Review by Choice Review
Rieger (Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist Univ.) begins this work in constructive theology by examining four modern theologies and their respective starting points: the liberal theology of Schleiermacher and the turn to the self, the neo-orthodox theology of Barth and the turn to the Wholly Other, the postliberal theology of Lindbeck and the turn to language and the text, and liberation (feminist) theology and the turn to others. He notes their strengths and weaknesses in accounting for difference and the excluded within their theological constructions. Ultimately, he finds each type insufficiently self-critical or ideologically blind to the real or potential validation of structures of exclusion. In chapters 5 and 6, Rieger embarks on his own synthesis, incorporating the best of what each theology has to offer, while using Jacques Lacan's analysis of social discourses (of the self, the master, the tradition, the marginalized) to reveal what each theological mode represses or excludes. Rieger's writing is surprisingly lucid and accessible, making the various theologies and the difficult issues he treats (hermeneutics and authority, modernity and postmodernity, self and society) comprehensible to the nonspecialist. Recommended for advanced undergraduates and above. C. R. Piar California State University, Long Beach
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
