xbn .

Essays

Mentoring Spotlight Part 1

The Mentoring Initiative aims to bring together students and scholars engaged in different research methods but who are addressing a shared set of questions. Our hope is that the Political Theology Network Mentoring Initiative might even create a space where new research questions and methods will emerge.

God’s Wisdom Through the Whirlwind—Job 38:1-7, 34-41

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

No Longer Bearing the Cross Alone

Like Simon and Veronica, those in the pews and those in the academy are called to accompany those who are abused by sharing in their pain so that survivors no longer bear this cross alone.

Giovanni Battista Montini’s Witness Against Fascism

Giovanni Battista Montini’s chaplaincy of the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students transformed him from an academic in retreat from the world to a confident Christian witness against fascism.

Justice Silenced—Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

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

Confronting Rape Culture

Political theology, insofar as it can articulate an analysis of and resistance to rape culture, offers many resources for confronting sexual violence.

Discovering Integrity in the Son of Man—Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Psalm 8; Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

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.

Naturalized: White Settler Christianity and the Silence of Earth in Political Theology

The white US Evangelical denialists see something that many other political theologians do not: that taking seriously our ecological relations requires a kind of paganism.

The Book of Esther as Resistance to Ethnic Nationalism—Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22

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

The End is Nigh!

What would it mean to take apocalyptic talk as a sign of the times: as revealing, uncovering, and disclosing something basic about the cosmos? Could such talk be the beginnings of an eco-apocalyptic political theology?

Receiving the Kingdom as a Little Child—Mark 9:30-37

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.