Annual Meeting 2023 Program Book

Recent policy debates on modern highway redevelopment in the U.S. have generated discourse around the role of racial discrimination in designing and executing infrastructure projects. Highway construction became a political tool employed in segregating cities – fundamentally altering the physical, wealth, and spiritual landscapes of Black communities. Historical and economic studies inspire corrective responses and even propose paths attentive to spiritual renewal. Religious institutions and sacred traditions that help facilitate the production and reproduction of African American cultural centers should inform policy agendas like the 2021 Build Back Better Act. Churches often operate as historical repositories informing memorialization and new imaginings of Black pasts. As these institutions increasingly employ digital humanities tools (including story maps, GIS mapping, interviews, and digital archives) to preserve histories, they birth new digital landscapes pointing to unexplored intersections. This paper focuses on the ways disrupted communities remember how business, religion, and the life of streets combine.

This paper analyzes the transnational social and religious significance of the category of “the Black Church” through the lens of the seminal work of W.E.B. Du Bois. It does so through a comparative study of African American Christian engagement with the issue of Israel and Palestine, with four case studies ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Palestinian solidarity activists. This study highlights the ways that African American Christians invoke the history, identity, and mission of “the Black Church” in the context of Palestine and Israel. It argues that “the Black Church” is best understood as a contested category of collective religious and racial identity.

This paper focuses on how African Americans who convert to Orthodox Christianity embrace new to them liturgical practices. Engaging with ethnographic material, I demonstrate that African American practitioners cultivated love for the Orthodox liturgical forms over time, not simply because they used the liturgical language to connect their religious and racial concerns together in abstract terms, but also because they engaged in singing as an embodied practice that allowed them to connect to the past events, places, and relationships with human and sacred figures. To make Orthodox liturgical practices compelling, practitioners drew on the embodied memories of singing Protestant memorial hymns at the cemeteries to suggest that Orthodox liturgical forms carry a familiar ethos of “sorrowful joy” and replicated their practices of communal care when they used liturgical prayers to ask for the intersession of the Saints on behalf of their relatives, friends, and community.

Stemming from the declaration of trusting Black women, this paper examines reproductive justice and faith by encouraging a liberatory lens that takes seriously the embodied experiences of Black women. As such, reproductive justice is a contemporary resistance to reproductive oppression and this paper privileges two perspectives of reproductive justice 1) the right to have a child under the conditions of one’s choosing and 2) the right to not have a child using birth control, abortion, or abstinence. This paper illuminates the moral harms caused by the repeal of Roe and theorizing from this perspective and from the qualitative research conducted with Black Christian women who had either recently terminated a pregnancy to create a better life for their current children or who had elected to remain childfree results in a moral case for trusting Black women.  

Because the very term “religion” is not an indigenous category in African societies and the contours of many ethnonational identities were forged in the 19th century as a result of European colonialism and modernity, this paper argues that the very assertion that perceived links between ethnonationalism, conflict, and religion in Africa are simultaneously deeply misinformed but potentially illuminating. Beginning with a case study of the people now called “Yoruba” in West Africa, the paper demonstrates how indigenous conceptions of and orientations toward the religious made conflict along religious lines practically unthinkable, but the introduction of Western modernity not only created a Yoruba “nation” but a modern and highly successful “religion” along with it. Furthermore, building on the work of scholars like David Chidester, it argues that the very formation of “African religions” was a largely colonial process designed to offer further avenues of division and control for European powers.

The relationship between religion and violence is complicated especially in the African context. This is so because conflicts that have religious dimensions can also be explained in other terms including ethnicity, socio-political, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. While violence in many sociohistorical instances is independent of religion, religion often becomes the conduit for expressing violence. A case in point is in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where Ga traditionalists clash with Pentecostal-Charismatic churches over their annual sacred silence, which is imposed on the city, as part of the celebration of Hɔmɔwɔ, a major festival. These clashes have often been framed as a religious conflict. However, a critical analysis of the situation reveals that whereas religion is used as a tool for mobilization, there are other equally significant dimensions such as ethnicity. This paper explores the interaction of religion and ethnicity in the conflict between traditionalists and Christians.

