Radical Christian and Exemplary Lawyer: A Festschrift Honoring William Stringfellow

When I first read William Stringfellow, I realized almost immediately the connection he made for me between the most significant thinkers I had ever read. He deepened my understanding of men like Karl Barth, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Little did I know that Stringfellow would keep me sane through the banalities that accompany three years of law school. I recommend this book especially to those coming to the study of law from a Protestant Evangelical or Catholic perspective. Evangelicals, though perhaps put off by or distrustful of his admitted disgust with "proof text"-ing Scripture, will find Stringfellow's demand that they link their soteriological zeal with a radical commitment to social justice very challenging and, if accepted, nourishing. Catholics would do well to heed Stringfellow's call to become biblically literate, so as to enrich and sustain a social justice ethic that too often gets left out of community life. As a law student with an evangelical past and a Catholic future, I can only hope that Stringfellow becomes more widely read.