Rather than portraying human difference as the punishment of God, Babel and Pentecost are complementary stories, each highlighting God’s intention for cultural and linguistic diversity. As we draw near to Pentecost Sunday, may we also consider the inherent value of language as a cultural identity marker and partner as advocates for language preservation.
The prophetic role of the Church here is to crack open and break up this renewed parochial nationalism, and remind all of the words of Paul in Galatians 3:28, that regardless of background, we are all one in Jesus Christ.
New issues from the twentieth year of our journal feature articles on Hobbes, poverty, Indonesia, and more, as well as a special issue on Christos Yannaras.
Two wrongs don’t make a right—except, in today’s reading, they do.
The essays sought will both demonstrate ongoing ethnographic research and address the questions of the call: how to relate the post-liberal and liberationist motivations behind this work, and/or the gap between fact and norm.
We invite 200-300 word proposals on political theology broadly understood.
In our own world, the Bethesda story reminds us of the fact that social and economic systems meant to assist the needy often keep them in poverty. Our story suggests that the 40 million Americans who live in poverty will need to doubt and challenge the system, and to look for help outside of it. Further, our sermons will need to speak life into death as a reminder that there is life beyond the system.
For the very reasons that religious freedom discourse is powerful, arguments made in its register, especially as they stretch the indeterminacy of religion in the directions of collective rights, should appropriately be on the table in Native peoples’ efforts to protect what is sacred to them.
Praise psalms may fail to raise our political antennae, but when we stop to consider what praise entails, we discover that praise makes the most daring political claims of all.
Churches cannot be party to redemption narratives which exonerate the carceral system.
The familiarity of the 23rd Psalm can blind us to the striking political dimensions of its message: YHWH is the shepherd of the king, protecting him from enemies and granting his kingdom prosperity. Close reflection upon this psalm may also suggest some significant applications within the contemporary world.
PTN seeks essays that explore the confluences of political theology with either particular texts in the genres of speculative fiction or the imaginative and analytic work involved in speculative fiction as a social practice