Overview

""There is little credibility in healing a privileged world. If the Church is failing the powerless of this world, it is failing the Gospel totally."" In 1971, two priests from a Catholic order left their monastery in order to reinvent the contemplative life amid a Liverpool community oppressed by poverty and systemic racism. Foreshadowing the 'new monastic' movement, the members of a 300-year-old religious order began to translate the radical, self-sacrificial values of monastic living into an open, hospitable, practical life on the margins of society. Passion for the Inner City is a probing spiritual reflection on the first twelve years of Austin Smith's life in the inner city. He describes a new model of faith-not just giving up his possessions, but letting go of assumptions, dependencies, all his rationalisations-until he sees the poorest in society outside of his own agendas. By living and suffering alongside them, he calls out the deep offensiveness of the inequality we daily permit. With stories, insights and reflections, Passion for the Inner City is a fascinating account of 'old' monasticism embracing the challenges of the present, and also a trove of wisdom and challenges that still have sharp questions to ask anyone pursuing their faith today. ""I have gone on marches in the inner city; I have fought for better housing; I have been part of the struggle for better education for our children; I have stood on the street in riots; I have been part and parcel of the struggle for community power; I have set my face against my own racism and the racism of others. Why? Because I believe where creation is sinned against, where human beings suffer, Jesus is being crucified.""

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9781739716202

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This is a must read for any would-be Christian disciples, justice activists and/or new monastics. Insights here could not only help inspire a new generation to take up the call for radical discipleship and community building, but sustain them for the required decades needed for transformation. -Rev Dr Ash Barker, author/speaker/activist, leader of Seedbeds As a pastor and inner-city dweller I was sucked in, churned around, disturbed by the spirit, moved by the story, changed by its grace and inspired by its courage to exist with and suffer with. -Revd Dr Deirdre Brower Latz, Principal and Senior Lecturer in Pastoral and Social Theology, Nazarene Theological College Austin Smith's humble, slow story of co-existing in the joy and pain of inner city life whispers quietly into our attention-grabbing disembodied world and reminds us of another way. It's a costly way but it's the way of Christ. -Andy Flannagan, Director of Christians in Politics, author of Those Who Show Up The re-publication of these reflections offers us a chance to think again about a generation whose stories we are at risk of losing in exactly the moment when we most need to pause and to hear, reflect and be inspired by them. -Dr Anna Rowlands, St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice, Author of Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times

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