Joerg Rieger is the Cal Turner Chancellor's Chair of Wesleyan Studies and Distinguished Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School. His newest book is an important contribution to those committed to a Wesleyan approach to liberation theologies and, perhaps more urgently, to the Methodist tradition as a whole as it seeks to understand the impact and relevance of Wesley's theology to the twenty-first century. Rieger convincingly argues that Wesley's insistence on ‘social religion’ places Methodist theology in constant dialogue with the suffering of the world. ‘Wesleyan theology’, he posits, ‘can be understood as an effort to identify the work of God in the midst of the tensions of life’ (11). For Rieger, this is what ties the Wesleyan tradition to liberation theologies. His book explores this affinity with great clarity, bringing together Wesleyan voices from different corners of the world while offering important theological insights.
The introduction and the first...
