We invited Mac Loftin, Hanna Reichel, and Phil Christman, authors of recent books speaking to our present moment of crisis, to reflect on the other two books — and the state of the world.
Is the affective sense of meaning, purpose, and immanence a useful political horizon? Is this discourse of utopia something that we should seek to synthesize in religious or secular political contexts, even if its nostalgic historical reality is not born out in factual analysis?
Before the hope emerges, however, toxic dynamics and problematic patterns in inherited histories need to be excavated, named, and redressed.
On Democratic Disagreement as Ethical Formation
Against the backdrop of Gaza and Europe’s muted response, this essay reflects on Elad Lapidot’s challenge to recognize the violence hidden in the language of peace.
Negativity cuts against a politics of nostalgia (which seeks to conserve the imagined glories of the past) and apocalypse (which rejects the world as irredeemably compromised)
From Colombia to South Africa, from a decolonial stance to trauma theory, these scholars have offered polysemous approaches to the political as well as the theological.
Having demythologized and deconstructed our faith, liberals have rightly discarded conservatism’s cruel damnation while keeping our class status, letting our hearts bleed just enough in public so as to not jeopardize having ‘received our reward in full’ (Matthew 6).
God’s sanctuary as a tent and God’s residence in a tent suggest that God is a sojourning God who accompanies people, offering an encampment with and among the communities on their journeys of life.
Faith in God must always be lived out through care and love for one’s neighbors.
If we want to experience the full effect of Easter, we must recognize that it’s not just about Jesus…it sends ripples through the cosmos as it signals the dismantling of worldly kingdoms built on exploitation and invites us to participate instead in a social order that reflects God’s intentions for the flourishing of all.
What might it mean to learn from the past now that time has moved on and “the past” now refers to a bygone era of liberal hegemony?