Category: The Politics of Scripture

In her very presence, the widow performs the political act of bringing to light oppression and injustice. Our task is to learn how to see her.

As Jesus and the scribes agree, and as today every major religion agrees, the right answer to the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

In the Book of Job, the question of how we speak of God in the midst of suffering is at the forefront, which is where its significance for liberation theology is particularly found.

Human rulers like Job might imitate the rule of God, but God’s power goes beyond what they are capable of enacting.

In evil days, justice can be stifled and the voice of the prudent can be silenced.

Integrity is what we demand from others, aspire to in ourselves, and often fall short of. We fall short, but will find wholeness in the Son of Man.

The book of Esther deals with resisting ethnic violence in its ancient context and offers us tools for resisting white ethnic nationalism today.

When we stop clinging to what we know and what we are, we can go out into the world without fear, insecurity, resentment, and judgment, as true Children of God. The image of a playing child helps us see alternatives to our childish attitudes.

“Victimhood culture” has swept our nation in recent years where victimhood has become an identity to be ashamed of. However, Jesus teaches his followers to bear their victimhood without shame, just as he bore his own without shame.

How is the riven social body, with its divisions between poor and rich, to be healed?

The Pharisees were not wrong to question Jesus, but as much as we might want to empathize with them, to agree that there are simply certain things good people do not do, Jesus rejects human propriety as an orienting standard. Jesus is talking about the human heart, something Christians today also must consider.

The witness of the land cannot be escaped. Whether in its memorials of divine faithfulness, or its testimony to our sins, it will not be silent.