PLT Contributor John M. Perkins featured in Christianity Today

Posted on April 30, 2017 by PLT Staff

An excerpt from Dream with Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win

A trailblazer in the Civil Rights Movement, John M. Perkins remains a leading voice at the forefront of racial reconciliation. In his newest release, Dream with Me (Baker Books, 2017), Perkins uses raw, personal stories spanning from the civil rights era to today to call us to work for justice by living out God’s redemptive love in all of our relationships. Many victories have already been won, but a continued and renewed commitment to justice is imperative.

In an excerpt of the acclaimed publication recently published by Christianity Today, Perkins writes:

“When our poor white guests arrived at the Samaritan Inn, I was caught off guard… My automatic response was to treat them the way whites had treated poor blacks—to patronize them. But these people were teaching me, John Perkins, the guy who was supposed to be leading the church in reconciliation, a lesson in what it really means to be reconciled to one another…

Just because some whites use heinous, callous, and abusive language to describe black people does not mean that we, as black people, are justified in responding with racial insults of our own. I can understand how it comes about. We as a people have been beaten down so much that calling poor whites a hurtful name is almost a cry for dignity. I get it.

But it is a backward cry. In a way, it’s an attempt to make poor whites feel the way we did when whites would fling racial slurs our way. But for us to do the same thing to poor whites that wealthy whites were doing to us only throws everyone into the same mud heap. A better way is possible. We all must have the compassion, wisdom, and mutual respect to rise above slander, slurs, and snubs to a place of love. What we ought to be striving for today is a new language of love and affirmation that will replace these hurtful slights. What if we started calling one another “friend,” no matter our race, politics, or economic class? Friends, I like that.”

Read the full excerpt on Christianity Today here. For more information on the book, click here.

John M. Perkins was a civil rights leader in Mississippi in the 1960s, and founded Voice of Calvary Ministries, a Christian community development ministry, with his wife Vera Mae. In 1983, Perkins established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Inc., to advance the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world. His publications include Let Justice Roll Down (2012) and Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community (2010).

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: Incarnational Humanism

Posted on April 30, 2017 by PLT Staff

A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World

The postmodern West has surpassed its Christian roots and legacy of reason, freedom, human dignity and democracy. In Incarnational Humanism, author Jens Zimmermann presents the church as the vessel for change through the retrieval of an ancient Christian humanism for our time. Drawing on the sacred offerings found in Scripture, common humanity extends beyond any religious or secular divides. Incarnational Humanism presents a distinctly evangelical philosophy of culture that grasps the link between the new humanity inaugurated by Christ and all of humanity, upholding the church as a witness to the world’s reconciliation to God.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“A timely and insightful analysis of how human beings, in the course of several centuries, have come to dominate a world and yet have lost their sense of what it means to be human. Jens Zimmermann demonstrates with depth and clarity the way that our common humanity was recovered in the incarnation and is communicated to us and to the world in the eucharist. This is truly a book for our times.” —Barry Harvey, professor of theology in the Honors College, Baylor University

“Zimmermann rightly challenges the dualism that remains endemic to much evangelical spirituality. Tracing the history of incarnational humanism, he presents a call back to a sacramental, participatory view of reality. Perhaps the most hopeful element of Zimmermann’s account is its concluding plea for the centrality of the Eucharist for a Christian approach to the world. This book will become assigned reading for my Theology of Culture class!”—Hans Boersma, Regent College, Vancouver

“At a time when various secular humanisms are thriving, Christians might imagine that the way forward is to make common cause with others in promoting human values without mentioning doctrines that specifically pertain to Christianity. With his characteristic erudition and eloquence, Jens Zimmermann shows that the opposite is the case: it is precisely in and through the incarnation of Jesus Christ that true humanism flourishes, because human life together requires the healing and hope that God brings by even now drawing us into his life. Without faith, hope and love, humanity founders. Zimmermann sheds profound light upon the full scope of life in Christ.”—Matthew Levering, University of Dayton

Find book details here.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Next Week: PLT Contributor Sarah Azaransky Visits UVA

Posted on April 26, 2017 by PLT Staff

On the Civil Rights Movement in its Global Context

On Tuesday, May 2, PLT Contributor Sarah Azaransky will deliver a guest lecture at UVA on her forthcoming book, This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Azaransky’s research reveals fertile intersections of worldwide resistance movements, American racial politics, and interreligious exchanges that crossed literal borders and disciplinary boundaries, and underscores the role of religion in justice movements. Shedding new light on how international and interreligious encounters were integral to the greatest American social movement of the last century, This Worldwide Struggle confirms the relationship between moral reflection and democratic practice, and it contains vital lessons for movement building today.

