270 - Announcing the Reign of Go& Evangelization and the Subversive Memory of Jesus

Announcing the Reign of God Evangelization and the Subversive Memory of Jesus
By Mortimer Arias
Philadelpha, Fortress, 1984. 155 pp. $8.95.

This is a superb resource volume for those wishing to test the soundness of their understanding and practice of Christian evangelism. It is solidly grounded in the ministry of Jesus and illumined by testimonial statements and experiences drawn from a cosmopolitan variety of witnesses. The author's primary context is Latin America, but the sources of wisdom range across the spectrum of today's world ecumenical movement.

Arias belongs to that cadre of practitioner-theologians from the Third World who have come to be widely respected in the World Council of Churches as well as among the ranks of conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics. He brings to the subject the passion of a life lived at the vortex of clashing claims, not only religious, but ideological and political as well.

His key contribution is the rehabilitation of the Kingdom of God as the controlling perspective for the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed. In a style helpful to scholar and nonscholar, he combs biblical sources, especially the Synoptic Gospels, in search of Jesus' own practice. The hermeneutical outlook is clearly dictated by Arias' own battle-tested experience in Bolivia, where he was bishop of the Methodist Church and where he underwent imprisonment as a consequence of his evangelistic practice.

After reading this book, dichotomies are inexcusable: proclamation or social responsibility, intra-church or extra church evangelization, the conversion of individuals or conversion of communities. It should become at least a minor classic.

Jorge Lara-Braud
San Francisco Theological Seminary
San Anselmo, Calif.