xbn .

Essays

Sitting in Public

Jesus doesn’t ban sitting or reclining in public. He encourages it, supports it, and even participates in it.

In Jesus’s Flesh, New Possibilities for Embodiment 

There is no single, correct mode of embodiment. For those who regard themselves as part of the body of Jesus, part of the family that grows from Jesus’s body, that one body is really many bodies, complicated bodies, with hands, blood, some foreskins, and a whole lot of multi-colored flesh.

Dorothy Day Through the Eyes of Her Granddaughters: An Interview with Kate and Martha Hennessy

In terms of Dorothy’s theology, I think that there is an inclination now where they want to write about piety. They don’t want to write about “Don’t pay your war taxes.”

Listening to Power’s Fears

Paying attention to Herod’s fears about Jesus can keep us from depoliticizing the gospel.

How to Not Panic about the Election

Is tranquility possible in an era of political emergency?

Atheism and the Critique of Sovereignty

By disrupting pernicious claims to transcendence, atheist political theologies can help us redress suffering in particular places while keeping hope for radical transformation.

Redefining Authority: The Political Theology of Rejection in Mark 6: 1-6

The political theology emerging from this narrative calls for a redefinition of authority and leadership. It emphasises qualities like service, compassion, and the capacity to heal and liberate over traditional markers of power like wealth, status, or lineage.

The African Youth Living Pope Francis’ Dream

Youth were not very welcome at the table. It was quite common for them to be referred to and accept that they are leaders of tomorrow or the next generation… How can we be the next generation when we’re already here [right now]?

“Will the Dust Praise You?”: Theologizing Death

Imagine a world in which we stop at every news of death. Imagine a world in which we do not trivialize or rationalize death. … Have we over-theologized life after death?

Tearing Down the Heavens: Marx’ Critique of Religion, Atheism, and Political Economy

For Marx, religion is more than “the opium of the people,” it is the mirror of society turned upside down. This essay examines Marx’s critique of religion as well as his critique of other contemporary critiques of religion. This critique of religion became the starting point of his critique of political theology and, later, political economy.

American Revival: The Persistence of Miracles

In what follows I want to trace a political theology of miracles that makes possible their circulation in U.S. revivalism. A straightforward theology—namely that God does miracles—is certainly part of the motivating belief for revivalism. But I want to trace here the political contours of revivalisms’ continuous circulation of the miraculous, well past the time that secularization theory suggested that they would give way instead to secularity, science and the enlightenment.

Going Down to the Sea with Job, Psalms, and Shakespeare

The messianic banquet imagined by the Jewish sages nurtures attitudes of respect, blessing, recognition, and wonder. These comportments converge in humility, an earthbound ethic that we practice together, through speech, action, and the work of dwelling.