On the Lived Theology Reading List: The Enchantments of Mammon

The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, by Eugene McCarraherHow Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

In The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, Eugene McCarraher argues that capitalism is full of sacrament, whether or not it is acknowledged. This runs counter to the traditional view of capitalism as part of the “disenchantment” of the world, stripping material objects and social relations of their mystery and sacredness.

McCarraher contends that capitalist enchantment first flowered in the fields and factories of England and was brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit. Later, the corporation was mystically animated with human personhood,and by the twenty-first century, capitalism had become thoroughly enchanted by the neoliberal deification of “the market.” In this impassioned challenge, McCarraher makes the case that capitalism has hijacked and redirected our intrinsic longing for divinity—and urges us to break its hold on our souls.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“With this book McCarraher aspires to nothing less than a history of the soul under capitalism. Far from living in a secular, disenchanted world, he argues, ours is a world of ‘misenchantment,’ in which longings for communion are perverted into a religion of plunder and technological control. Capitalism emerges here not as a system of market exchange or class domination but as an affront to the divine creation of which we are a part. An astonishing work of history and criticism.”—Casey Nelson Blake, author of The Arts of Democracy

“A tour de force. McCarraher argues that capitalism is a successor faith, rather than a successor to faith. The capitalist faith in this telling is a heretical, blaspheming Black Mass of perverse sacramentality that sanctions domination by pretending to the status of immutable, impersonal laws of nature. In the world of economic enchantment masquerading as hard-eyed realism, McCarraher urges us to keep open an imaginative window through which to glimpse alternatives. His magnificent intellectual history recovers many such opportunities and invites us to appraise them with fresh eyes.”—Bethany Moreton, author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart

For more information on the publication, click here.

Eugene McCarraher is an associate professor of humanities and history and the associate director of the honors program at Villanova University. A former Charles Ryskamp Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (2005-2006), he has written for Books and Culture, Commonweal, Dissent, In These Times, The Nation, the Chicago Tribune, The Hedgehog Review and Raritan.

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On the Lived Theology Reading List: One Soul at a Time

One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham, by Grant WackerThe Story of Billy Graham

In One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham, Grant Wacker records the story of one of the most influential voices in the Christian world. Billy Graham was a hugely successful preacher for more than five decades, and nearly 215 million people around the world heard him preach in person or through live electronic media. While he remained orthodox over the course of his career, over time his approach on many issues became more irenic and progressive, and his preaching continued to resonate. For many people, Graham was less a preacher than a Protestant saint.

Wacker conducted personal interviews, engaged in archival research, and gathered never-before-published photographs from the Graham family and others to tell the remarkable story of one of the most celebrated Christians in American history.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“A beautifully crafted, eloquent, and deeply illuminating account of Billy Graham’s unparalleled evangelistic career, penned by one of the most eminent American religious historians of our time.”R. Marie Griffith, John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics

“When I hear the word ‘evangelist,’ the first face I imagine is always that of Billy Graham. And when I think of careful analysis of Graham’s monumental reshaping of the world religious landscape, the only name I can imagine is that of renowned historian Grant Wacker.”—Russell Moore, author of The Storm-Tossed Family

“This fast-paced biography cuts through Billy Graham mythology to reveal who the great evangelist really was as a human individual.”—Molly Worthen, author of Apostles of Reason

“Grant Wacker is the finest Billy Graham scholar in the world today. . . . A must read for anyone interested in the amazing story of evangelical revivals in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.”—Harry S. Stout,Yale University

For more information on the publication, click 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.

On the Lived Theology Reading List: #Charlottesville

#Charlottesville: White Supremacy, Populism, and ResistanceWhite Supremacy, Populism, and Resistance

In #Charlottesville: White Supremacy, Populism, and Resistance, readers are asked to grapple with the fact that it may no longer be possible to be a moderate in this political climate. When white nationalists and their supporters clashed with counter-demonstrators in the college town of Charlottesville over the removal of a Confederate statue, resulting in the death of one anti-racist activist and the wounding of thirty-five more, it fundamentally changed the way many people thought about America.

Suddenly, U.S. citizens who had previously thought of themselves as moderate began to wonder whether violence in defending their values against fellow citizens was not only an option, but a necessity—whether the way American history has been commonly presented is not only unfair but inaccurate; whether the current President is to blame for the sudden visibility of white supremacist groups; and finally, whether a surge in racism and ultra-nationalism is irrevocably re-shaping the country.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Decent American citizens currently find themselves facing what daily feels like social and political disaster. The presidency of Donald Trump is not the first to sympathize with white supremacy, but his and the present administration’s shameless racism raises fresh questions about recent narratives of America’s post-racial triumph. #Charlottesville: Before and Beyond is a crucially timely volume collecting an impressive and necessary range of activists, public figures, and academics ruminating on the precedents of alt-right white supremacists descending on Charlottesville, VA in 2017, the resulting death of Heather Heyer, and, importantly, how we should measure our expectations and actions in putting America on a more firm footing in the project of racial redemption. An essential volume for all concerned citizens: academics, students, and the general public.” ―Chris Lebron, Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins, author of The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of An Idea

“It’s one thing to deplore the events at Charlottesville and another to probe the circumstances that rendered them possible. This book admirably fulfills the second need without ever losing sight of the first.” —Nancy Fraser, Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research, author of Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis

 

For more information on the publication, click 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.

