Vulnerability and Resilience: Body and Liberating Theologies [Hardcover]

In Vulnerability and Resilience, vulnerability is not the final word. Rather, resilience provides the cutting edge and living breath in the stories of subjects who are vulnerable. And they have many stories: stories of being trapped in bodies, teachings, and/or situations that make them (and others like them) vulnerable to discrimination, hatred, and rejection; stories of being trapped because of their bodies, theologies, and/or cultures; and stories of being trapped for no-good reason. For subjects who are vulnerable, life is like a maze of traps, and stories of resilience keep them going.

The contributors to Vulnerability and Resilience refuse to be trapped. At the intersection of body and liberation theologies, they tell their stories in the hope that they will expose cultures that make individuals and communities vulnerable, and that those stories will encourage vulnerable subjects to be resilient and bring change to theological institutions that conserve vulnerability. Because of the location of the contributorsthe Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, Caribbean, and Oceaniathis book is a testimony that vulnerability is present all over the world, and that resilience is a liberating alternative.

If the first part is a confronting, visceral, poetic, embodied and liberating vulnerability (with some humor thrown in for good measure), the second is a challenging, theoretically, pastorally and theologically embedded program for transformation. Together the two parts of this book provide a glorious, erotic powerhouse for the metamorphosis of contemporary Christian theology and praxis. Anita Monro, Grace College, University of Queensland

Highly commendable. A moving, challenging, and liberating collection of essays thalã²