Africanists have often described Christianity in Africa as a path by which older communal identities moved toward state-based and ethnonational identities. This paper takes for granted that Christianity and other religious traditions have served as tools to advance ethnonationalism, yet it argues that this scholarly narration has been too unidirectional in its portrayals of Christianity leading to ethnonationalism. The paper shows how many communities have also shaped Christianities that harness indigenous politics to resist ethnonational identities. Amid fragmentations of indigenous political identities through capitalist economics as well as colonial and postcolonial state politics, AICs, councils of churches, and other Christian groups have employed Christianity to preserve older community identities and practices that predate ethnic politics and resist the violence that often accompanies them. The paper draws from two case studies to ground its claims, one from South Africa and another from South Sudan.

Black athleticism has long been understood as something to be celebrated only in the context of sport, with a value limited to economic productiveness and its ability to entertain. The absurdity of this cultural misreading is most epitomized by “Beastmode,” a popularized brand that signifies centuries of embodied brilliance but is persistently read culturally – via white supremacy – as mere physical (read: brutish) talent. This paper disrupts the historical drama of Black men cast as “beasts” – whether ‘sub-human’ or ‘super-human’ – and instead argues for the theological potential of re-reading Black athleticism as embodied brilliance that can teach us important lessons about humanity, spirituality, and social change.  

Muscular Christianity, a social movement that promoted an organic connection between physical health and Christian manhood, began in England in the mid-nineteenth century and quickly globalized. After its decline amidst World War I, many postcolonial scholars deemed muscular Christianity a site of colonial hegemony. Yet, during games of cricket, historian C.L.R. James approached the movement’s ethos of “teamwork, duty, protection of the weak, individual virtue…” (MacAloon, 692) as a way to transcend social constructs like race and class. This paper adapts James’ view within American and Latin American contexts during the Age of Empire in order to illuminate the movement’s resistance and complicity toward the imperial fantasy of a modern world order led by fit Protestant American men. Utilizing an intersectional approach that accentuates race, class, gender and geopolitical relations, this paper examines images and text pertaining to prominent muscular Christians through a hermeneutics of faith and suspicion. 

This presentation examines magical objects (anting-anting) associated with Filipino boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, his conversion to evangelical Christianity and his quest for political power.  Filipino sports, magic, and politics are framed within traditional Southeast Asian views of power that are significantly different from western views of how power is accrued, activated and demonstrated. Pacquiao's deployment of Filipino talismanic protection and amuletic power has been linked to his success in boxing and politics.  The question of Protestant Evangelicalism's presumed anti-magical worldview and how it negotiates a deeply magical/sacramental Filipino culture is considered.  Pacquiao's embrace of Evangelicalism resulted in his fall from boxing glory and coincided with his hard turn to the political right.  Although evangelicalism is commonly seen as correlative and supportive of right-wing politics, at deeper and culturally specific levels Pacquiao's shift to the right is better interpreted through the ways power is traditionally enacted in Southeast Asia.

This paper argues that a close reading of the Red and Black Books suggest Carl Jung (1875-1961) understood his metapsychology, entitled Analytical Psychology, as a preparation for death. More specifically, it argues that Liber Novus is a Gnostic-Christian Book of the Dead. In it, Jung psychoanalytically reinterprets concepts from heretical Christian thinkers like Meister Eckhart and Valentinus. Death and resurrection is reframed as psychotherapeutic introversion, and “the birth of God in the soul” as a result of a psychic askesis: the individual withdraws their identification with the archetypes to purify the soul. At the same time, Jung elevates psychological transformation to metaphysical necessity; without individuation, there is no salvation. The apokatastasis (ie, restoration) of an individual’s soul and their God, or an individual and divine counterpart, is only possible at death to those who have individuated. In Jung’s view, this is the true way of Christ, forgotten by traditional Christianity.

