https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to theology en https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/19/pope-francis-concern-jews-genuine-until-doctrine-abolished-hell-have-trouble-convincing The hot water into which Pope Francis has put himself regarding his Jewish friends continues to boil. In a recent public audience at the Vatican, Francis stated that the Torah “does not give life” (that is, a share in God’s… Tue, 19 Oct 2021 01:24:23 EDT Paul Knitter 743ce35c-2e75-414c-827f-064c075d0065 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/09/20/love-letter-exvangelicals-and-those-deconstructing-their-toxic-faith I’m astounded by people who have the intellectual honesty, courage, and fortitude to examine their most deeply held beliefs. Not just examine, but challenge and reject beliefs that shape how their entire world is constructed—beliefs that they have been told… Mon, 20 Sep 2021 03:27:34 EDT Andrew L. Seidel 3cafd514-a3d0-4106-b289-4009401b5417 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/09/01/nashville-cats-play-dumb-backwards-preachers Friends, I have read the Nashville Statement, and it is stupid. Like, really, really dumb. Final season of Friends dumb. Blotting out the sun dumb. So dumb that it forms less of a theological statement than a Facebook post masquerading… Fri, 01 Sep 2017 02:01:33 EDT Daniel Schultz 0925835f-7dd7-4cfd-aa36-9674c80e849e https://religiondispatches.org/2017/03/15/im-not-going-pray-trump To forgive representative powers and principalities of their spiritual wickedness is to be morally complicit in the potentially active oppression of one’s self—and certainly in the oppression of one’s neighbor. Wed, 15 Mar 2017 01:29:07 EDT Joshua L. Lazard a5e64bd5-97a3-4fd9-8230-1c994f2b759b https://religiondispatches.org/2017/02/13/forget-romance-its-time-some-radical-love Love is at the center of any genuine liberatory politics – love for your fellow human as well as assertion of the right to love. Mon, 13 Feb 2017 01:44:10 EST Ed Simon a0e627fd-bc87-4a6c-b819-f116cb676fa1 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/10/03/doing-political-theology-election-season-howard-thurman-deception American elections, as we can see so clearly this season, are exercises in deception. Mon, 03 Oct 2016 01:29:26 EDT Andrew Wilkes 45413e8d-1f8c-43b3-9c3b-3309bb8cfd1d https://religiondispatches.org/2016/09/20/why-we-need-public-black-theology-21st-century Black Christian public intellectuals are a vanishing group. Tue, 20 Sep 2016 12:00:41 EDT Vincent Lloyd a4a79f1e-f526-413c-b5ce-9835c2e23c64 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/08/31/lo-and-behold-sacredness-internet Filmmaker Werner Herzog asks: “Does the internet dream of itself?” Wed, 31 Aug 2016 04:58:26 EDT Martyn Smith 3076b1b5-d159-40ad-8e5e-10626dda4a55 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/08/15/meaning-make-believe-why-religion-doesnt-have-be-real When I was in fifth or sixth grade my father bought me a King James Bible. It was bound in white faux leather and embossed with gold lettering. My dad was not religious in the slightest (though he had a… Mon, 15 Aug 2016 08:09:54 EDT Neil Ellingson 7c311ee6-632a-4fd0-9a0a-8179e3c74a5d https://religiondispatches.org/2016/07/08/how-wreck-your-faith-theologian-teaches-outlaw-christianity Back in the mid-1990s, I excitedly announced to my mother—who had spent a good part of her adult life as the wife of a Southern Baptist minister—that I was going to enroll in seminary. She looked up from her tomato… Fri, 08 Jul 2016 07:00:52 EDT Candace Chellew-Hodge 9cbb4a09-2c91-4b24-9037-86990f7ed847 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/29/should-nasa-have-given-11-million-theology-institute In 2014, NASA gave $1.1 million to the Center of Theological Inquiry , an independent institution “rooted in Christian theology.” The grant supports an initiative to study “the societal implications of astrobiology.” Surprisingly, it took more than a year for… Wed, 29 Jun 2016 06:10:00 EDT Michael Schulson c8a7eef3-6a38-450c-af28-a28fa6e3ec84 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/16/whats-relationship-technology-god-qa-wired-co-founder-kevin-kelly Total surveillance, an emergent sharing economy, pervasive networked AI—these are just a few of the technological worlds that Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly predicts for our near future. In his new book, The Inevitable, Kelly argues that these and other technological… Thu, 16 Jun 2016 04:20:09 EDT Shannon Trosper Schorey 5fffe36b-973f-4ef9-bd42-ebadd5ad81c4 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/13/sacred-geography-queer-latino-theological-response-orlando “Oh my God, it was Latin Night,” I said to myself as I lay in bed on Sunday morning, reading the news about the Orlando shooting on my phone. In the wake of the tragedy, I have found myself mostly… Mon, 13 Jun 2016 03:16:21 EDT Xiomara Verenice Cervantes-Gómez 0725794b-a8c1-4864-a400-0144dac0a3a9 