July 28, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS – Although Christianity began as a dissident movement and in the Reformation recreated itself through dissent, traditional Christianity has always been uneasy with dissent and pluralism. Whether directed against the church itself or the larger society, dissent has been most often met with ridicule and persecution.

Lively and engaging, Paula Cooey's highly relevant new book, Willing The Good: Jesus, Dissent, and Desire, retrieves and valorizes the reforming impulse from Reformation times, follows it back through the early church's internal and external battles, and traces it back to Jesus himself. She shows how a strong affirmation of dissent as a Christian duty can inform a more open and faithful church as well as a publicly relevant theology and ethics.

"Paula Cooey's title, Willing the Good, states a central theological question of the twenty-first century for well-off Christians: How can we will the good? We know what the good is-a just, sustainable planet-and we know that our high-energy, greedy lifestyle is destroying the planet. How can we change? Cooey's book makes an important contribution to understanding the heart of our fear and paralysis. She claims-and beautifully reflects on-that this is only by participating in God's boundless love that we can let go of our own ego's relentless controlling power. Then we can enter into the possibility of desiring what God desires-the good of the dispossessed other, the flourishing of all creation." – Sallie McFague, Carpenter Professor Emerita, Vanderbilt University, Distinguished Theologian in Residence, Vancouver School of Theology, and author of Life Abundant.

"In this rich tapestry of personal and collective history, Paula Cooey faces forthrightly the ambiguity of Christianity in general and movements of dissent in particular. In so doing, she finds the gift of an economy of grace, propelled by love, sustained by an honest acceptance of the limits of our knowledge and wisdom, and enlivened by joy. A book of courage and hope for our fearful times." – Sharon D. Welch, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Missouri – Columbia, and author of After Empire.

Paula M. Cooey is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Christian Theology and Culture at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among her many books are Family, Freedom, and Faith: Building Community Today (WJK, 1996); and Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis (Oxford, 1994).

Willing the Good: Jesus, Dissent, and Desire, By Paula M. Cooey, Format: 6" x 9," paperback, 224 pp, ISBN: 0-8006-3664-3, Price: $20.00, Publisher: Fortress Press, Rights: World.

To order Willing the Good please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.fortresspress.com/.

Fortress Press