Barth NotesFrom BBC News, 15 April: Police are yet to identify a group of men who raped a woman outside a church in Surrey, four days after the incident. The woman, in her 20s, was followed after leaving Labyrinth Epsom nightclub and attacked by several men...
Arc: Religion, Politics, Et CeteraKevin Sack's history chronicles two centuries of resistance and faith at one of the South's oldest Black congregations The post Mother Emanuel’s Long Struggle first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.
Religion and PoliticsKevin Sack's history chronicles two centuries of resistance and faith at one of the South's oldest Black congregations The post Mother Emanuel’s Long Struggle first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.
Contending ModernitiesI wonder if it is precisely the cultivated desire to persist (in a certain manner) that forecloses the possibility of rupture, abolition, and dissolution. The post Cultivating Disruption: On Hope in a Secular Age appeared first on Contending...
The Immanent FrameIn 1955, a young Dutch Reformed Church minister named Robert H. Schuller climbed onto the roof of a drive-in movie […] The post Reassembling the sacred appeared first on The Immanent Frame.
Sowing the SeedNow up on Broadcast Seeding, “‘The Law of the Land’: The Hermeneutics of Continued Mormon Polygamy after 1890” with Dr. Hannah Jung (Unviersity of Alabama). Jung recently presented at Off-Script: Conversations on Scriptures, Scholarship, and Our...
White Too LongA call to reclaim a faith and a nation after the Christian turn against democracy.
Barth NotesFrom Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick, on Twitter/X: We’re told Starmer is “furious”. Well only because he’s trying to save his own skin again over paedo pal, Peter Mandelson… The lack of any article or pronoun before “paedo pal” (“his” or “the”) creates...
Cultural Studies BlogspotI am going to pose a question that may to some seem niche or nerdy, but whose answer has implications for how we study physical practices. The question is this: What does it mean to be doing one martial art as opposed to another?In one way, this is...
Du Mez CONNECTIONSIt's not pretty
The Domination ChroniclesEqual "Justice" Under Government's Claim of a Right of Domination
An und für sichLast week I gave a keynote address at the Society for the Study of Theology annual conference, which was on the theme “Theology: A Discipline of Failure?” Below is the text of my paper. “I couldn’t encounter my loss face to face”[1][2] As I write...
White Too LongHi, Redeeming Democracy readers,
ReligionProfDoes AI write better than students? I have been pondering that question from a number of angles over recent days. Here’s why. AI, Writing, and Education Butler University president Jim Danko recently published an opinion piece. Titled “The...
The Commons by APRIL OnlineAdd excerpt here. The post Ísieni — Love: Learning to See Sacred Art in the Black Atlantic appeared first on April Online.
Cultural Studies BlogspotI am delighted to announce that a stream proposal I put in for the Society for the Study of Affect Conference in October 2026 has been accepted.A ‘stream’ is a series of panels. This means, there will be 2-4 panels of 3 people per panel that are...
White Too LongReminder: Catholics are NOT white evangelicals.
NAASR Contending ModernitiesA political victory can show that Islamophobia is not inevitable or invincible. It can spark the recognition that Islamophobia connects the local and the global, the metropolitan and the periphery, the racial and the colonial. The post First We...
The Immanent FrameIt seems odd, at first glance, to talk about “innovation” in religion and spirituality. Religion is often imagined as a […] The post Religious and spiritual innovation: defining an emerging field appeared first on The Immanent Frame.
Contending ModernitiesWitnessing, then, is not about closure but interruption. It is an ethical practice oriented toward what remains unresolved in the present. The post Witnessing Without Redemption: The Remnant and the Refusal of Closure appeared first on Contending...
The Domination ChroniclesEpisode 19 of the Domination Chronicles Podcast
Studying Religion in CultureIf you missed Honors Day 2026 or want to review its festivities, check out our photos and details
An und für sichThomas Hobbes’ biographer Arnold Rogow writes that, “Hobbes … may never have loved a woman, but no one has ever hinted that he was homosexual” (Radical in the Service of Reaction, 66). Even if that was true at the time Rogow was writing (1986), I’m...
ReligionProfUnscriptural doctrines of scripture are a problem in a variety of ways. Some contradict key biblical teachings. Some are incompatible with the evidence the Bible presents about itself. Some are unscriptural doctrines of scripture in both these...
Studying Religion in CultureDr. Cara Burnidge impressed upon the REL Strategy Group the importance of proactively assessing one’s own program to help get them MOVING. Sometimes academic programs gets stuck in the mud. They do good work—teaching students, producing research,...
Feminists Studies in ReligionBy Lavjay Butani Some stories are never told. Others are told countless times, across generations, across languages, and across traditions, and in the retelling, they change. Sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes dramatically. Sometimes in ways that...
