This post focuses on a no less important but less visible cluster of questions about the relationship between ethics and politics, what helps or hinders the formation of persons capable of undertaking liberative projects with and for others, and how the quality and character of relations between persons (for example, virtues such as hope, courage, or hospitality) directly shape the conditions for the possibility of democracy.
Kristeva’s psychoanalytic approach and practice shed light on the unconscious, affective, and bodily formation(s) of religious and political discourses and systems.
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.
Normative distinctions between “honest” and “hijacked” Christianity are a recurrent reference in research on populism. Yet the practices in which Christianity is embedded and embodied paint a more complicated picture. By re-drawing the distinction between the “honest” and the “hijacked,” these practices enable critiques of the anti-Muslim racism that runs through populist politics.
For nearly two decades, Wesley Theological Seminary has sponsored the National Capital Semester for Seminarians (NCSS), a program which immerses students from Wesley and other seminaries around the country in the politics and policymaking of Washington and the ways people of faith intersect in those spaces. When Dr. Shaun Casey, the long time coordinator of the program, left to join the faith outreach office at the U.S. Department of State upon request of Secretary of State John Kerry, I stepped in to help direct the program.
All human beings (including me) are capable of dehumanizing others. Moreover, all dehumanizers (including Jesus) can change their minds.
David Brazil, Sarah Pritchard, Precious Bedell, and Joshua Dubler discuss the foundations of a national jail and prison ministry.
While often read merely as an account of judgment, heaven, and hell, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats reveals a love that overcomes dualism.
Matthew 16:13-20 has fuelled theological conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants for centuries. However, revisiting this controverted text, we can recover neglected truths about the character of the Church that are good news in an era of Christian institutional decline.
The world is ever changing and God calls Christians of every time and every place to be a part of this change. While often misread as a call to abandon the world, this weeks reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is one of many of these calls contained within Scripture — urging Christians who are in the world to change the way in which we interact with and thus influence the world.