The Necessity and Insufficiency of Resistance in Contemporary Religious Ethics

The urgent prioritization of resistance has recently reemerged as a prominent feature in religious and social ethics. This paper simultaneously celebrates this theme and argues for its integration with two others: reimagination and reconstruction. Though distinct, these tasks are interrelated. Resisting injustice and oppression, in their ideological underpinnings and material effects alike, is essential; resistance by itself, however, risks devolving into reactive pugnacity, ceding the initiative to malefactors. An expanded imagination, which envisions abundant life on the other side of the struggle, is also indispensable for social change; yet, reimagining alone is likewise insufficient, since isolated from action, it can function as escapist fantasy. Meanwhile, amidst institutional and societal unraveling, people need somewhere to live; thus, rebuilding—short-term and long-term, conceptual and communal, structural and systemic—is in order. Such reconstruction only finds coherence, however, in tandem with the deconstructive ground clearing of resistance and the creative foresight of reimagining.