PLT Alum Kelly Figueroa-Ray Presents at the AAR

Transformative Scholarship and Pedagogy Unit

Kelly Figueroa-RayOn Saturday, November 23, PLT alum Kelly Figueroa-Ray of St. Olaf College will take part in a session at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. The session is titled, Transgressing Borders: Immigration and Transformative Pedagogy in Religious Studies Classrooms. The theme of the session is:

In light of the Annual Meeting’s location in San Diego and the recent changes in immigration policy that serve to limit the entry of immigrants into the United States, this panel will outline transformative pedagogical strategies for teaching about the politics of immigration and Religion. The papers examine models and best practices of community-engaged learning and describe partnerships with faith-based organizations and community groups to support learning on the topic of immigration.

Professor Figueroa-Ray’s presentation is titled, Even the Cartel Members Pray: Studying Immigration through the Lens of Lived Theology. The abstract for her talk reads:

Competing and contradictory beliefs and interests propel a variety of actors each day as they attempt to cross, guard, and make peace with a line that in turn shapes their lives, relationships, communities, and in too many cases, their deaths. In this paper, I will demonstrate how a pedagogy of lived theology can introduce students to the politics of immigration by framing it first as a human issue, not merely an abstraction. Core to this pedagogy is the intersectional examination of first-hand accounts of border encounters through ethnographic fieldwork, reading memoirs, and watching films. This narrative framework is scaffolded by examination of the US-Mexico border as a racial and political construct and an introduction to relevant theological themes. Learning about immigration through the lens of lived theology challenges students to expand what Nancy Pineda-Madrid terms their “social imaginations,” by recognizing that they, too, are actors shaped by US immigration policy (2011).

Two of Kelly’s students will be presenting with her, Bronwynn Woodsworth and Maeve Atkinson. This will be a brief presentation, then a pedagogical exercise meant to lead people into lived theological analysis, then a reflection from each of the students about how this pedagogy transformed their understanding of immigration policy and their role in it.

There are two additional presentations in this session. Cassie Trentaz of Warner Pacific College will present, Crossing Borders and Raising the Stakes: Bridging Higher Education and Community Organizing to Get Real Shit Done in Real Time, a Model and Suzanne Klatt of Miami University will present, On the Borders: A Multiaxial Approach to Transformative Pedagogy on Immigration.

The session will take place from 3:30 – 5:00 pm in the Convention Center-28B (Upper Level East) with Michael Brandon McCormack, University of Louisville, presiding. For more information, please see the AAR website.

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.

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On the Lived Theology Reading List: Hattiesburg

Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White, by William SturkeyAn American City in Black and White

In Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White, William Sturkey tells the story of the Jim Crow South by bringing the readers into the homes of Hattiesburg families who lived through that era, those who struggled to uphold their southern “way of life” and those who fought to tear it down. He explores historical figures such as William Faulkner’s great-grandfather, a Confederate veteran who was the inspiration for the enigmatic character John Sartoris, and black leader Vernon Dahmer, whose killers were the first white men ever convicted of murdering a civil rights activist in Mississippi.

Sturkey introduces us to Jim Crow on Mobile Street in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the heart of the historic black downtown. He introduces us to both old-timers and newcomers who arrived in search of economic opportunities promised by the railroads, sawmills, and factories of the New South. Through it all, Sturkey traces the story of the Smith family across multiple generations, from Turner and Mamie Smith, who fled a life of sharecropping to find opportunity in town, to Hammond and Charles Smith, in whose family pharmacy Medgar Evers and his colleagues planned their strategy to give blacks the vote.

Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:

“Illuminating… Sturkey’s clear-eyed and meticulous book pulls off a delicate balancing act. While depicting the terrors of Jim Crow, he also shows how Hattiesburg’s black residents, forced to forge their own communal institutions, laid the organizational groundwork for the civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s.”The New York Times

Sturkey provides a moving account of the evil of white supremacy.”Choice

In this masterful biography of an American place, Sturkey compels us to look anew at the world made by white supremacy and remade by the black freedom struggle. Hattiesburg is a timely reminder of how much remains to be said about our shared, segregated past, and few have said more in a single book than this author. This bold, imaginative book is essential reading for anyone seeking to fathom Jim Crow’s rise, fall, and resilience—in Mississippi and well beyond.—Jason Morgan Ward, author of Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America’s Civil Rights Century

“Hattiesburg is where racial democracy meets white supremacy, where technology meets nature, where old slavery money meets the indebted sharecropper, where imagination meets the unimaginable, where the ballot meets the bullet. Sturkey’s magnificent portrait reminds us that Mississippi is no anachronism. It is the dark heart of American modernity.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

 

For more information on the publication, click 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.