What Christian Activists Expect Theologians to Talk About

Posted on May 12, 2015 by PLT Staff

Lecture given by Eugene Rivers at the Conference on Lived Theology and Civil Courage in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rivers shares his experiences studying at Harvard with Charles Marsh and others, which sparked a philosophic and political journey for him about how to think of theology and the theological community. He then reflects on the responsibility of intellectuals and their social function in an age of reaction and activism.

Excerpt: “I said we’ve got to have a new philosophical project, a new political program. There’s got to be one that provides the intellectual and political air cover for the soldiers on the ground. They can’t do everything. When you in the trenches, you in the trenches. You know, when the war is on, you just trying to keep your head down and move the ground troops forward. You need some folks who can pull back from the struggle.”

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