Life on the Breadline: Theology, Poverty and Politics in an Age of Austerity

Academic theology stands at a crossroads. Will it rise to the challenge and focus its energy on the development of a fieldwork-led theology of liberation that can resource the struggle to make poverty history? Life on the Breadline represents the first fieldwork-based book by an academic theologian to identify, explore and analyse the spectrum of Christian responses to austerity-age poverty in the UK. Rooted in an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis of multidimensional poverty, political discourse and extensive qualitative research, it develops a groundbreaking theological analysis of the impact of governmental austerity policies since the 2008 financial crash. In Life on the Breadline, Chris Shannahan identifies and critiques a spectrum of Christian responses to poverty and sows the seeds of a new theology of liberation, demonstrating that the Church faces a Kairos moment in its engagement in the public sphere and its commitment to ‘transform structural injustice’.