Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice

By Gary Dorrien

Sourcing the major traditions of progressive Christian social ethics-social gospel
liberalism, Niebuhrian realism, and liberation theology-Gary Dorrien argues for the social-ethical necessity of social justice politics. In carefully reasoned essays, he focuses on three broad subjects: the ethics and politics of economic justice; racial and gender justice; and anti-militarism, and makes a constructive case for economic democracy, a liberationist understanding of racial and gender justice, and an anti-imperial form of liberal internationalism.

In Dorrien's view, the three major discourse traditions of progressive Christian social ethics share a fundamental commitment to transform the structures of society in the direction of social justice. His reflections on these topics feature extensive and innovative analyses of major figures, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, James Burnham, Norman Thomas, and Michael Harrington, and contemporary intellectuals, such as Rosemary R. Ruether, Katie Cannon, Gregory Baum, and Cornel West. Dorrien also weaves his personal experiences into his narrative, especially his involvement in social justice movements. The volume features a special chapter on Dorrien's published work during the 2008 presidential campaign and historic candidacy of Barack Obama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Oct 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9780231526296

Gary Dorrien

Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, and Professor of Religion, Columbia University. He is the author of more than twenty books and three hundred articles that range across the fields of social ethics, philosophy, theology, political economics, social and political theory, religious history, cultural criticism, and intellectual history. He is a two-time recipient of the American Library Association’s Choice Award, a 2012 recipient of the Association of American Publishers’ PROSE Award, and a 2017 recipient of the Grawemeyer award for his book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel.   Social critic Michael Eric Dyson wrote in 2021: “Gary Dorrien is the greatest theological ethicist of the twenty-first century, our most compelling political theologian, and one of the most gifted historians of ideas in the world.” Philosopher Cornel West describes Dorrien as “the preeminent social ethicist in North America today.” Philosopher Robert Neville calls him “the most rigorous theological historian of our time, moving from analyses of social context and personal struggles through the most abstruse theological and metaphysical issues.” Dorrien told an interviewer in 2016: “I am a jock who began as a solidarity activist, became an Episcopal cleric at thirty, became an academic at thirty-five, and never quite settled on a field, so now I explore the intersections of too many fields.”