Joerg Rieger

Rethinking the New Materialism for Religion and Theology

The matters of religion and religious experience are made up of multiple components. In the study of religion, and even in some theological approaches, it is increasingly becoming clear that religious experience is never merely a matter of ideas and doctrines, nor is it merely a matter of disembodied individual experiences or mindless practices. Crude idealism, which focuses on abstract ideas, is insufficient for the study of religion, if not misguided. The same can be said of crude materialism, which focuses on matter in a deterministic way, although religion and theology have less frequently been studied from this perspective.

Empire, Deep Solidarity, and the Future of Liberation Theology*

In recent years the term empire has been used to describe an oppressive global situation. Empires are marked by their efforts to control all of life, not only politics and economics, but also society, culture, and religion. Since their inception, liberation theologies have addressed this oppressive global situation by focusing on its various manifestations in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class. As the oppressive global situation tightens and contemporary liberation movements increasingly bring together its various manifestations, liberation theologies need to devise common strategies and models for resistance without abandoning their diverse legacies.

Beyond Blind Faith: Religious Identities under the Conditions of Late Capitalism

The modern academy has for the most part accepted that religion is a distinct phenomenon and thus needs to have its own discipline. The prevalent opinion still holds that religion possesses an identity of its own and that it can be defined, just like economics, politics, and other disciplines can be defined. Moreover, many modern scholars have assumed that religion has its own distinct essence.1 This assumption contributed, among other things, to the proliferation of interreligious dialogues, which were, and sometimes still are, based on the definitions of an essence of religion that was supposedly common to all religions. Many postmodern scholars and other members of the contemporary academy no longer believe in such essences. Nevertheless, they also tend to agree that part of the definition of religion is that it is not politics and not economics, to name just two other academic disciplines. This delineation fits, of course, with poststructuralist sensitivities that meaning is produced on the surface, as signifiers define each other in differential relations.2 Religion can, thus, be maintained as a discipline even once essentialist understandings of religion have been put to rest. One of the consequences of maintaining the traditional disciplinary boundaries for religious studies is that it is considered more important to work within the field than to do interdisciplinary work. Organizing interreligious dialogues, for instance, appears to be more important than organizing dialogues that involve religion and other disciplines like economics or politics. As a result, the latter kinds of dialogues are always considered to be somewhat haphazard, requiring more effort, and they are organized only if there is supererogatory commitment to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work. In this context,

Religion and Class

While analyses of gender, ethnicity, and race have become widely accepted and are put to use in religious and theological studies, this is not the case with the notion of class. Despite the fact that race, gender, and class are often mentioned together, there is very little sustained reflection on class. Reflections on race and gender in religious and theological studies, while addressing issues of power, rarely include reflections on class. In the rare cases when class is addressed, especially in the United States, it is connected to notions of poverty, social stratification, or income differentials, which are insufficient at best and misleading at worst. Of course, investigating class does not mean turning one’s back to matters of gender, ethnicity and race. The intersectionality of these various factors is non-negotiable, yet without deeper understandings of class the analysis of the other factors is likely to suffer.

Power and Empire in the Study of Nineteenth-Century Theology: The Case of Schleiermacher

Abstract Friedrich Schleiermacher’s work appears in new perspective when examined in the context of his little-known studies of far-away countries such as Australia and its inhabitants as well as the “colonial phantasies” of his time. His views of the Jewish religion and its practitioners can also be reassessed in this light. As the connections between the flows of power and ideas are examined, a deeper understanding of Schleiermacher’s theology emerges both in terms of its limitations and its potential. This deeper understanding also throws new light on more overarching matters in Schleiermacher research, such as the character of his philosophical method and his hermeneutic.