In Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement, Sheila Morris has collected nineteen essays from South Carolinians who have taken public roles in the gay rights movement. The diverse voices include a drag queen from a family of prominent Spartanburg Democrats, a former Catholic priest and his tugboat dispatcher husband from Long Island, a Hispanic American who interned for Republican strategist Lee Atwater, and a straight attorney recognized as the “Mother of Pride” who became active in 1980, when she learned her son was gay. Read More

Meister Eckhart was a medieval Christian mystic who was one of the most learned theologians of his day, but was also a man of the world who had worked as an administrator for his religious order and taught for years at the University of Paris. In this book, Joel Harrington traces Eckhart’s path from conventional friar to professor to lay preacher, culminating in a spiritual philosophy that combined the teachings of pagan and Christian writers, as well as Muslim and Jewish philosophers. This “dangerous mystic’s” teachings challenge the very nature of religion, yet the man himself never directly challenged the Church. Read More

In response to the challenges facing many young scholars during the pandemic, the Project on Lived Theology is pleased to provide funding to thirty current graduate students in the University of Virginia’s Department of Religious Studies. Read More

Theodore Vial calls religion and race “conjoined twins” in the first line of Modern Religion, Modern Race, in an immediate acknowledgement of the fact that religion is a racialized category, even when race is not explicitly mentioned. In this book, Vial argues that because the categories of religion and race are rooted in the post-Enlightenment project of reimagining what it means to be human, we cannot simply will ourselves to stop using them. Read More

At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, Reading While Black is a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation. In this book, New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times. Read More

Between 1890 and 1939, white children rested at the core of the system of segregation, as their participation was crucial to ensuring the future of white supremacy. In Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, author Kristina DuRocher reveals how white adults in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continually reinforced race and gender roles to maintain white supremacy. Read More

Much of the religious discourse in America has been shaped by men, but in And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy author Adrian Shirk chronicles the prophetesses, feminists, and spiritual icons who have shaped this country into what it is today. By weaving in her own spiritual experiences, Shirk creates a powerful, personal exploration of American women and their theologies, ones which are often overlooked. Read More

In Sanctuary, Heidi Neumark uses her 40 years in ministry to explain what she believes is the true Christian calling: to live out a counterpoint to today’s prevailing spirits of exclusion and hatred. Neumark has always strived to make her church a sanctuary for people, and after the election of Trump in 2016 she realized it was more necessary than ever to work against the cruel, dehumanizing, and dangerous rhetoric threatening to consume communities like hers. Read More

While existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, Freedom Farmers, by Monica White, showcases agriculture as a site of resistance. It follows the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC) started by renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer in 1967, which was a community-based rural and economic development project. Growing from a mere 40 acres to a staggering 600 acres, the FFC was a hallmark of the Mississippi Delta. Read More

In this book, author Peter Manseau tells the story of the Jefferson Bible, an edition of the New Testament that was edited with a penknife and glue to remove all mention of miracles and other supernatural events. Manseau tells the story of this book not just as an investigation in the fascinating world of Jefferson’s mind, but also to explore how each new generation has reimagined the bible in its own image, and for their own purposes. Read More