Truth Telling And Other Ecclesial Practices Of Resistance

In this book, leading American Lutheran theologians, inspired by the Scandinavian emphasis on theology as embodied practice, ask how Christian communities might be mobilized for resistance against systemic injustices. They argue that the challenges we confront today as citizens of the United States, as a species in relation to all the other species on the planet, and as members of the body of Christ require an imaginative reconceptualization of the inherited tradition. The driving force of each chapter is the commitment to truth-telling in naming the church’s complicity with social and political evils, and to reorienting the church to the truth of grace that Christianity was created to communicate. Contributors ask how ecclesial resources may be generatively repurposed for the church in the world today, for church-building grounded in Christ and for empowering the church’s witness for justice. The authors take up the theme of resistance in both theoretical and pragmatic terms, on the one hand, rethinking doctrine, on the other, reconceiving lived religion and pastoral care, in light of the necessary urgencies of the time, and bearing witness to the God whose truth includes both justice and hope.

The church in Canada is in trouble. Media reports suggest that nine thousand churches are likely to close over the next ten years. The United Church of Canada reports closing a congregation a week. The Anglican Church of Canada anticipates closing its last congregation by 2040, and the Roman Catholic Church, Canada’s largest religious denomination, reports having closed one-fifth of the tradition’s 2,500 congregations. God Doesn’t Live Here Anymore traces the story of the church in Canada from its far off historical roots in biblical times, rise to dominance in medieval Europe, role in the colonization of Canada, strained relations with Canada’s First Nations, twentieth-century prominence, and the church’s dramatic decline and loss of influence entering the twenty-first century. Wood Daly pulls no punches in calling the church to accept responsibility for its own decline, while maintaining hope that resurrection is still possible. The church, as Canadians may know it, might disappear, but for Christians death has never been the end of the story.

Marilyn McCord Adams (1943-2017) was a world-renowned philosopher, a theologian who forever changed conversations about God and evil, a compelling preacher, and a fierce advocate for the full belonging of LGBTQ+ people, especially in churches. Over the course of her career, she mentored philosophers, theologians, pastors, and activists. In this book, authors from each of these fields engage and expand upon McCord Adams's work. Chapters address theodicy and the Holocaust, the nature and limits of human free will, sexual violence, Trinitarian relations, beatific vision, friendship, climate change, and how to protest heterosexism with truth, humor, and cookies. Examples of McCord Adams's revised Episcopal liturgies--previously unpublished--are used to affirm the expansive love of God. Accessible and varied, these essays attest to McCord Adams's vocational integration, as she claimed and proclaimed God's goodness in her different professional roles.

This book is an exercise in political theology, exploring the problem of gender- based violence by focusing on violent male subjects and the issue of entitlement. It addresses gender-based violence in familial and military settings before engaging with a wider political context. The chapters draw on sources ranging from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Étienne Balibar to Rowan Williams and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Entitlement is theorized and interpreted as a gender pattern, predisposing subjects towards controlling behaviour and/or violent actions. Steven Ogden develops a theology of transformation, stressing immanence. He examines entitled subjects, predisposed to violence, where transformation requires a limit-experience that wrenches the subject from itself. The book then reflects on today’s pervasive strongman politics, where political rationalities foster proprietorial thinking and entitlement gender patterns, and how theology is called to develop counter-discourses and counter-practices.

Winner of the 2017 Alpha Sigma Nu Award The collapse of communism in eastern Europe has forced traditionally Eastern Orthodox countries to consider the relationship between Christianity and liberal democracy. Contributors examine the influence of Constantinianism in both the post-communist Orthodox world and in Western political theology. Constructive theological essays feature Catholic and Protestant theologians reflecting on the relationship between Christianity and democracy, as well as Orthodox theologians reflecting on their tradition’s relationship to liberal democracy. The essays explore prospects of a distinctively Christian politics in a post-communist, post-Constantinian age.

The Church, Authority, and Foucault addresses the problem of the Church’s enmeshment with sovereign power, which can lead to marginalization. Breaking new ground, Ogden uses Foucault’s approach to power and knowledge to interpret the church leader’s significance as the guardian of knowledge. This can become privileged knowledge, under the spell of sovereign power, and with the complicity of clergy and laity in search of sovereigns. Inevitably, such a culture leads to a sense of entitlement for leaders and conformity for followers. All in the name of obedience. The Church needs to change in order to fulfil its vocation. Instead of a monarchy, what about Church as an open space of freedom? This book, then, is a theological enterprise which cultivates practices of freedom for the sake of the other. This involves thinking differently by exploring catalysts for change, which include critique, space, imagination, and wisdom. In the process, Ogden uses a range of sources, analysing discourse, gossip, ritual, territory, masculinity, and pastoral power. In all, the work of Michel Foucault sets the tone for a fresh ecclesiological critique that will appeal to theologians and clergy alike.

In a context of scandal and decline, the Christian church cannot afford to do business as usual. It must regain its bearings and clarify its nature and purpose. Sacrificing the Church provides this clarity by returning to the church’s foundation: Jesus Christ and him crucified. It presents an ecclesiological vision in which every aspect of the church’s life flows from and expresses the one sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice is the basis of every ecclesial experience, the form and content of the church’s life, a life which shares in the eternal Trinitarian life of God. By and as Christ’s sacrifice we are introduced into the divine life. This participation plays out in three key areas, which set the church’s agenda in the contemporary world: its worship of God (Mass), mission to the world (mission), and efforts toward the unity of all people, beginning with divided Christians (ecumenism).

After the civil rights and anti-apartheid struggles, are we truly living in post-racial, post-apartheid societies where the word struggle is now out of place? Do we now truly realize that, as President Obama said, the situation for the Palestinian people is "intolerable"? This book argues that this is not so, and asks, "What has Soweto to do with Ferguson, New York with Cape Town, Baltimore with Ramallah?" With South Africa, the United States, and Palestine as the most immediate points of reference, it seeks to explore the global wave of renewed struggles and nonviolent revolutions led largely by young people and the challenges these pose to prophetic theology and the church. It invites the reader to engage in a trans-Atlantic conversation on freedom, justice, peace, and dignity. These struggles for justice reflect the proposal the book discusses: there are pharaohs on both sides of the blood-red waters. Central to this conversation are the issues of faith and struggles for justice; the call for reconciliation--its possibilities and risks; the challenges of and from youth leadership; prophetic resistance; and the resilient, audacious hope without which no struggle has a future. The book argues that these revolutions will only succeed if they are claimed, embraced, and driven by the people.