This paperback edited by Paul Crowley is part of the Modern Spiritual Masters Series published by Orbis Books. Robert McAfee Brown (1920-2001) was an activist for justice on many different fronts — civil rights, support of migrant workers, protest against U.S. policy during the Vietnam War, the ecumenical movement, Jewish-Christian relations, liberation theology, world poverty. and more.
Brown's father was a Presbyterian minister and pacifist, so he grew up in a family that was politically progressive with strong leanings toward the Social Gospel emphasizing the duty of Christians to serve the poor. Following his graduation from Amherst, Brown enrolled in 1943 at Union Seminary where he fell under the influencesof John Bennett, a leading ethicist, and Reinhold Niebuhr, the most well-known and highly regarded Protestant theologian.
He spent 14 years at Stanford where he sharpened his prophetic prowess with advice from Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology, and Elie Wiesel, who stirred in him the passion for exploring Jewish-Christian relations in light of the Holocaust. After a short stint at Union, Brown returned to California in 1979 and served as professor of theology and ethics at The Graduate Theological Union, eventually retiring in 1986.
In the introduction, Paul Crowley sums up Brown's career and ministry:
"And so we have in Bob Brown's writings a vivid prophetic spirituality, where faith and practice, prayer and action, words and deeds, and religion and politics constitute a circle. Theoretically put, theory does not come first; rather theology starts from the reality of lived human experience . . . This is a living and lived spirituality, not a recipe for spiritual comfort."
The writings of Robert McAfee Brown are divided into five sections:
• Foundations of a Prophetic Soul
• Living the Gospel of Justice
• The Struggle for Human Rights
• Peacemaking
• Interfaith Solidarity
Here are a few quotations from the essays in the book to give a flavor of Brown's writing and perspectives:
"I say Yes to the image of God in every person, including migrant workers, women, Sandinistas, and homosexuals; I say No to those who deny that image by rewarding the rich at the expense of the poor."
"Nothing in Bonhoeffer's upbringing or vocational training had prepared him for the role he felt he had to play. God has an unexpected way of casting us in the roles God chooses for us rather than the ones we choose. We must always remain open to that uncomfortable but rather exciting possibility."
"Probably the most important single Christian task is to keep mercy and justice together. Mercy without justice is sentimental; justice without mercy is harsh. Both are needed."
"Let us take sufficient account of a new dimension in the human rights struggle — the rights of unborn generations — who have the right to inherit an earth not contaminated by atomic wastes or polluted streams or exhausted resources for heat and food."
