This worthwhile collection of conversations and essays brings together two Christian advocates for the poor and exploited people everywhere. Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez is the founder of liberation theology who teaches part time at Notre Dame and works part time in the slums of Peru. Dr. Paul Farmer is known throughout the world as the medical doctor who founded Partners in Health in 1987 and credited his mentor Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez for inspiring him to work for a preferential option for the poor in health care.
Editors Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block note in the introduction that these two activists share a moral imagination with four concrete expressions: "first, a lifelong commitment to accompany the poor in their daily struggles; second, raising a prophetic voice in the public square — no matter what the cost; third, integrating theory and praxis; and; fourth, building up the kingdom of God in the here and now."
Father Gutierrez puts great emphasis on the challenge of the churches in the twenty-first century to say and show to the poor that God loves them. Farmer boldly counsels us to see the structural violence used against the poor and the powerless. They agree that theology and global health must be animated by "accompaniment in action." They posit that in this collaboration the seeds of a new social movement might be coming to birth.
