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Essays

The White Evangelical Vote: An Irony of American Religio-Political Culture

Why is populism persuasive and specifically persuasive to these religious Christians? Said another way, what makes right-wing populism seem, to deeply religious people, like the ‘ethical’ stance?

Response to George Shulman

We are all indebted to Shulman’s important delineation of prophecy’s role in American thought, especially in relation to race and redemption.

Learning from Zora Neale Hurston

The best place to begin in bringing theology and anthropology closer together is with someone who did not write as if the two were separate, even opposed disciplines. Zora Neale Hurston carried out ethnographic fieldwork on behalf of Franz Boas, and yet, writing in multiple genres, articulated a theological vision that meshed the universal God with particular human experience: “Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person.”

Humanism

Gilroy’s “planetary humanism” contributes to political theology by offering more than a critique: in his work, humanism is a starting point, a concept to guide multicultural political projects today.

Women Prevailing Against Limited Vision

Lydia does not need a man or any other figure of authority to speak for her or to dictate her life. She is her own agent and even Luke-Acts’ Paul has to respect that. She cares for her own, commits to seeking justice, and makes her own choices.

From Disciplinary Transactions to Political Practice: Moving Past Theology and Anthropology “in General”

A common denominator among most scholarship on the relationship between theology and anthropology is lack of specificity around which and whose anthropology and theology we’re talking about. This overly generalized frame has privileged white, male, Eurocentric intellectual traditions and misses the generative possibilities of a more specific interdisciplinary exchange.

Eugenics

Sometimes referred to as “population control,” other times “better breeding,” eugenics has been seen as a religious solution to social ills, and sometimes a new religion unto itself.

The Newness of the New Commandment

Love should be the interpreting principle in every situation and to every person. Love for God is not expressed by hatred towards a neighbour based on any text.

Immanent Singularity

This intervention invites to think active dis-imagination, in mystical and contemporary traditions, as a grounding political force.

Racial Capitalism

The historical and theoretical relationships between race and capitalism are internally contested and in need of further exploration from theologians and scholars of religion.

Flourishing by Following

Jesus’ claim to be the good shepherd is much more than a comforting metaphor. It is a claim to kingship and a clarion call to surrender our wills and follow him to green pastures. His kingship subverts hierarchies. He models followership for us and ushers us into wide-open spaces where we can flourish in his upside-down kingdom.

Call for Papers: Political Theology Network’s 2022 Summer Workshop Series, “Varieties of Political Theological Method”

Authors should submit a 500 word abstract to Mary Nickel (mnickel@princeton.edu) and Kathy Chow (kathy.chow@yale.edu) by May 15. Please put “PTN Workshop Series Proposal” in the subject line. We will notify participants of our decisions by May 22.