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Principalities in Particular: A Practical Theology of the Powers That Be. By Bill Wylie-Kellermann. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017. 352 pp. $29.00 (pb).
How might a theology of the principalities and powers aid our struggles to live humanly today? Bill Wylie-Kellermann, a Methodist minister and activist serving an Episcopal parish in Detroit, has been living this question for four decades; he assembles the fruits of this engagement in this provocative and probing volume. He asks, "Can an understanding of the principalities and powers serve concretely the work of ministry and movement ethics?" (p. xxx). Moreover, "Can such a reading of the times and the text enable a resistance that is informed, discerning, and effectively faithful?" (pp. xxx-xxxi).
This volume incorporates earlier pieces published in such venues as Sojourners, The Witness, and Catholic Worker newspapers, as well as new material orienting the whole. For ethicists seeking to transcend the materialist reductionism of much social theory, this is essential reading. Pastors, educators, organizers, and laypeople will also find nourishment here. Part 1 lays the theological foundations of Wylie-Kellermann's project, in dialogue with his mentors William Stringfellow, Walter Wink, and Daniel Berrigan. Part 2 brings this framework to bear on social, political, and cultural struggles that have animated his ministry. Appendices...