Abstract
Travis McMaken’s book sets out exactly what the name of this journal Theology Today seeks to do: call attention to a theology for today. He intends to motivate readers to encounter Helmut Gollwitzer in order to recognize that theology ought to make a difference in politics. The opening of the book declares what the substance of that intention is. “Helmut Gollwitzer was a socialist. He was also a Christian. And perhaps the most surprising thing, at least for those of us deeply embedded in white American Christianity, is that Gollwtzer was a socialist precisely because he was a Christian. This book tries to make sense of that ‘precisely because’ in Gollwitzer’s life and thought” (1).
In five detailed chapters—“Reading Helmut Gollwitzer in America,” “Grace upon Grace: Helmut Gollwitzer’s Life and Work,” “Gollwitzer’s Political Theology,” “Gollwitzer’s Theological Politics,” and “Church and Confession”—McMaken provides admirably rich and essential information on Gollwitzer’s biography, his theological development, and his involvement in decisive events in contemporary social and political movements; in a word, the diverse contexts of this active and devout Christian.
For this reviewer, McMaken’s reading of his context, the United States today, is very useful for understanding the nexus of theology and politics. Gollwitzer’s context had been the failed Weimar Republic, Hitler’s Germany, a prisoner of war-camp in Russia, the divided post-war Germany, the Cold War, the beginnings of Jewish–Christian rapprochement after Auschwitz: the matrix for his theological existence. McMaken shows well how all that, woven together with a vibrant faith in the God of Scripture, created a theology that deserves to be engaged today in the context of twenty-first-century America. And the book’s title, Our God Loves Justice, indicates what aspect of political theology he has in mind for that America.
Another significant factor in Gollwitzer’s theological-political existence was his partner in marriage. During a conversation in 1984 with Helmut and Brigitte Gollwitzer, Barbara Rumscheidt asked in connection with his radical theology, “How did you get to be that way?” Helmut answered by simply pointing to Brigitte. That too is an indispensable factor in relation to McMaken’s “precisely because.”
This is a fine book, well developed, persuasive, and a helpful encouragement for a political Theology Today.