A Prophetic, Public Church

Globalization is uniting the world more closely than ever before while at the same time increasing the likelihood of division and conflict. Humanity faces problems of an unprecedented scope: vast inequality, climate change threatening the conditions of life on this planet, and a great population migration that includes human trafficking and desperate refugees.

What does this global plight demand of a church called to be a sign and instrument of the union of all in God? In this book, Mary Doak shows how the church must rectify its own historic failures to embody the unity-in-diversity it proclaims, especially with regard to women and Jews. Only then, and through responding to the demands of the current global crises, can we learn what it means to be the church-that is, to be a prophetic witness and public agent of the harmony that God desires and the world deeply needs.

Mary Doak (PhD, The University of Chicago) is a professor of theology at the University of San Diego. Her publications include the Divine Harmony: Seeking Community in a Broken World (Paulist Press, 2017), Translating Religion (Orbis Books, 2013, co-edited with Anita Houck), and Reclaiming Narrative for Public Theology (SUNY, 2004), as well as various articles on public theology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. She is currently serving as president of the College Theology Society and is a past president of the American Theological Society (Midwest).