Renowned theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether analyzes the ways the Christian church has historically interacted with powerful social systems such as patriarchy, racism, slavery, and environmentalism, while looking critically at how the church shapes these systems today. With a focus on the United States, Christianity and Social Systems provides an introductory analysis of the interactions between the churches and major systems that have shaped western Christian and post-Christian society.				
				
				
			With unflagging clarity in the face of the immense spiral of human sociality and violence, Rosemary Radford Ruether again tells a gripping story. Accessible for students, handy for scholars, inspiring for activists, Christianity and Social Systems is a trustworthy and surprising resource for honest Christians or for secular critics. The Ruetheran Reformation roars on! -- Catherine Keller, Drew University Rosemary Radford Ruether's Christianity and Social Systems is a breathtaking, comprehensive, and accessible historical reconstruction of social systems from gender relations, slavery, nationalism and anti-semitism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and corporate globalism through to current ecological threats. Using examples from around the globe, Ruether helps change agents understand how the current context has been shaped, and how churches can participate in constructing a new and just reality. A fascinating socio-historical treatment. -- Carol Robb, San Francisco Theological Seminary and Graduate Theological Union For decades Rosemary Radford Ruether has been describing the social history of human beings, especially in the West, with both objectivity and moral passion. She tells it as it is, letting the chips fall where they may. In the process, she has offended everyone, since in history no group turns out to be pure and innocent, but she has also offered hope. Since this hope is based on a realistic assessment of our past and present, it is the only kind that is truly real  and useful. In this book the insights and wisdom derived from a lifetime of study and reflection are brought together. If any one book can be called Ruether's magnum opus, this is it. -- John B. Cobb, Jr., CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY








