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Category: Politics of Scripture

The Politics of Scripture series follows the Revised Common Lectionary to connect the biblical text to political issues in ancient and contemporary thought and practice. You can search past archives by scriptural book here. We welcome contributions from scholars, religious leaders, and activists. Contact the series editors, Haley Gabrielle and Anna Bowden at [email protected].

Courageous Criticism of the Righteous Mind

It takes so little courage to become token protagonists of the truth—righteous minds defending unrighteous actions.

Can Water Spring from Dry Land?

In Exodus 17, the people of Israel confront a barren landscape that seems to guarantee imminent death. Today police violence, especially against Black people, seems to be similarly embedded in our social landscape. This essay turns to Angela Davis to ask if dry land can become springs of water.

Power, Reconciliation, and Accountability

The tendencies of any group of human beings to normalize power and hide harm are themselves, then, subject to the process Matthew’s gospel is describing. The frankness of communication, of subsidiarity mediation and conflict negotiation, the expectation of honest and mutual accountability described here should also be applied, as healthily and faithfully as possible, to the workings of authority, relationship, and power system within the community.

The Myth of “Cheap” Reconciliation

The God present in the book of Jonah is a God who never gives up hope on anyone, even those who have perpetrated the worst evils. Also, the God present here is a God who demands that we repent thoroughly, completely, and without reservation. This is not a cheap reconciliation, but a very costly one indeed.

Expanding our Political Imagination

The introduction of radically liberative political concepts has profound implications for how communities understand punishment and vengeance. This particular political moment allows for a reconceptualization of power with regard to racism and scripture.

Preferential Option for the Poor Once More

“Seek ye first the political kingdom of God and all these things shall be given unto you.”

Tyranny is Nothing New (Nor is Resistance)

Through confrontational or subversive tactics, God empowers human agents to restore God’s liberating and salvific will for the creation.

Pandemic and Migration

While the pandemic challenges our physical borders, it simultaneously bridges our differences, revealing that we are all migrants.

When We Begin to Sink: Matthew 14:22-33 in a Time of Double Pandemic

Living in a time of double pandemic, as the dual waves of racism and COVID-19 wreck against the hulls of our ships and the walls that support us feel increasingly insufficient and even flawed, we, like Peter, may know and trust the call of our God to carry forward in God’s path, and yet waver.

Jesus and the Economics of Scarcity

While even his closest associates would lean towards dismissing the people to fend for themselves, [Jesus] invites the community of the wilderness into a divine economy of care. Sharing, as a physical manifestation of that care, requires a suspension of the belief that scarcity is the only reality available in the moment of want.

Political Leaders and Moral Intelligence

One cannot be politically smart, but willfully wicked. For the leader and for the voter who would be tied to the Scriptures, “smart” is a moral term.

The Written-out Slaves

When Dalits write, they contest these misrepresentations and objectifications, and provide a sub-version of the texts. When Dalits write, they experience liberation. A decolonial reading of this given text calls us to offer our support and solidarity with #Blacklivesmatter and #Dalitlivesmatter, recognising an agency of liberation in our Dalit and Black bodies, lives, and texts.