Tributes to a Prophet

Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher

RELUCTANT PROPHET: Tributes to Albert Nolan OP, edited by Mike Deeb OP, Philippe Denis OP, Mark James OP. ATF Press Publishing Group/UJ Press (2023). 463pp.  R485 (print), R340 (ebook)

Addressing the launch of this book in Cape Town, Cardinal Stephen Brislin called the late Fr Albert Nolan OP the “Gutiérrez of South Africa”, referring to the famous Peruvian liberation theologian and Nolan’s Dominican confrere Fr Gustavo Gutiérrez.

The comparison was fitting: as Gutiérrez led the definition of the theological response to the oppressive regimes and economies of Latin America, so did Albert Nolan lead the Christian theological response to apartheid at its most heated time, the 1970s and ’80s.

Nolan’s influence was profound and reached beyond the Catholic Church, and beyond South Africa. The diversity in this collection of tributes and essays on the life, work, theology and person of Fr Nolan testifies to that. The book’s 70-plus contributors cover many different churches and territories.

The editors — Fr Mike Deeb, Br Philippe Denis and Fr Mark James, all Dominicans — have compiled a smart cross-section of perspectives with offerings by the well-known and obvious, as well as by lesser-known people. The volume of contributions has turned this project into a big book, at 463 pages. Happily, one can dip into it at random without losing the flow.

Tribute books such as Reluctant Prophet — a title that needs little explanation — are helpful in painting a picture of its subject in a way biographies cannot. The editors have categorised contributions by themes, skilfully creating a roughly chronological, and therefore loosely biographical, narrative.

This book was created in an astonishingly short period of time, having been launched only nine months after Nolan’s death at 88 on October 17, 2022. Born as Dennis Nolan on September 2, 1934, in Cape Town into a lower middle-class family, he received the religious name Albert on joining the Dominican order in 1954. Everybody knew the priest simply as Albert.

Nolan’s lasting legacy will be his theological writings, especially Jesus Before Christianity (1976) and God in South Africa (1988). The genius of Nolan’s theology resides in its simplicity, a theology not for the denizens of ivory towers with their impenetrable jargon, but for the people, illuminated in terms that are relevant to them.

His books were written for particular contexts and times — the struggle against apartheid in South Africa — yet they transcend their time, place and context, and remain relevant today.

Apartheid’s foe

Since Nolan’s death, it has been revealed that he was not only an anti-apartheid activist whom the Security Police actively sought (forcing him into hiding), but also an underground operative of the exiled African National Congress, in the domain of smuggling communications. How hurt Nolan was, like so many others in the struggle, by what the ANC has since become!

These stories are discussed in tributes, and others involving subjects such as Nolan declining his election as worldwide head of the Dominicans, his leadership of its local province, his pioneering theological work, his founding and editorship of the ecumenical Challenge magazine, his mentorship in the Young Christian Students movement, his pivotal role in the drafting of the Kairos Document, and also his physical decline with the onset of old age.

As it should be in a book of tributes to a man who loved to laugh, there are moments of levity. One amusing tale involves Nolan crossing over the border into Lesotho while on the run from the Security Police. They were looking for Albert Nolan, but his passport identified the traveller by his civil name, Dennis.

By its nature, any book of tributes tends to lean towards the hagiographical, as Fr Deeb cautions in his astute introduction. Indeed, as Dr Brian Robertson points out, we need no canonisation to know that Nolan is a saint with God. However, some contributors raise critique of elements of Nolan’s teachings, most eloquently Fr Neil Mitchell OP. It is right that we should interrogate Nolan’s theological positions, as he himself would keenly agree.

The book is illustrated with many photos of Nolan at various stages in his long, fascinating life.

A formal biography of Nolan is still necessary, much as he might have argued that it isn’t. When the time comes to write it, Reluctant Prophet will serve its author as a precious resource. In the meantime, if we want to know Albert Dennis Nolan OP, we have happy recourse to the testimonies of his friends in this book, and his books.

Reluctant Prophet is available in Catholic bookshops, or order via ujonlinepress.uj.ac.za/index.php/ujp/catalog/book/208

Published in the October 2023 issue of The Southern Cross Magazine