Overview

The Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s was a movement led by white religious liberals that housed Central Americans fleeing dictatorships supported by the United States government, giving them a platform to speak about the situation in their countries of origin. This book focuses on the movement’s whiteness by centering the voices of recipients of sanctuary and taking their critiques seriously. The result is an account of the movement that takes seriously the agential limitations of sanctuary and the struggles for agency by recipients. Using interviews with participants in the movement as well auto-ethnographic research as the white pastor of a church in the New Sanctuary Movement, this book situates the sanctuary as site for theological reflection on some of the most pressing issues facing the Church today – the possibilities of testimony, the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology, and mercy. In doing so, it proposes a new theoretical framework for thinking about practice by introducing readers to Judith Butler’s theories of subjectivation and arguing for ethnographically engaged theology that is able to think beyond virtue and excellence towards an understanding of fugitivity.

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9780567711298

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Reviews

Sanctuary and Subjectivity is a book for our current zeitgeist. At a time when the theological academy has finally caught sight of the phenomenon that is whiteness and its impact on the boundaries and borders that are policed by White nationalism, Michael Woolf's book is a breath of fresh air. It offers us a challenging and inspiring look at one of the major fault lines in our contemporary life. This is a must read! * Anthony G. Reddie, University of Oxford, UK *

Author Information

Michael Woolf (he/him) teaches theology at Lewis University. He is also an ordained American Baptist pastor who has served faith communities in Massachusetts and Illinois for over a decade.

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