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/26/risk-teaching-theology-public-university-response A year ago, the University of California at Berkeley announced that it had been awarded a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, totaling $1 million dollars, to support programming at the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR)… Thu, 26 May 2016 11:07:56 EDT Martin Kavka 98bf73d2-73fb-4ea1-8c5f-f8094fdc4b54 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/09/why-we-should-teach-theology-public-university Theology, which influences so much of public discourse, should not be the exclusive property of the faithful. Mon, 09 May 2016 09:52:10 EDT Jonathan Sheehan 2b473232-e039-4556-9171-f18ae99337bf https://religiondispatches.org/2016/03/23/revolutionary-spirituality-hamilton Last month, the Broadway cast of Hamilton dazzled with a live Grammy performance, and last week they made it to the White House. Hamilton is a game changer, but not just for theater—I believe that the show has something to… Wed, 23 Mar 2016 09:43:10 EDT Leah Pannell d5031490-e6e9-42b5-9416-2934ef71913a https://religiondispatches.org/2016/02/11/krapps-last-tweet-rise-and-fall-privilege-digital-economy This fall marked the third anniversary of a record-breaking event—and one that serves well as a metaphor for our emerging digital economy. In October 2012, stuntman Felix Baumgartner jumped from a 24 mile-high space capsule, becoming the first human in… Thu, 11 Feb 2016 07:00:08 EST Kevin Healey fa9a712e-47f1-49c2-9715-780be60cf2cf https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/17/why-faith-needs-redemptive-struggle-be-meaningful I have had the honor of working extensively with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, beginning when he keynoted the launch of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice in November 2013. It has been a fruitful partnership… Sun, 17 Jan 2016 03:26:39 EST Liz Theoharis ab7e506d-e798-4e6f-9ed3-fcdbbc0da396 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/16/confronting-dangerous-memory-heeding-power-moral-imagination Rev. William Barber’s book, The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement, is a refreshing primer on moral movement building. We progressives tend to generate our policy prescriptions on the grounds of their… Sat, 16 Jan 2016 07:21:35 EST Charlene Sinclair a2dfdd25-ea70-4e93-beec-796e809bee3d https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/22/how-white-christianity-beat-academic-freedom-wheaton As a fellow—make that sister—tenured black woman, I feel a particular kinship with Dr. Larycia Hawkins. When I read that a tenured professor was suspended for expressing a theological view some in her conservative evangelical college community found to be… Tue, 22 Dec 2015 08:00:53 EST Wil Gafney da50f375-1a14-4398-8650-723eb97687db https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/21/wheaton-and-same-god-controversy-theological-opportunity-squandered When Dr. Larycia Hawkins, a professor of political science at Wheaton College, donned a hijab for Advent in solidarity with Muslims facing hostility and persecution, she explained her gesture in theological terms: “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because… Mon, 21 Dec 2015 01:27:37 EST Benjamin Dueholm e6b49842-0f76-48f3-a0e9-834589958262 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/20/thanks-no-thanks-how-noted-theologians-defense-larycia-hawkins-goes-bizarrely-astray Miroslav Volf’s recent WaPo op-ed is an example of the kind of interfaith intervention we’d be better off without. Sun, 20 Dec 2015 04:15:31 EST Scott C. Alexander ced63a7f-9335-45dd-a536-c1ad424d4a66 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/18/false-saviors-trump-cruz-and-gospel-quick-fix Trump, long up in the polls, stays up; Cruz is rising. What do they have in common? Savior appeal. Of the idolatrous kind. The two front-runners differ is some ways—among likely caucus voters in Iowa, Bloomberg News reports, Trump is… Fri, 18 Dec 2015 12:47:19 EST Marcia Pally f0e78e58-afd7-44ea-af73-1dd85f6d7863 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/16/how-would-religion-respond-extraterrestrials-thought-experiment It has now been almost two weeks since the press conference in Guizhou, China announcing that a recurring radio broadcast which appeared to be coming from NGC 6809 (a globular cluster located in the night sky near the constellation Sagittarius)… Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:41:19 EST Ed Simon 0bf985f3-999e-41cd-be97-c9a7dee59097 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/14/declaring-theological-state-emergency-trumps-ignorance-must-not-be-ours Yesterday, on CNN’s State of the Union, Trump reiterated his call to bar Muslim immigration to the U.S. and predicted that his fellow presidential candidates would soon come around to his position. This prompts me to declare a theological state… Mon, 14 Dec 2015 12:30:03 EST Mary Hunt f1cf470e-b12d-4108-8eb6-a9b0db364599