The worm is often assumed to be a symbol of humiliation, self-deprecation, and creatureliness by scholars of Western Christianity. In this paper I show how the figure of the worm is used by medieval Christians less as a humility-topos than as a figure with which to explore what it meant to be human. Reading the writing of mystics such as Heinrich von Nördlingen and Mechthild von Magdeburg, I highlight how articulations of their own worminess enabled Christians to mark interior aspects of their humanity, which in turn enabled them claims to power that ran counter to the dominant patriarchy. Articulating internal states of the soul through a paradoxical hyperbolization of the worm which–according to medieval bestiaries–is only flesh, when medieval Christians refer to themselves as worms, they offer a challange to dominant 21st century consolidations of power that otherwise attempt to homogenize what it means to be human.

This paper will explore how awareness of one’s mortality is related to meaning making and spirituality.  It will do so by examining Soren Kierkegaard’s claim in “At a Graveside” that “to think of oneself as dead is earnestness.”  By clarifying what Kierkegaard means by “earnestness,” it will propose a model for facing mortality that is both existential and spiritual, arguing that God lends infinite significance to life despite death.  A first section will define Kierkegaard’s “earnestness” against his category of “mood.”  A second section will explore whether the existential understanding of mortality articulated by psychiatrist Irvin Yalom is equivalent to Kierkegaard’s earnestness.  A third section will argue that Yalom’s view, while meeting many of Kierkegaard’s criteria for earnestness, misses the mark because it fails to consider the spiritual dimension of earnestness.  Finally, the conclusion will apply Kierkegaard’s existential and spiritual model of earnestness to individuals struggling with meaninglessness and mortality. 

This paper explores the use of Arvo Pärt’s music in palliative care as a form of Christian spiritual practice of preparation for death. It begins by exploring a brief history of the use of art in devotional practice to prepare people for death, tracing its evolution through its origin in medieval devotional techniques, to the decline of such practices during the Reformation, their reinvention through the romantic tradition of bildung, on to their continual evolution in the present day. I argue that Pärt’s distinctive compositional techniques (namely, tintinnabuli and the inclusion of silence) afford patients experiences both of divine presence and transcendence, which provides consolation in the face of death. Further, I suggest that even though Pärt’s music is used in largely secular context of medical care, it emerges from his deeply held Orthodox faith, in ways that have striking implications for Christian spiritual practice. This paper will include clips of the music discussed in the paper.

This argument examines the Florida GOP’s actions rejecting LGBTQ+, African-American, and gender education (“education regarding marginalized groups”). I argue that the Florida GOP’s actions reflect a commitment to a view of capitalism that reifies extant hegemonic power and subordinates marginalized groups, in particular LGBTQ+ people and African-Americans. The instruction of religion requires the scholar to grapple with the threat of state censorship and, more pressingly, with the challenges of using education as an effective form of resistance. Because teaching religion is already politicized by Florida's government, the scholar must see their work as resistance. Drawing upon works such as Tonstad 2018, Bretherton 2009, and Springs 2018, I contend that scholars of religion are in unique position to perform this form of resistance as coalition building, avoiding the pitfalls of a blase liberal desire for tolerance.

For the past several years, I have co-taught, along with a colleague, a joint Philosophy and Religion course called Queer Theory. In the service of teaching students not only concepts, but how to improve their own lives and understandings of themselves, my co-professor and I have encouraged them to engage in autotheory throughout the course. This approach allows students to focus on the things that are most germane to their own lives, while benefiting from critical analysis of even the most familiar elements of their existence. In this way, we can nurture critical thinkers who can understand and articulate the interplays of sexuality, gender, power, and identity in their own lives, giving them the tools to respond without despair to the restrictive and often hostile climate that surrounds them.

Although I work at an institution where there is academic freedom, most of my students come from a more conservative church background and are not comfortable discussing gender identity or queer theory. My challenge was to design an assignment accessible to undergraduate students that encouraged open discussion about gender and identity and encouraged students to think critically about biblical texts. I designed a unit about the masculinity of Moses in conversation with the portrayal of Moses in the film “The Prince of Egypt” (Dreamworks). By focusing on depictions of the body, it was easier for students to enter conversations. The abstract and conceptual become tangible. In this paper, I will discuss the details of the assignment as well as my pedagogical approach. Most importantly, I hope to receive feedback on what could use improvement, and different angles I might have missed.

