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Critical Theory for Political Theology 2.0

You Must Change Your Life: On Moving Saints

We asked Aaron Hollander and Sonia Velázquez to reflect on each other’s recent books. Here, Hollander explores the intersection of hagiography, aesthetics, and politics.

God, Blood, and Memes

When Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene compared Donald Trump to Jesus Christ, she wasn’t just being provocative. She was revealing the political logic that holds Trumpism together…and, as subsequent events would show, its limits.

Before I’ll Be a Slave: Isaiah’s Vineyard and the Politics of Counterfeit Righteousness

Isaiah 5:1–7 opens as a love song and closes as a verdict, judging a vineyard not by its structural industry but by its ethical fruit. Reading Isaiah’s brilliant wordplay through a womanist hermeneutic and the Civil Rights freedom song tradition, this essay names the counterfeit fruit of a contemporary Christian nationalism that calls violence just, elevates a flawed man to the status of savior, and labels empathy a sin—and asks who is still listening for the desperate cry (tse’aqah) beneath the nationalistic noise.

The Stack: PTN’s Thematic Newsletters

PTN members now receive a monthly thematic reading list with the most recent conversations on their topics of choice.

How to Tell Time in an Emergency

We invited Mac Loftin, Hanna Reichel, and Phil Christman, authors of recent books speaking to our present moment of crisis, to reflect on the other two books — and the state of the world.

For the Church, Today

We invited Mac Loftin, Hanna Reichel, and Phil Christman, authors of recent books speaking to our present moment of crisis, to reflect on the other two books — and the state of the world.

Catholic Re-Visions

Theological Negotiations: Pope Leo, President Trump, and Their Others

When authority is reduced to the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ we also reduce the figures within these debates to mere political caricatures of one another, trapped in a cat fight from which there is no escape.

Reevaluating Charisma

As is the case with religion, progressive intellectuals tend to look on charisma with suspicion, relegating it to the realm of authoritarian and manipulative politics.