Unified We Are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities
by Rieger, Joerg and Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger. (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press) 2017.
Reviewed by Michael D. Royster
The six chapters of Unified We Are a Force provide a theological reflection of the structural violence caused by economic inequality and the resulting manner in which those in positions of privilege become desensitized to society’s fringed members. When examining forms of inequality, Rieger emphasizes wealth production rather than wealth distribution as a primary root cause for relative and absolute deprivation among the masses.
The co-authors critique the Horatio Alger myth by acknowledging that between productivity from those who labor and the wages which reward them, there lies a collective negative correlation. Traditional communal bonds have weakened in global and local societies due to a shift from communal interests to the proliferation of fierce individualism. This shift has permeated various institutions including political, economic and religious. The cumulative effect of this results in the elevation of social isolation between elites and marginalized populations. They are invisible to each other which, in turn, enhances the dehumanizing effects on the marginalized and the elites.
One’s access to resources is based on social cohesiveness and interdependence. In terms of economics, “the problem is that profits are valued over people” (p. 35). The authors stress that in the absence of solidarity, people function as mere tools for potential labor value. Nevertheless, workers exist in a numerical majority compared to the relatively small population of elites; so they are pitted against one another with limited means to solve their own problems that relate to their interests, rather than directing their focus on the elites.
According to the authors, U.S. culture wars derive from the dominant powers’ practices that are ultimately manifested through structural and overt racism, sexism and class divisions. This is a systemic form of divide and conquer tactics. Although the book was written during a time of national economic recovery in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the authors demonstrate the significant economic harm endured by sectors of society through the devaluation of labor by wage depression and wage theft.
The authors challenge that branch of the religious community which dismisses the realities experienced by the working poor and engages in apolitical theological discourse that ignores the construction of a society without regard to justice. The authors write:
“One-sided solidarity, while well meaning and sincerely trying to help, creates several problems. One is those who consider themselves privileged are calling the shots, acting as if they had the ability to fix the problems alone” (p. 59-60).
However, the underprivileged have a keen sense of their collective lack of power and have grown somewhat accustomed to the narrative which blames them for the effects which accompany their powerlessness.
The book potentially has a broad audience beyond academia and clergy which includes laity interested in the intersection between economic justice and the Christian faith. Unified We Are a Force especially bridges working class studies with political theology with discipline-specific jargon used sparingly.
As the U.S. has a tradition of ideological division, so does Christianity in America. The co-authors demonstrate how Western Christianity contains a dysfunction not in doctrine or polity but in praxis, as its factions align with neo-classical economic beliefs and the inevitable “invisible hand,” Keynesianism, and neo-Marxism as a basis of their collective disunity.
Some theological and socially conservative readers may dismiss the book as leftist and secular. Yet, the book’s central focus is on that branch of religion that promotes otherworldliness, a rigid top-down hierarchical approach to power, and the prosperity gospel. It demonstrates the way elites have aristocratically constructed antagonism against the worker.
However, readers must read the book in its entirety to recognize the argument which supports religion as a potential means for producing deep solidarity that heals the wounds of alienation and inhumanity. Without a careful reading, one could misinterpret Rieger as dismissing religion altogether in the likes of Marx, while overlooking his background as a trained systematic theologian, a devout Christian and United Methodist clergy.
Throughout the volume, the co-authors provide a critique of portrayals of Christianity drawn from human experience which views morality through the eyes of those in positions of power. Readers familiar with Rieger’s previous work such as Remembering the Poor (1998), God and the Excluded (2001), and Occupy Religion (2012) will likely recognize the consistent argument that “religion appears to be at its best when it is located in the communal struggles of everyday life, where God is found to be at work” (p. 84). The book’s emphasis on labor rests in the idea that work plays a significant role in individual and collective religious formation because one’s faith reflects one’s occupational experiences.
Michael D. Royster is a professor at Prairie View A&M University’s Division of Social Work, Behavioral and Political Sciences. He can be reached at mdroyster@pvamu.edu
