Albert Nolan OP (2 September 1934 – 17 October 2022) was a South African Catholic priest, theologian writer and member of the Dominican Order.
He however declined the office which would have meant transferring to his order's Rome headquarters, preferring to remain in South Africa during this decade of intense political and social transition.
[3] During this period he worked for the Institute for Contextual Theology, and was involved in the circle of pastors and theologians who started the process that led to the Kairos Document in 1985.
In the 1990s, as a result of his conviction that theology must come from the grassroots level and not an academic, he started a radical church magazine called Challenge, of which he was the editor for many years.
Nolan is well known for his book, Jesus Before Christianity, first published in 1976, in which he presented an account of Jesus' radical involvement in the struggle for full humanity in the context of first-century Judea: he "challenged the rich to identify in solidarity with the poor, a spirituality of solidarity that resonated with white Catholics seeking a new, progressive direction" .
At one point during the writing process he 'went underground' to hide from the Security Forces during the state of emergency in South Africa.
[6] In 2003, the South African government awarded him the Order of Luthuli in silver, in recognition of "his life-long dedication to the struggle for democracy, human rights and justice and for challenging the religious dogma including theological justification of apartheid".