Reluctant Prophet

This book is a collection of essays in honour of Albert Nolan OP, who died in October 2022 at the age of 88. Awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver by then President Thabo Mbeki in 2003 for his life-long dedication to the struggle for democracy, human rights and justice and for challenging the religious dogma especially the theological justification for apartheid, Nolan inspired a generation of Christian activists and theologians. From 19731980, he served as national chaplain for the National Catholic Federation of Students (NCFS) and also, until 1980, for the Catholic Students Association (CASA), which was formed in 1976 after black students began organising themselves into separate formations as Black Consciousness flourished. In 1977, Nolan was instrumental in establishing Young Christian Students movement (YCS) in South Africa. The contributions in this volume come from people around the world who knew him or worked with him over the years. The contributions deal with his family life, his time with the student movements, his life as Dominican, his periods as Dominican Provincial in Southern Africa, his involvement with the ANC, his work as a writer, a publisher of a journal and life in his later years. There are over 65 contributions, along with a Foreword by Timothy Radcliffe OP, a former Master General of the Dominicans: Albert told Mark James OP: If people want to know who I was, what I believed and what I stood for, they can read my books. I would add and meet my friends. So this is an unusual book since it contains pieces by Alberts former students and colleagues, his Dominican brothers and sisters, academics and activists, Catholics and Christians of other denominations. It is rare to have a collection of such different sorts of contributions, ranging from the highly personal to the academic. But this is what the People of God is like, a deeply and beautifully diverse community of pilgrims on the way to the Kingdom, conversing as we travel. From the Foreword by Timothy Radcliffe OP.