Rev. Dr. Tony Lin talks to Miguel Escobar about his new book on wealth, poverty, and the Church today

*Part of “The Famine” (1997), a commemorative sculpture by Rowan Gillespie dedicated to those forced to emigrate during the 19th-century Irish Famine. Custom House Quay, Dublin, Ireland, 2007.* *Photo:* *Nic McPhee*

Rev. Dr. Tony Lin talks to Miguel Escobar about his new book The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today (Forward Movement, 2022). "Here is a book that inspires, yes, but also challenges and unsettles all who would take seriously Jesus’s Way of Love,” writes The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, XXVII Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
and author of Love is the Way (Penguin, 2020). “Weaving together words of wisdom from spiritual giants of early Christianity with profound reflections from his own life, Miguel Escobar pulls back the curtain of wealth and poverty to reveal our longstanding complicity with systems of injustice and calls us to make better, more humane choices, reflective of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, that can change the world."

Escobar wanted the book to be, as he says, “accessibly-written.” The Unjust Steward offers information meant to help us think differently about money and how it has been filtered through Christianity at the congregational level. “You have to have conversations to expand the moral imagination of what’s possible,” says Escobar.

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Miguel A. Escobar is Executive Director of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary (EDS at Union). There, he works with the Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of EDS at Union, to build a Master of Divinity in Anglican Studies program aimed at forming social-justice faith leaders for The Episcopal Church. Previously, Escobar served as managing program director for leadership, communications, and external affairs at the Episcopal Church Foundation. He earned a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in 2007 and served as the communications assistant to then-Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori from 2007 to 2010. Escobar is chair of the board of directors of Forward Movement and serves as secretary of the board of directors of Episcopal Relief & Development. He grew up in the Texas Hill Country and attended Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied the Roman Catholic social-justice tradition, Latin American liberation theologies, and minored in Spanish. He joined the Episcopal Church in New York City through St. Mary’s in West Harlem, drawn by the congregation’s diversity and commitment to social justice. Escobar divides his time between two parishes–St. Mary’s and San Andres Episcopal Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

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Rev. Dr. Tony Tian-Ren Lin is a Research Professor at New York Theological Seminary. He is a cultural sociologist whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of religion, immigration, race, and ethnicity. He is the author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), which Publisher’s Weekly praises as a “well-reasoned,” “evocative debut” that “immerse[s] readers in the lives of his subjects.” He was previously a Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia where he held numerous academic and administrative positions. Rev. Dr. Lin was born in Taiwan and grew up in Argentina. He holds a bachelor degree from Boston University, a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Master and Doctor of Philosophy in sociology from the University of Virginia. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served churches in New Jersey and Virginia. His work has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, LatinoUSA, WNYC, and other venues.

The Unjust Steward

Rev. Dr. Tony Lin talks to Miguel Escobar about his new book on wealth, poverty, and the Church today

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