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Reviewed by:
  • The Preferential Option for the Poor beyond Theology ed. by Daniel G. Groody, Gustavo Gutiérrez
  • María Teresa Dávila
The Preferential Option for the Poor beyond Theology. Edited by Daniel G. Groody and Gustavo Gutiérrez. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. 264pp. $30.00.

In November 2002 I attended a conference on the option for the poor at the University of Notre Dame. The preferential option for the poor being the focus of my studies, I was enthralled by the entire gathering. At one point in the conference there was a session that highlighted practitioners of the option for the poor. There were medical doctors, lawyers, scientists, liberal-arts educators, and artists who had made the option for the poor the principle around which they practiced their particular craft. This moment transformed my academic experience as I came to understand that the option for the poor must be made intelligible not only theologically for the academy or even only for pastors and clergy, but most definitely for all people whose faith journey calls them to lead a life of transformation for justice and to pursue relationships marked by love and solidarity.

Groody and Gutiérrez’s volume picks up on this moment in a collection of essays that speak about “the option for the poor from an interdisciplinary perspective” (3). Fourteen contributors, ranging in professions from law to politics, to a Hollywood producer, an environmental activist, and a doctor give some brief biographical examination of how they came to know the preferential option for the poor. They then describe how they have made conscious choices along their career paths to make their work matter to communities on the [End Page 75] margins locally and internationally. Key to each essay, the different authors offer very practical ways to make the option for the poor. As a representative example, the essay by Kristin Schrader-Frechette, “Liberation Science and the Option for the Poor: Protecting Victims of Environmental Injustice,” offers readers a series of simple and accessible ways in which, with very little scientific know-how, and common sense, people committed to the health of poor communities can make a significant contribution when these same communities have to review environmental impact proposals for things such as waste or power plants seeking to site on their land.

The essays are well written, personal, and yet replete with each author’s expertise. The average number of notes for each chapter ranges around twenty-five, each one full of references, citations, and more information than what is already packed into the essays. I saw immediate use for each of the essays, wanting to distribute them to different professionals in my life, those who might be struggling to find the true meaning of their labor and its contribution to humanity. Students beginning careers seemingly far removed from their faith commitments, or traditionally linked with negative values such as greed, excess, bottom lines, or scarcity will find in these essays vast resources to redirect their career choices toward transforming their world and that of the poor, most importantly through the witness of the very authors of the essays themselves.

The volume offers anyone interested in understanding the option for the poor two key insights that might seem contradictory at first, but that, in fact, must stand together. First, the praxis of the preferential option or the poor cannot be distilled into a one-size-fits-all system, but, rather, needs to be lived in particular contexts utilizing the gifts of each person in unique ways. Second, this praxis must result in calling out and seeking to transform those forces such as racism, classism, and militarism that continually sustain unjust structures that oppress the poor in a variety of ways. The authors skillfully and clearly point out that the option for the poor is both personally unique and socially transformative. [End Page 76]

María Teresa Dávila
Andover Newton Theological School
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