Review of Occupy the Bible

Meet the Author

Susan Thistlethwaite is a Professor of Theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and previously served as the institution’s president from 1998 and 2008.  She is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, serves on the Boards of the Center for American Progress and the Interfaith Youth Core, and writes a weekly column for the Washington Post.  Thistlethwaite’s previous books include of Interfaith Just Peacemaking: Alternatives to War, edited with Glen Stassen (2008); Adam, Eve and the Genome: Theology in Dialogue with the Human Genome Project (2003); and Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States with Rita Nakashima Brock (1996).

Book Basics

Occupy the Bible is a thoughtful and thought provoking progressive Christian consideration of the #Occupy movement, and a call to action for those who follow the way of Jesus.  Thistlethwaite argues ”Jesus occupied,” offering numerous examples from the New Testament alongside contemporary parallels in the lives of his followers via Occupy (p.xxv).  Furthermore, her writing models that which she teaches since she is learning by engaging and by doing in order to develop a “way of reading the Bible and seeing the world through the eyes of a street-level Scripture” rather than approach the text in the manner she learned earlier in life from church or seminary.

So What?

Thistlethwaite recommends that readers learn how to #OccupytheBible.  In order to do so, one must:

1. get to know the Bible (become familiar with the whole text),
2. get out on the street (see the situation first hand),
3. use social media, and
4. make connections (connect #1, 2 & 3).

How has your religious identity shaped your understanding of and (if applicable) participation in the #Occupy movement?

Susan Thistlethwaite.  Occupy the Bible: What Jesus Really Said (And Did) About Money and Power (Astor+Blue Editions, 2013). ISBN: 9781938231445.