In the late Second and early Third Meccan periods we can notice the standardization of certain residually oral techniques which point towards the abstract but remain grounded in the sensory. These are signs (āyāt), parables (amthāl), and types. They are each gentle nods to the abstract: the literate mind’s inclination to think in generic terms. Using previous studies of Quranic typology in concert with the classical studies of orality and literary, this paper concludes that the developments in style in this Middle Quranic moment are tied to the three primary uses of writing in the Quran’s milieu: homily, coinage, and biblical lore.

In many books and manuals that teach the art of Qur’ānic recitation *tajwīd*, there is a section dedicated to *waqf* (lit. pause) and *ibtidā’* (beginning or resumption of recitation). The rules that govern where to pause in the recitation were first developed by grammarians and later incorporated into tajwīd books.

The paper provides a critical analysis of the traditional methodology of pausing within and between verses of the Qur’ān. This methodology is based on the degree of semantic and grammatical correlation between the phrase that precedes the intended pause and the one that follows. If the correlation is strong, pausing is not recommended. I explain in the paper how this methodology is presented in the symbols that are printed in today’s Qur’ans.     

I conclude that the Qur’ān’s own system of rhymed verse endings in each chapter defies the methodology of grammarians, since the latter does not consider the rhetorical purposes of pausing, which can greatly contribute to the contemplation of the meanings of verses.

This paper explores the question of what defines old age by examining the Qur’an and early Muslim sources. The Qur’an does not determine when old age begins, nor does it clarify whether it represents a natural progression in human development, a separate stage of life created by God, or a diseased aberration. Considering this ambiguity, my paper investigates how premodern Muslim physicians, exegetes, jurists, and others marked certain bodies as old, and attempted to address the uncertainties and traumas associated with this "vilest state of life" (Q 22:5). The study concludes that early Muslim sources promoted positive trajectories of aging by fashioning more stable bodies, ideal behaviors, and coherent selves to counter the abhorrent chaos and decline that accompanied old age. With no standard, collective support for the elderly, such efforts generated more expedient forms of care for those languishing in that liminal stage between maturity and death.

Many Muslim traditions interpret Q. 9:111 as sanctioning violence, speaking of a transaction: God purchases from the believers their selves and money in return for heaven, and claiming that this is sanctioned in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an. The verse is compared with rabbinic commentary on the *Shemaʿ*, which interprets ‘with all your soul (self)’ as ‘unto death and martyrdom’, and ‘with all your strength’ as ‘with all your money’. This is also echoed in the Gospels’ narratives that describe the cost of discipleship, in which Jesus’s followers need to deny themselves, carry their crosses, sell all their possessions to give to the poor, and lose their lives for Jesus’s sake. Understanding the possible subtexts the Qur’an attempts to allude to, it becomes more evident that the Qur’an is likely discussing a spiritual struggle or a submissive role in losing their lives for the sake of God.

This paper draws attention to striking similarities between Sūrat al-Māʾidah and the “Constitution of Medina,” a pact made between the Prophet’s followers (the Believers) and various Jewish groups of Yathrib. The parties to the Constitution were to pay towards the war effort against Quraysh, participate in the defense of Yathrib, renounce violence against each other, and exact revenge against murderers. Al-Māʾidah accuses many of the Jews of misdeeds that correspond to these “constitutional” commitments. These Jews have not lent God “a good loan” (v. 12), have not supported the Prophet (v. 12), have not shown due regard for the gravity of murder (vv. 27–32), and do not accept the law of retaliation (vv. 41–45). Al-Māʾidah proceeds to advise the Believers not to take Jews or Christians as allies (v. 51). Therefore, the surah could have served to end the alliance enshrined in the Constitution.