure of ruling class (read white affluent Christian male) privilege. This privileged narcissism has been basic tot he development of dominant christological models in Europe and in the United States, in which God and Jesus come out looking like actors in a Hollywood movie." - From "Jesus of Nazareth/Christ of Faith: Foundations of a Reactive Christology" by Carter Heyward (p. 197).
"I also believe that theology is autobiography...when we start out trying to talk about God, we usually wind up talking about ourselves. At least, between the lines. So, I think you can read Oklahoma in what I have to say: and Presbyterian preachers...and Choctaw camp meetings, and some struggle to be made whole." - From "The Old Testament of Native America," by Steve Charleston (p. 50)
"When Native People were denied access to that religious legacy, when they were told that their Old Testament was nothing more than a grab bag of primitive superstitions, when they were forbidden to share the memory with their own children, when they were commanded to undergo spiritual amnesia, to lose their memories, to go blank, to forget their own story and let others do the naming for them, it was exactly at this moment that any "New" Testament was jerked away from them...You cannot have a "new testament if you do not have an "old" testament. You cannot fulfill what you do not have. The shelves are empty of a Native People's Christian theology because the theologians who would fill them...have been told to be content with another People's story, and to forget their own." - From "The Old Testament of Native America," by Steve Charleston (p. 55)
"...Those actively engaged in struggling for justice in the world are 'irritated by the seeming uselessness' of the questions about God deliberated by Western scholars. Liberation theologians frame the discussion of God quite differently. For them it is not the existence of God that needs to be justified, but the continuing existence of injustice. It is with this as their basic question or problem that they develop their idea of God....choosing as their starting point the claim that God is in active relation with the world. Thus it is not the possibility of the existence of God but the character and activity of God that occupy their reflections" (p. 77).
"There's a great line in May Sarton somewhere that in our hurried, industrial, factory-like age, there is a real value, ethical value, to the things that take time, like gardening, or knitting, or making bread or soup. And I think it's sometimes difficult to understand that some things just take mellowing in order to be themselves. This is as important for healing as for making soup...This also applies to theology. Theology is not like mathematics, it's not a discipline for young persons at the end of adolescence. It's a discipline in which you need time to experience and live with some insights, so you know what they mean over the long run." - From "Conversation on Grace and Healing: Perspectives from the Movement to End Violence Against Women," with Mary D. Pellauer and Susan Brooks Thistlewaite (p. 175).
"I must confess that in studying christology I find myself awash in a sea of sexist language and discover that I respond to it much the way I would to tobacco if I were a reformed smoker and were to take another cigarette. Does classical christology lock us necessarily into the relation between Father and Son as the locus of universal redemption? In writing this chapter, I decided not to fight the sexist habit but rather go with it on a hunch that, in its classical terms, christology is actually an exercise in patriarchal logic." - From "Jesus of Nazareth/Christ of Faith: Foundations of a Reactive Christology" by Carter Heyward (p. 195).
"Theological narcissism, the preoccupation with oneself and one's god in one's image--or in the image of one's racial, gender, cultural, or religious roots--is a foundational component of the theological structure of ruling class (read white affluent Christian male) privilege. This privileged narcissism has been basic tot he development of dominant christological models in Europe and in the United States, in which God and Jesus come out looking like actors in a Hollywood movie." - From "Jesus of Nazareth/Christ of Faith: Foundations of a Reactive Christology" by Carter Heyward (p. 197).
December 17, 2024
Some phenomenal essays. I obviously had disagreements either some points in a few essays but the point of the book is to learn from other cultures with different theologies. Highly recommend for anyone in ministry
September 4, 2023
introductory, now dated but some chapters usable
July 30, 2011
The stories from every corner of the world describe moments of spiritual strength and also the oppression of spiritual equality for everyone.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews