A valuable resource for practical theologians, congregational leaders and faith-based non-profit executives exploring how to combine spiritual and material care for homeless individuals and other vulnerable populations.

Contributor: Manuel Mejido Costoya Manuel Mejido Costoya has worked for the United Nations in Geneva and Bangkok and has held teaching and research appointments in Chile, Switzerland, and the United States. --- Contributor: Margaret Breen Margaret Breen is Research and Development Director at the Renton Ecumenical Association of Churches. She has been coordinating faith-based responses to homelessness and housing insecurity in the Puget Sound region for over a decade. Originally from Scotland, Breen is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Her publications include “Faith-Based Responses to Homelessness in Greater Seattle: A Grounded Theory Approach” (Social Compass, 2020). --- Contributor: Jeremy Brown Jeremy Phillip Brown is an Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame specializing in medieval Judaism. He has taught at the University of San Francisco and served as Simon and Ethel Flegg Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at McGill University in Montreal. His research focuses on the Zohar, the penitential discourses of Jewish mysticism and pietism, Jewish Christian polemic in medieval Iberia, and the dissemination of Kabbalah in Latin America. Brown’s recent publications include “Gazing into Their Hearts: On the Appearance of Kabbalistic Pietism in Thirteenth-Century Castile” (European Journal of Jewish Studies, 2020); and “From Nacionalista Anti Kabbalistic Polemic to Aryan Kabbalah in the Southern Cone” (Journal of Religion, 2019). --- Contributor: Sathianathan Clarke Sathianathan Clarke is Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity and Professor of Theology, Culture, and Mission at Wesley Theological Seminary. A presbyter of the Church of South India, he started his ministry serving as a social worker and priest for the Diocese of Madras among Dalit communities in rural India. Clarke is the author of two books: Dalits and Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India (Oxford University Press, 1998); and Competing Fundamentalisms: Violent Extremism in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism (Westminster John Knox, 2017). --- Contributor: John A. Coleman John A. Coleman, S.J., has been an associate pastor at Saint Ignatius Parish in San Francisco since 2009. Previously, he was the Charles Casassa Professor of Social Values at Loyola Marymount University (1997–2009); Professor of Religion and Society at the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (1974–1997); and the Thomas More Chair, The University of Western Australia (2005 and 2007). Coleman has edited, coauthored, or authored eighteen books, including The Evolution of Dutch Catholicism, 1958-1974 (University of California Press, 1978); An American Strategic Theology (Paulist Press, 1982); One Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching (Orbis, 1991); and Christian Political Ethics (Princeton University Press, 2007). He has also contributed over seventy chapters to collected volumes such as Civil Society and Government (Princeton University Press, 2002); Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); The True Wealth of Nations (Oxford University Press, 2010); Modern Catholic Social Teaching (Georgetown University Press, 2018); and American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism (Fordham University Press, 2019). --- Contributor: María Teresa Dávila

María Teresa (MT) Dávila is Associate Professor of Practice and Chair of the Department of Religious and Theological Studies at Merrimack College, North Andover MA. Her work focuses on the areas of migrant and racial justice, the option for the poor and Catholic social teaching, the ethics of the use of force, and public theology. With Agnes Brazal, she is co editor of Living With(out) Borders: Theological Ethics and Peoples on the Move (Orbis, 2016). Her work appears regularly in the Theology en la Plaza column in the National Catholic Reporter, Syndicate, and Political Theology Today. She is a Roman Catholic laywoman.

--- Contributor: Lauren Lawson Lauren Valk Lawson is the Lead for the Community/Public Health Track of the Seattle University College of Nursing’s Graduate Program. Since 2008, Lawson and her nursing students have worked in partnership with Seattle Mennonite Church’s Community Ministry in their provision of services to people experiencing homelessness in Lake City, Washington. She has conducted community-based participatory research to build capacity and design recuperative care services for those experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood. She lives in Seattle with her family and is a member of the Bahá’í Faith. Lawson’s publications include contributions to collected volumes like Nursing Research: Using Participatory Action Research (Springer, 2015). --- Contributor: Manuel Mejido Costoya Manuel Mejido Costoya has worked for the United Nations in Geneva and Bangkok and has held teaching and research appointments in Chile, Switzerland, and the United States. --- Contributor: Roberto Mata Roberto Mata is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University specializing in the book of Revelation and contextual biblical interpretation. He is a recipient of Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center Award for teaching excellence and the prestigious William’s Fellowship. He has also received fellowships from the Hispanic Theological Initiative and the Forum for Theological Exploration. Mata has published in a number of volumes, including Latinx’s, the Bible, and Migration (Palgrave, 2018); and Transforming Graduate Biblical Education: Ethos and Discipline (Society of Biblical Literature, 2010). --- Contributor: James Spickard James V. Spickard is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Redlands, where he taught courses on homelessness and social inequality, religion, social theory, and research design. His homelessness course, which won the university’s 2014 Innovative Teaching Award, sent students on analytic internships with local social service agencies. Spickard has published widely on religion in contemporary society, human rights, social research methods, social theory, and the social foundations of ethics. His textbook on research design—Research Basics: Design to Data Analysis inSix Steps (Sage, 2017)—has a chapter on homeless counts. His most recent book, Alternative Sociologies of Religion: Through Non-Western Eyes (New York University Press, 2017), reimagines what sociologists might notice about religion if they began from Navajo, Confucian, and Khaldunian starting points rather than from Western Christian ones. He has served as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Religion of the International Sociological Association. --- Contributor: Laura Stivers Laura Stivers is Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education and Professor of Social Ethics at Dominican University of California. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, her M.Div. from Pacific School of Religion, and her B.A. from Saint Olaf College. Stivers was a past president of the Southeast Commission for the Study of Religion and served on the Board of the Society of Christian Ethics. She is the author of Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches (Fortress Press, 2011); coauthor of Earth Ethics: A Case Method Approach (Orbis, 2015) and Christian Ethics: A Case Method Approach (Orbis, 2020); and coeditor of Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World (Westminster John Knox, 2006).

This is a remarkable book; remarkable for its candour in providing, alongside a recognition of their importance and influence, a frank assessment of the shortcomings and limitations of faith-based organisations that provide homelessness services in the USA. --- The interfaith, interdisciplinary, and multicultural approach of this volume and the consistently high quality of the essays make it a valuable educational resource. --- Land of Stark Contrasts offers a much-needed inter-disciplinary exploration of the theme of homelessness through the lens of religious studies and theology. Unlike many texts that speak of the poor or marginalized in abstraction, this volume clearly expresses the concrete realities of homelessness in the United States and current efforts to combat it. This is a powerful effort to destigmatize homelessness and decriminalize the homeless population through a study of religious ethics and faith-based communities.---Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, The University of Scranton --- This may well be the very best collection of essays ever assembled treating religious responses to contemporary street homelessness. If we are ever to address adequately the ensemble of social problems that perpetuate homelessness even in affluent societies, the solutions we implement will be rooted in both sound research and genuine religious motivation. This volume sheds abundant light on both of these realities, and deserves the highest recommendation.---Thomas Massaro, SJ, Professor of Moral Theology, Fordham University