Jairus and the Justices: The Politics of Mark 5:21-43
By the time preachers in America address their congregations this Sunday, the nation’s Supreme Court will have ruled on the health insurance reform act passed by Congress and signed into law by...
View ArticleWhen the Edge becomes the Centre
What might happen if we read the Gospels afresh not from the perspective of distant struggles for justice or objectified notions of ‘the poor’ (as if ‘they’ were no more than a category) but from the...
View ArticleJesus and the Pernicious Roots of Private Property
The scathing criticisms of private property that we find in the mouth of Jesus are well-known. "Go, sell what you have," he tells the rich man who asks for the secret of eternal life (Mark 10:21;...
View ArticlePoor People’s Campaign? — Douglas F. Ottati
The number of people in the U.S. living below the poverty line in 2011 was 46.2 million, the highest in the more than 50 years that records have been kept.[i] (1961 is a few years before Lyndon...
View ArticleServant of All? The Politics of Mark 10:35-45
Are we not the Gentiles who have leaders ruling over us? Are we not the ones who obey the rules that are placed upon us? Isn't it true that we have tyrants that are more concerned the upper class and...
View ArticleVoting and Alienation
Four years ago, I was an idealistic college student who believed in change. Frustrated with the years of Bush-style imperialism and capitalism, I was ready for some big government and the return of...
View ArticlePrivate Property in the Bible
As on so many issues that divide left-wing and right-wing Christians, the Bible seems frustratingly pliable when it comes to the issue of property rights. Conservative Christians like to assert that...
View ArticleDrunk with the Whine of the World
For this column, I planned to write about the force-feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. I researched force-feeding in history and the Declaration of Tokyo, which includes force-feeding among other...
View ArticleDrunk with the Whine of the World
For this column, I planned to write about the force-feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. I researched force-feeding in history and the Declaration of Tokyo, which includes force-feeding among other...
View ArticleJesus the Epicurean: or Why the Personal really is Political (Benjamin Wood)
In his richly devotional book Writing in the Sand, the psychotherapist and former monk, Thomas Moore makes an intriguing hermeneutical suggestion. When we explore the ministry of Jesus and its...
View ArticleSatan’s Temptations in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Pt. 2 (Caleb Upton)
If Dostoyevsky foresaw the rise of the 20th century totalitarian states as the father figures who would feed the masses in the first temptation, what did Dostoyevsky foresee here with regards to his...
View ArticleGood Friday and the Politics of Denying Christ—John 18:15-27 (Brad Littlejohn)
Jesus knows full well, after all (cf. Jn. 13:36-38) that Peter is denying him. And yet he does not deny Peter. Even while his disciples are scattering and hiding, Jesus confidently declares that they...
View ArticleMalaria in the Ancient World
Life in the first centuries of the common era in Judea and Galilee was short and sharp, characterized by “frequent pregnancy and sudden death.”[1] The evidence is rather sobering.[2] Apart from...
View ArticleThe Politics of Jesus’ Third Temptation – Resisting Economic Globalization...
Fyodor Dostoevsky in his masterpiece The Grand Inquisitor – as well as Leo Tolstoy in his The Gospel in Brief – both “translate” for a contemporary audience the story of Jesus’ temptation in the...
View ArticlePalm Sunday – A Celebration of Counter-Hegemony (Raj Bharat Patta)
The occasion of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before facing cross and crucifixion, observed by Christians as Palm Sunday, is a pivotal event in the Gospels. It is important to know how the passage...
View ArticleHoly Disobedience (Anna Floerke Scheid)
Not a day has gone by since the Inauguration of President Donald Trump that one group or another hasn’t taken to the streets in protest. Indeed, political resistance is getting so trendy that Pepsi...
View ArticleForget Schmitt! Political Theology Must Follow Agamben’s “Double Paradigm” of...
The following is the guest editorial for the current issue of the print journal Political Theology (Volume 19, Issue 1, February 2018). It was the German juridical theorist and philosopher Carl...
View ArticleDevilish Diversions—Luke 4:1-13
The devil sought to divert Jesus from his mission in three different ways. Walking Christ's cruciform way, we face the same temptations. Source
View ArticleBeginning Where Jesus Is
The trouble in American Evangelicalism and in Christianity more broadly, is that standing face-to-face with our Messiah, we find ourselves at a loss of how to serve. What does it mean to be a follower...
View ArticleFollowing Christ in Resurrection Hope
This relativizes politics into a realm that cannot penetrate or disturb the Christian’s faith or take away our salvation and our hope. This is why the real danger for the Christian is not just...
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