Bob Pennington

The first-person account of how a small band of Green Berets used horses and laser-guided bombs to overthrow the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11. They landed in a dust storm so thick the chopper pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. Welcomed by a band of heavily armed militiamen, they climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They trekked through minefields, sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who’d shared food with them hours before. They saved babies and treated fractures, sewed up wounded who’d been transported from the battlefield by donkey. They found their enemy hiding in thick bunkers, dodged bullets from machine-gun-laden pickup trucks, and survived mass rocket attacks from vintage Soviet-era launchers. They battled the Taliban while mediating blood feuds between rival allies. They fought with everything they had, from smart bombs to AK-47s. The men they helped called them brothers. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.

Bridge Building invites readers to consider the practical theological value of metanoia and praxis. This requires a conversion toward social action that seeks to transform personal prejudices and political realities where social injustice is accepted as the cultural norm, specifically regarding the global ecological problem, the plight of migrants and refugees, and extreme global poverty. In this way, the paradigm of Bridge Building serves the Church by overcoming the fragmentation between some forms of theology where "an opposition between theology and pastoral ministry emerges as if they were two opposite and separate realities which have nothing to do with each other." (Pope Francis, 2015). Contrary to all previous dualism between the sacred and secular, Bridge Building seeks to end the compartmentalization of the faith that academic theology has, at times, reinforced. Thought and action must proceed together for Christians to live an integral life. Neither orthodoxy nor orthopraxy can be understood in isolation, as the deepest mysteries of the Christian life can only be 'known' through action. This theological method favors accompaniment as a pastoral strategy, encounter as epistemologically necessary and praxis as the only possibility for real conversion. Loving action is participation in the God who is found most profoundly in the crucified people of today.

IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, the Catholic Church made an epoch-defining magisterial, philosophical, and theological turn from an "ahistorical" methodological "habitus" toward a praxis-based methodology that interprets "historical reality," especially the reality of the poverty, as a locus theologicus. This book shows how the development of this turn began in pre-conciliar Western Europe, next flourished during the pontificates of John XXIII and Paul VI and at Vatican Council II, then became vital to liberation theology in post-conciliar Latin America, and eventually grew into the contemporary paradigm of "practical theology." The book chronicles the contributions of a range of twentieth-century Catholic philosophers, theologians, and members of the Magisterium who created and advanced this turn across Western Europe, Latin America, and North America. Today, the turn has been additionally developed in Africa and Asia, and the author looks forward to learning from additional Catholic theological voices from those important global regions. DR. BOB PENNINGTON, a native of West Virginia, grew up in Gainesville, Florida and attended the University of Florida in pursuit of a bachelor's degree in Political Science. However, after a mission-trip to the isolated mountain town of La Cucarita in the Dominican Republic, Dr. Pennington transferred to Wheeling Jesuit University to finish his undergraduate degree with a focus on the political and civic aspect of mission work. Dr. Pennington then earned a master's degree in Theology from Xavier University, followed by a Ph. D. in Practical Theology from St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. Dr. Pennington is currently an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, specializing in Ethics, at Mount St. Joseph University. When not working on writing and speaking projects, he enjoys spending time with his wife Cassandra, and with his two children Luke and Leo.