Churches and helping homeless people go together like soup and sandwiches. From the Skid Row rescue missions of the 19th century right up to the present, modern Christians have responded to Matthew 25:35 by feeding the hungry and sheltering the stranger. Yet how many, asks Dominican University of California philosophy and ethics professor Laura Stivers, take the next step, advised in Isaiah 1:17, and work to "seek justice and encourage the oppressed?"

The answer, says Stivers, is not nearly enough. "Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches (Fortress Press, $18) offers a manual of sorts to faith activists interested in building a social movement to address homelessness. Her book is grounded in the liberation theology tradition and expands upon the work of Christian ethicist Traci West to deconstruct "how our traditional Christian institutional responses often reinforce dominant ideologies about homelessness and housing in ways that both can be oppressive for those who are poor and/or homeless and can serve to mask the real causes of homelessness, thereby ensuring that the status quo of power and privilege remains intact."