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?
Fifty years after the publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation, what, if any, relevance does Christian liberation theology and Gutiérrez’s work have for our present moment? Do we still have a memory of a liberating God? And if not, is there a liberative power in grappling with the absence of this memory?
Max Strassfeld’s groundbreaking Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature is a masterclass in denaturalizing oppressive structures. As political backlash against trans folk continues its deadly escalation, Trans Talmud is a crucial intervention in both scholarly and explicitly political domains.
In a world of increasing anti-Jewish sentiments, we do well to note at whom Jesus points a finger. It’s not at Judaism, it’s at Rome.
Our reception of Genesis 1:3 emphasizes the inherent power of God’s word, not only to improve lives but also to change (and create!) new structures. Just as God once brought order from chaos, God can do so again.
Psalm 149 is not a blank check for our passionate pursuit of personal vengeance. Quite the contrary! It places a sword in the hand of only those who have recognized YHWH’s ultimate kingship.
As tempting as it might be to assign murderous impulses to so-called former colonial times, Christians would do well to pay attention to how such logic continues to operate today in theological and political thinking.
Any power we might feel we gain through the power over dynamic is illusory and fleeting, and will always eventually result in our death/defeat, with our illusions of power lying dead around us.
Images of imprisonment appear throughout the Psalter, where the psalmist turns to God as refuge in order to exit the pit of despair. Similar to the life of Omar Ibn Said, and the opera which tells his story, images of shelter and succor help the psalmist escape the abyss of embattlement, imprisonment, or depression, and nurture the attitudes of care, trust, and hope that crest in Psalm 146 and the Hallelujah psalms.
Queer Catholics live outside of the Church’s vision of the good life. Let us imagine what queer holiness looks like.
In its embrace of solitude, contemplative prayer opens up a space of tension around the social and embodied qualities of desire.