Learning to Live

What a rare find--a scholarly text that reads like an inspiring page-turner! In Learning to Live, Rachelle R. Green illuminates the stories of a learning community in a women’s prison and invites readers on a journey of reimagining theological education everywhere. Leaning on students’ insights and her own teaching experiences, Green develops a helpful framework for creating life-affirming learning environments in the face of death-dealing institutions. It is an essential text for courses that intersect pedagogy and theological ethics.

~Montague R. Williams, Professor of Church, Culture, and Society, Point Loma Nazarene University, and author of Church in Color: Youth Ministry, Race, and the Theology of Martin Luther King Jr.

This is the book I’ve been waiting for! I love teaching methodology, and Rachelle R. Green has given me the essential textbook to assign to my MDiv and doctoral students who want and need an excellent model for doing practical theological ethnography with vulnerable populations. In fact, Learning to Live is more than a model for ethnographic research, it is a life-giving testament from women who are alive and living in partnership with God to create a meaning-filled life in a death-dealing prison. We witness God’s work in these women’s lives through their stories that Green masterfully tells. As she tells their stories, we learn how to teach from her pedagogical practices of using art and theater--acting out characters with simple props of toilet paper and headscarves. I anticipate the days when my students and I learn more from her about the liberating power of incarcerated women’s stories.

~Evelyn L. Parker, Professor Emerita of Practical Theology, Perkins School of Theology