Very exciting! Jennifer McBride’s new book, You Shall Not Condemn: A Story of Faith and Advocacy on Death Row was released this weekend. I had the pleasure of conducting a podcast interview with her prior to the release of the book, and I hope you’ll order a copy and listen to the podcast!
The letters and papers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer were entrusted to his dear friend Eberhard Bethge, who facilitated the publication of many of them and also wrote the first (and in many ways still the definitive) biography of the great theologian.
Jennifer McBride is president of the International Bonhoeffer Society – English Language Section, has served on its Board of Directors since 2008, and has served as chair and member of the steering committee for the American Academy of Religion’s “Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis” group.
Her new book, which we discuss in this podcast, echoes in significant ways Bonhoeffer-Bethge relationship. It is not really an over-statement to call McBride Kelly Gissendaner’s Bethge.
“McBride's method of scholarship and teaching is best described as lived theology. Lived theology, as she defines it, holds in dynamic conversation modern philosophical theology and contemporary social ethics; lessons learned from church-communities engaged in situations of social concern; and theological insights from people directed impacted by injustice. Her most recent book, Radical Discipleship, is based on her experience teaching theology in a women’s prison and participating in the Open Door Community, an intentionally interracial, residential, Christian activist and worshipping community in Atlanta, Georgia, that, for forty years, had been engaged in works of mercy and justice with people experiencing incarceration and homelessness.
McBride was a professor and close friend of Kelly Gissendaner, who was the only woman on Georgia's death row until her execution in September 2015, and was a leading activist in the international #KellyOnMyMind campaign. This current writing project, You Shall Not Condemn: Faith and Advocacy on Death Row publishes the written correspondence between Kelly and German philosophical theologian, Jürgen Moltmann.
I hope you enjoy this conversation. I highly recommend that professors at seminaries and college/university settings consider this collection for upcoming courses, as it offers an example of lively theological epistolary dialogue. And of course it will be of interest and support for all organizations working to end the death penalty.
You Shall Not Condemn: A Story of Faith and Advocacy on Death Row by Jennifer McBride