Come Walk with Us—the Journey is Long: An Interview with C. Melissa Snarr
When thinking about religious communities and progressive social justice work, many of us assume an oppositional relationship—perhaps we think of the church groups and activist organizations who protest gay pride parades or canvass neighborhoods to repeal Obamacare, or conversely, perhaps we think of activist organizations who blame Christianity for limitations on women’s reproductive... Read More
Overcoming Lamech: Lament as Antidote to Violence
“I wanted then, as I do now, revenge for what happened. Bring me the head of Osama bin Laden” wrote Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen two years ago. Cohen was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and isn’t shy about acknowledging his desire for revenge. At the root of his foreign policy, he declares (with complete seriousness), is his desire to grab bin Laden “by the throat... Read More
Dis-Integration as a Model for Identifying Systemic Evil
While most people idly converse about evil in the broad terms required for superheroes and populist understandings of international relations, terms that envision evil as locked in a battle against good, few attend to the implications of viewing good and evil in Manichaean terms. Beyond assuming that the good is so simple as to have one static definition, such talk also requires... Read More
Race, Theology, and the Politics of Abjection: An Interview with J. Kameron Carter, Part I
In this two-part interview, the theologian J. Kameron Carter discusses his current work regarding political theology and the construction of the modern racialized world, speaks about the Obama presidency and the recent Occupy movement, and reflects on theology’s ongoing work in the wake of colonialism. Part I of the interview addresses Carter’s current work as it relates to... Read More
The Banal Road to Perdition: Cliché, Political Failure, and What the Tea Party Can Teach Us
We remember the first time we encountered the argument that the simplicity of PowerPoint presentations actually facilitated the US decision to enter into Iraq.[1] This thesis runs something like the strategy employed by third-graders when turning in their first report for school: make sure it has a really nice cover and binding. If it looks good, it likely is good. Presenting such... Read More
Evil, Ethics, and the Imagination: An Interview with Richard Kearney, Part I
In this three-part interview, the illustrious Irish philosopher Richard Kearney explores the human experiences of evil. Part I of the interview considers theodicy and human responsibility for evil by contrasting Gnostic understandings of cosmological evil to St. Augustine’s understanding of evil as the privation of the good. During the course of this conversation, Kearney characterizes... Read More
Druidical Capitalism and Satanists Who Sound Like Christians
“So, what do you guys and gals actually believe?” I asked a neo-druid priestess in Greensboro, North Carolina.[1] “That we are our own gods and goddesses. We are our own inner light that shines through when we answer only to the authority that is ourselves.” I asked her how she grounds authority in herself. How does one only answer to themselves in such a way that they... Read More
Randomness and Assurance: Does Everything Happen for a Reason?
The Blueprint Worldview On August 1, 2007, a highway bridge several miles from my house collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 people and wounding 144 others. That night, a well-known local pastor blogged about a discussion he had with his eleven-year-old daughter as he put her to bed. He asked her what purpose God might have had for not “holding up that bridge,” even though... Read More
The Killer in Me Is the Killer in You: An Interview with Richard Beck
In his book Unclean, Richard Beck has done the church a great favor. By viewing current ecclesial crises through the prisms of experimental and social psychology, he provides Christians with a thoughtful examination of the psychological contours of social evil as it exists in ecclesial communities. Thus, Beck offers a unique, incisive perspective into the psychological dynamics... Read More
When is a Mall just a Mall? The Complexity of Reading Cultural Practices
When is a mall just a mall and when does it become an act of idolatry? Recent works by two prominent Christian scholars provide very different accounts of how to understand everyday cultural practices, such as a trip to the mall. In his book Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation,[1] James K. A. Smith speaks about malls as part of a discussion on our culture’s... Read More
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