In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gustierrez

by Paul Farmer

Overview

A courageous physician and a path-breaking theologian explore their common option for the poor.

Paul Farmer, an internationally respected physician, and Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian priest renowned for his contribution to liberation theology, join in an inspiring conversation about life, liberation, and the call to accompany the poor. Dr. Farmer has credited liberation theology as the inspiration for his effort to do "social justice medicine," while Gutierrez has recognized Farmer's work as a particularly compelling example of the option for the poor, and the practical application of theological principles outside the church. Their friendship and common vision will inspire all who dream and work for a different world.

Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer is the Kolokotrones University Professor, Harvard University; Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; and a founding director of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that provides direct health care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer is also the UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626980501
Publisher:	Orbis Books
Publication date:	11/01/2013
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	118,991
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gustavo Gutierrez, a Dominican priest and theologian from Peru, is widely recognized as one of the preeminent voices of liberation theology. His books include A Theology of Liberation, On Job, We Drink from Our Own Wells, and The God of Life. He teaches half the year at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Foreword Father Bruno Cadoré, OP vii

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Jennie Weiss Block, OP Michael Griffin 1

1 Reimagining Accompaniment: A Doctor's Tribute to Gustavo Gutiérrez Paul Farmer 15

2 Saying and Showing to the Poor: "God Loves You" Gustavo Gutiérrez 27

3 Health, Healing, and Social Justice: Insights from Liberation Theology Paul Farmer 35

4 Conversion: A Requirement for Solidarity Gustavo Gutiérrez 71

5 Conversion in the Time of Cholera: A Reflection on Structural Violence and Social Change Paul Farmer 95

6 The Option for the Poor Arises from Faith in Christ Gustavo Gutiérrez 147

7 Reimagining Accompaniment: An Interview with Paul Farmer and Gustavo Gutiérrez Daniel G. Groody 161

Afterword Steve Reifenberg 189

Index 199

Editorial Reviews

10/14/2013
Farmer, a co-founder of the international nonprofit health care provider Partners in Health, may be one of the world’s best-known physicians. Gutiérrez, Peruvian priest, theologian, and author, is not a household name though well-known in theological circles as an exponent of liberation theology. What the two men share is delightful mutual regard, profound “moral imagination,” and decades living among those locked outside the gates of the global economy. Editors Griffin and Block draw readers into a conversation between two extraordinary men with uncommon dedication to serving the world’s poor. For Farmer, Gutiérrez’s seminal 1971 work, A Theology of Liberation, transformed the doctor’s passion for public health into a mission to address poverty as “structured evil.” For Gutiérrez, Farmer’s medical clinics in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, and elsewhere embody the stubborn, consistent love that undergirds a Christian theology. With the proportion of Americans living in poverty either increasing or flatlining for 11 of the last 12 years, this timely dialogue provides, as Gutiérrez says, a desperately needed “hermeneutic of hope.” (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

AN OUTSTANDING BOOK - INT'L BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

"Editors Griffin and Block draw readers into conversation between two extraordinary men with uncommon dedication to serving the world's poor." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

11/15/2013
This title weaves together several addresses and an interview (the subtitle's "conversations" is misleading) with Farmer and Gutiérrez from a 2011 academic conference. Inspired by the theological vision of Peruvian pastor and liberation theologian Gutiérrez (John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology, Univ. of Notre Dame; A Theology of Liberation), medical anthropologist Farmer (global health & social medicine, Harvard Medical Sch.; The New War on the Poor) argues that "analysis of social suffering invariably reveals its social origins. It is not primarily cataclysms of nature that wreak havoc in the lives of the Latin American poor." The volume also includes excerpts from the men's works (Farmer's Pathologies of Power; Gutiérrez's We Drink from Our Own Wells). While the overall effect is somewhat like patchwork or a scrapbook, editors Griffin (theology, Holy Cross Coll.) and Block (chief adviser to Farmer) effectively give readers an introduction to Gutiérrez's spiritual vision and its impact on Farmer's medical work among the poor of Haiti and Peru. VERDICT Gutiérrez's theological contributions here are revelatory of his and Farmer's moral motivations. Farmer, however, communicates persuasively to a general audience beyond religious readers.—Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL

Library Journal