Reviews and endorsements of the book include:

“The long civil rights movement has needed an expansive religious history. This is it and so much more. Inventively following this set of Christian thinkers and activists across the globe and toward various religions, Sarah Azaransky has shed new light on the most pivotal innovation of the twentieth-century: genuine democracy. This Worldwide Struggle is not just great history; it’s religious, moral, and ethical reflection for all lovers of democracy and justice.” –Edward J. Blum, co-author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America

“Azaransky offers a savvy, cogently written understanding of the internationalism of early twentieth-century black Christian intellectuals and activists. She comprehensively details previously neglected history of African American religious contributions to global moral commitments challenging white supremacy and socioeconomic inequalities. This book is an inspiring primer in deliberately crafted frontiers of justice-oriented black Christianity, so timely for anyone seeking hopeful roadmaps for similar contemporary forms of religious solidarity supporting human dignity across borders.” –Traci C. West, Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies, Drew University

“More than any other, this book reveals the many extensive international relationships that African American religious scholars and civil rights activists established between the 1930s and 1950s. This much needed book, rich in historical data, will be welcomed by all its readers for its compelling evidence concerning the world-wide significance of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States through its connection with anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa.” –Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor Christian Social Ethics, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary

The presentation will begin at 2:00pm in Wilson Hall 301. Admission is free, and the public is invited to attend. For details and release information on the new book, click here.

Sarah Azaransky is an assistant professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Her publications include The Dream is Freedom: Pauli Murray and American Democratic Faith (Oxford University Press, 2011) and an edited volume, Religion and Politics in America’s Borderlands (Lexington Books, 2013).

For more event details and up-to-date event listings please click here to visit the PLT Events page. We also post updates online using #PLTevents. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: We Shall Not Be Moved

Posted on April 26, 2017 by PLT Staff

The Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired

The 1963 Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in has come to be largely recognized by a set of photographs capturing the violent tension between the raw virulence of racism and the defiance of visionaries. While the event’s importance has been recognized as sparking to life the civil rights movement in Jackson, it has failed to be studied in its historical context. Filling this gap by incorporating both biography and history, author M.J. O’Brien crafts a gripping narrative through the eyes of those participating in this harrowing sit-in experience.

Rev. Ed King, who became the chaplain at Tougaloo College during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, remembers the day clearly:

“Store officials soon roped off the whole lunch counter except where the three students sat. The Colored Lunch Counter (with only 30 seats) was also soon closed. For the next 45 minutes, the demonstrators sat quietly at the deserted, darkened counter… The Jackson Daily News managed to define the events of this first 45 minutes as ‘trouble.’ In the next two hours there would be more ‘trouble’ here than in any sit-in in the history of the Movement.”

Continue reading King’s account in our digital civil rights archive here. For more information on the book, click here.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: Embracing the Other

Posted on April 16, 2017 by PLT Staff

The Transformative Spirit of Love

In a time of widespread conflict, achieving reconciliation and justice among all people is a difficult task. In Embracing the Other, Grace Ji-Sun Kim incorporates concepts from Asian and indigenous cultures to construct a border-crossing theology on the power of the Holy Spirit. Contributing a Asian feminist perspective, Kim pens a unique solution to global justice and healing through a reliance on “Spirit God.”

Reviews of the publication include:

“Grace Ji-Sun Kim’s book Embracing the Other represents a bold, original, and insightful challenge to prophetically confront the sins of racism and sexism through the life-giving power of the Spirit. This book is an important Korean-American contribution to the spiritual revitalization of North American churches and the struggles against everyday racism and sexism. I highly recommend it.”—Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School

“Grace Ji-Sun Kim continues to offer us insightful and original work that makes a difference in both the church and the academy, a rare accomplishment in the scholarly world. This book shows the growing impact of her fresh voice — prophetic, priestly, and practical.”—Dwight N. Hopkins, University of Chicago

“In Embracing the Other Kim constructs a theology of Spirit-Chi of love to liberate, empower, and transform the Other, envisioning the postcolonial reality of human liberation, justice, and equality regardless of one’s skin color, culture, religion, and power. The `Spirit God’ she adopts here is a radical affirmation of all colonized, marginalized others. This significant, must-read book offers a revitalizing Christian theology of the Spirit in and for our highly racialized and genderized world.”—Namsoon Kang, Brite Divinity School

For more information on the book, click here.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

A Philosophical Reflection on the Gun Lobby with Firmin DeBrabander

Posted on April 16, 2017 by PLT Staff

A Critique of the Gun Rights Movement

On March 14, Firmin DeBrabander delivered a guest lecture entitled, “A Philosophical Reflection on the Gun Lobby.” In response to the gun rights movement that has driven the United States into achieving the highest rate of private gun ownership in the world today, DeBrabander argued that our freedom is greatly hindered by this armed society.

Discussing its threat to the very basis of civil society, he noted how the recent legislative efforts of campus carry, permitless carry, and Stand Your Ground laws are a dangerous invasion of the public sphere that undermines member discourse and democracy at large. Transitioning into the Catholic church’s teaching of the social good, DeBrabander closed with a call for faith believers to turn back the radical agenda of the NRA that impairs us as individuals, as human beings, and as God’s creation.

Throughout the lecture DeBrabander offers key insights, stating:

“Among the industrialized nations, the United States has by far the highest gun fatality rate. No industrialized nation has close to the number of mass shootings that we do. This gun violence epidemic is a uniquely American problem for a society not officially at war.

