Doing Theology In The New Normal

Responses to the recent pandemic have been driven by fear, with social distancing and locking down of communities and borders as the most effective tactics. Out of fear and strategies that separate and isolate, emerges what has been described as the “new normal” (which seems to mutate daily). Truly global in scope, with contributors from across the world, this collection revisits four old responses to crises – assure, protest, trick, amend – to explore if/how those might still be relevant and effective and/or how they might be mutated during and after a global pandemic. Together they paint a grounded, earthy, context-focused picture of what it means to do theology in the new normal.

Perhaps, after all, the decolonising agenda isn’t extra baggage the church needs to carry on top of everything else. Perhaps, instead, it is the very heart of what the church should be about – disrupting, uncomfortable, and bringing about a kind of ‘holy anarchy’. In Holy Anarchy, Graham Adams points to a realm in which all dynamics of domination, not least in the church, are subverted. It cuts across the loyalties and boundaries of religion and fosters the greatest possible solidarity amongst the different. Urgent and timely, the book weaves together themes around Empire, liberation and decolonial practice with an exploration of the nature and scope of church community, interreligious engagement, mission, and worship.

Everyone has thoughts about God. But how do we know if our thoughts are true? If we want to know the truth about God, we need a sound approach to incorporating what the whole Bible teaches. In this concise introduction to systematic theology, theologian Graham A. Cole explores how we move from Scripture to doctrine in order to shape what we believe, what we value, and how we live. He shows us the importance of having the right method: rooted in the word of God, consistent with church history, in the context of a broken world, dependent on divine wisdom, and ultimately aiming at pure worship.

Despite prolific feminist voices in Christian ethics, transnational perspectives are still underdeveloped. Similarly, ‘secular’ transnational feminist scholarship often overlooks religious faith, rituals, and spirituality, crucial to many women’s liberation movements across the globe. This book aims to fill these gaps in Christian and secular feminist scholarships by constructing a transnational feminist theo-ethics. Furthermore, by bringing the theological and the transnational together, the book offers an alternative tool in analyzing social identities beyond intersectionality (i.e., interstitial approach and interstitial integrity) and thus, renews feminist theological understandings, especially of time, memories, and healing beyond linear approaches. A renewed analytical tool would help the readers critically reinterrogate the global power structure buttressed by empire, militarized capitalism, and heteropatriarchal religious ideologies at the cost of raced, sexed, and classed bodies. At the same time, the book would create space where readers create and recreate theo-ethical visions for global peace and justice constructed upon transnational feminist praxis of solidarity and spiritual activism. Case studies offer concrete sites to inform readers about how to use transnational feminist theories at a micro- and macropolitical levels, and produce transnational feminist knowledge of God, spiritual activism, and solidarity. This book is written for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in religion, gender studies, and Asian/American studies to critically engage in the political, the theological, and the spiritual from transnational perspectives not as observers but as active participants in global politics.

Doing theology requires dissension and tenacity. Dissension is required when scriptural texts, and the colonial bodies and traditions (read: Babylon) that capitalize upon those, inhibit or prohibit “rising to life.” With “nerves” to dissent, the attentions of the first cluster of essays extend to scriptures and theologies, to borders and native peoples. The title for the first cluster — “talking back with nerves, against Babylon” — appeals to the spirit of feminist (to talk back against patriarchy) and RastafarI (to chant down Babylon) critics. The essays in the second cluster — titled “persevering with tenacity, through shitstems” — testify that perseverance is possible, and it requires tenacity. Tenacity is required so that the oppressive systems of Babylon do not have the final word. These two clusters are framed by two chapters that set the tone and push back at the usual business of doing theology, inviting engagement with the wisdom and nerves of artists and poets, and two closing chapters that open up the conversation for further dissension and tenacity. Doing theology with dissension and tenacity is unending.

Standing Under the Cross focuses on Bonhoeffer's rich theological and ethical thinking. It places Bonhoeffer in conversation with a wide range of modern theologians, including Karl Barth, Franz Rosenzweig, Jürgen Moltmann, and James Cone. The book gives particular attention to hermeneutics, the body, and Bonhoeffer's rich reflections on community and discipleship. Mawson attends to the complex ways in which these aspects of Bonhoeffer's thinking work together, and shows how they can assist us in responding to some of the challenges confronting us today.

The COVID-19 era will be remembered not only for the tragic global public health crisis, but also for the continued police violence against persons of color, the courageous activism that continues to rise up to confront racialized violence in all its forms, and the perpetuation of white nationalist rhetoric from the highest government elected offices. Everywhere we look, we find trauma and pain, and we find resilience and resolve. This volume, featuring leading theological scholars and religious leaders, is rich in analysis of the plagues we are facing and equally rich in the resources, practices, and inspirations that will carry our efforts to build a more just world.

What does it mean to be a prophet in queer times? Considering first the queerness of the prophet Jonah, this volume then broadens its scope to the queer prophetic in our own time, reflecting on what makes a prophet ‘queer’, and considering how public theology is itself, an example of the queer prophetic. With a broad range of international contributors, this book offers a bold and essential new addition to queer biblical studies literature.