ReligionProfThere are several new reviews of Beyond Deconstruction as well as several new podcasts. I will share those below. But first, here’s a brief excerpt from the book (pp.17-19, going just a bit further than the Google Books preview does) that is...
Barth NotesAn X post from Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice: After his nice messages at Eid and Ramadan, we look forward to a warm Easter message from King Charles III in his role as Defender of the Faith of the Church of England Tice, of course, is here...
Religion MattersMost approaches to religious literacy focus on beliefs, practices, and traditions. This work matters, but it is incomplete. Drawing on Calvary, this piece explores what happens when religion is encountered as lived experience—shaped by trust,...
The Commons by APRIL OnlineAdd excerpt here. The post Making Tables Out of Crosses: For Maundy Thursday appeared first on April Online.
Feminists Studies in ReligionBy Olivia Marr Robinson As religious studies scholar Dr. Margaret D. Kamitsuka observes, “no theology can go forward that does not recognize its rootedness in experience” (2007, 7). Whilst feminist theologians do not all share the same methods or...
Cultural Studies BlogspotBeyond Comparing and ContrastingAt the start of The Age of the World Target, Rey Chow reflects on the act of ‘comparison’. Comparison is obviously central to disciplines like comparative literature. But comparing is also an ineluctable part of its...
The Domination ChroniclesA Brief Commentary on the Title and Preface of Barack Obama's Memoir
Contending ModernitiesLetting differences in content generate a more differentiated account of kinds of hope might bring us closer to Derrida’s desired future of radical democracy and justice. The post Kinds and Contents of Hope appeared first on Contending Modernities.
Religion MattersMost approaches to religious literacy focus on beliefs, practices, and traditions. This work matters, but it is incomplete. Drawing on Calvary, this piece explores what happens when religion is encountered as lived experience—shaped by trust,...
The Commons by APRIL OnlineAdd excerpt here. The post Research as Ceremony: Methodological Meditations of a Scholar-Priestess of Northern Haitian Vodou appeared first on April Online.
Contending ModernitiesThe weaponization of religious narratives is a powerful force in shaping perceptions and stimulating political solidarities. But so is a brief humanizing encounter as a bridge to empathy. The post “Remember What Amalek Did to You”: The...
ReligionProfIn her absolutely wonderful book Nerd Faith: 60 Second Sprints of Spiritual Guidance for the Occasionally Uncool, “The Nerdy Priest” offers a devotional for Christian nerds of every variety. The volume isn’t just for fans of science fiction and/or...
The Commons by APRIL OnlineAdd excerpt here. The post Syria’s New Oligarchic Islamist Minority appeared first on April Online.
The Immanent FrameI decided to write my third book, God Bless the Pill, about the mid-twentieth-century history of birth control in 2011. […] The post Discovering a not-so feminist history appeared first on The Immanent Frame.
Contending ModernitiesKharg still holds histories waiting to be uncovered—spectral traces that have shaped the island through mourning and devotion, where land and sea were not merely resources but sites of sacred belonging. The post Kharg, the Orphan Pearl: War,...
Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies2026.03.04 | Vladimir Olivero. 1 Enoch: An Ethiopic Reader’s Edition. Resources for Biblical Study 110. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2025. pp. viii + 359. ISBN: 9781628377606. Review by Kai Akagi, Rikkyo University. While 1 Enoch is among the scriptures of...
Barth NotesLast August, I noticed how Reform ideologue Matt Goodwin has a tendency to present banal but arguable maxims as quotes attributed by him to scholars and Classical figures ranging from Pericles and Cicero to the late Sir Robert Scruton, but that...
NSRNCall for papers BABEL/NSRN 2026 international conferenceKU Leuven, 3-4 December 2026Conference title:Entangled Lives: Religion, Nonreligion, and the Spaces In-Between This two-day interdisciplinary conference invites critical and creative...
The Domination ChroniclesEpisode 18 of the Domination Chronicles Podcast
Barth NotesFrom the Guardian: [Nigel Farage] described as “a wake up call and a warning to everybody” an event in Trafalgar Square earlier this week where hundreds of Muslims and people of other faiths prayed together, before the celebration of Eid. He said...
The Immanent FrameThe Immanent Frame, published by the Social Science Research Council, has long served as a central site for debate, discussion, […] The post Reintroducing The Immanent Frame appeared first on The Immanent Frame.
Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies2026.03.03 | Douglas S. Huffman. Understanding the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Forms, Features, Framings, and Functions. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024. pp. xix + 268. ISBN: 9781540966407. Review by Kai Akagi, Rikkyo University. The...
Andrew WhiteheadOn public funding for private school vouchers, Christian nationalism, and services for disabled students