What is going on here? Why does the U.S. defy the trend seen in other industrialized democracies and expand gun rights with each mass shooting? Why do we tolerate this obscene death toll and widespread misery? Why is the NRA’s radical agenda ascendant?

Taken together, this radical agenda is nothing less than an experiment in radical gun rights that we the American people are subjected to. It’s an experiment in gun rights such as the nation has never experienced or undergone… I think we are at a point where faith-based communities, and Christian communities in particular, can provide a powerful push for gun control.”

To listen to the full lecture, visit its resource page here.

Firmin DeBrabander is professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He completed his graduate studies at the Katholieke Universities Leuven in Belgium, and at Emory University in Atlanta. His publications include Spinoza and the Stoics (Continuum Press, 2007) and Do Guns Make us Free? (Yale University Press, 2015). He has written articles on social and political commentary (notably on the gun debate) in a variety of national publications, including The Baltimore Sun, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the New Republic and Salon.

For more event details and up-to-date event listings please click here to visit the PLT Events page. We also post updates online using #PLTevents. To get these and other news updates, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Project on Lived Theology Names 2017 Summer Interns

Posted on April 5, 2017 by PLT Staff

University of Virginia students will serve in Charlottesville, Nashville, and Berkeley.

The Project on Lived Theology has selected three students for the Summer Internship in Lived Theology 2017:

Megan Helbling

Megan (Col ’18) is majoring in English and religious studies. As a summer intern, Megan will be working at The Haven, a multi-service day shelter for people experiencing homelessness in downtown Charlottesville. Megan is interested in studying the practical ethics of interactions with those on the margins of society, a biblical and moral approach to poverty, and the influences and failures of the Christian social gospel in American cities.

Sarah Katherine Doyle

Sarah (Col ’18) is majoring in English and religious studies. This summer, SK will be serving women who are survivors of trafficking, addiction, and prostitution at Magdalene, a residential program connected with Thistle Farms Social Enterprises in Nashville, Tennessee.

Joseph Kreiter

Joseph (Col ’17) is a double major in East Asian studies and English–program in literary prose. For his PLT summer internship, Joe will work with Urban Adamah, a Jewish community farm in downtown Berkeley, California, which seeks to integrate Judaism, organic farming, mindfulness, and social action to foster love, justice, and sustainability. While working toward these goals with Urban Adamah, Joe will also explore the relationship between individual spirituality and broader religious tradition.

Stay tuned to learn more about our interns and their partner organizations over the next few months, and check back here this summer to read their blogs from the field.

The Summer Internship in Lived Theology is an immersion program designed to complement the numerous existing urban and rural service immersion programs flourishing nationally and globally by offering a unique opportunity to think and write theologically about service. For more information on this initiative, please click here.

For updates about the PLT Summer Internship, click here. We also post updates online using #PLTinterns. To get these updates please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the End Times

Posted on April 3, 2017 by PLT Staff

Theology After You’ve Been Left Behind

Many have long held fast to the promise of Jesus’s return, with believers increasingly convinced their generation is living among the last days. In The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the End Times, Jeffrey C. Pugh uses his own stint in an apocalyptic cult to examine how Christianity and society at large have become preoccupied with the theology of dispensationalism. Through a bold reading of biblical texts and church history, Pugh sheds light on the harm this belief has on Christian engagement with the world, revealing a darkness unrestricted to the last days.

In an excerpt provided by Fortress Press, Pugh writes:

“Apocalypse. Armageddon. The Eschaton. Springing from our fascination with The End, a storehouse of images permeates our art, literature, and religion. The End is a belief so ingrained within us that the apocalypse is part of the air we breathe, the atmosphere that envelops us…

The word apocalypse doesn’t denote the end of all things, rather it means to uncover or unveil something that is hidden. In apocalyptic literature the curtain is pulled back from the façade of existence so that we can see the reality behind the scenes. It’s like the moment in the Wizard of Oz when the curtain is pulled back to reveal the truth about the great and powerful Oz—he’s just a guy who uses technology to create an illusion of power. Ancient apocalypses from Babylon to Israel worked to show that behind the scenes of everyday life, with its oppressions and violence, God’s reality was far different. These writings revealed that the forces behind the scrim, evil or divine, were a reflection of another, heavenly, reality. This revelation was often ambiguous because when the apocalyptic truth was revealed, confusion entered the picture. An unveiling of evil spiritual forces for some was for others the very system that keeps the world orderly. Revelation of what God thought about society—and God was seldom pleased—called one’s very existence into question.”

For more information on the publication, click here. Continue reading the excerpt with Fortress Press here.

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. For more recommended resources from our fellow travelers, click here, #PLTfellowtravelers. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

An excerpt from Dream with Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win

A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World

On the Civil Rights Movement in its Global Context

The Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired

The Transformative Spirit of Love

A Critique of the Gun Rights Movement

University of Virginia students will serve in Charlottesville, Nashville, and Berkeley.

Megan Helbling

Sarah Katherine Doyle

Joseph Kreiter

For updates about the PLT Summer Internship, click here. We also post updates online using #PLTinterns. To get these updates please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @LivedTheology. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Theology After You’ve Been Left Behind

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