Annual Meeting 2024 Program Book

As the feminist scholars, activists, pastoral and non-pastoral caregivers of and for marginalized communities, how can we dismantle the equalization of those who are in the margins as inferior and subservient?” How can we utilize emotions as methods of resistance to challenge and change any socio-cultural perceptions, customs, norms that uphold and perpetuate this unjust and unequal society? How can we empower those who live their daily lives at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities by maximizing moral value of emotions such as anger, empathy, shame, and guilt; and minimizing the moral risks of emotions? By using pedagogy of discomfort (Megan Boler) and the pedagogy of the oppressed(Paulo Freire), I will offer a social imaginary as praxis that is based on the feminist care ethics.

For many adopted people, their authentic perspectives of adoption as a system are distinct from how they feel toward their adoptive parents and family. But the way that adoptees remember why and how they survived does not always align with the dominant cultural narratives and assumptions surrounding adoption. Many find themselves in the position of having to reinforce “positive” notions of adoption or remain silent, which reinforces unresolved feelings of displacement or loss. This paper focuses on what happens when transnationally adopted people resist those expectations and make themselves “un-silent” through discourses and performances that articulate a form of world-making otherwise suppressed, misrecognized, or ignored. 

The paper "Decolonizing Borders in Abya Yala" delves into imposed borders' historical and theological underpinnings during the colonization. Through comprehensive analysis, the study identifies three types of borders resulting from colonization and their far-reaching implications in Abya Yala. The first border explores the physical barriers that divided the motherland, profoundly impacting native communities, broken families, slavery, and land expropriation. The second border investigates the imposition of Spanish, Portuguese, and English as "civilized" languages, which overshadowed native languages, leading to forced assimilation and erasure of native languages. The third border pertains to the control of knowledge and spiritual practices, wherein native spiritualities and wisdom were marginalized, being viewed as pagan compared to a dominant form of Christianity presented as the only acceptable belief system. A decolonial approach challenges existing border paradigms and aims to empower native descendants to reclaim their heritage, knowledge, identity, and spiritual practices in Abya Yala.

This paper will theoretically and autobiographically engage the premise that living the "lazy" academic life can be an act of resistance against the totalitarianism of late stage capitalism in academia, as well as a position of solidarity with those who live with neurocognitive disability. Drawing on the presenter's experience as a "model-minority" academic diagnosed with neurocognitive post-exertional malaise caused by long COVID, this paper will critically examine the ways in which the pressure on model minorities to succeed in a culture shaped by a white Protestant work ethic both contributes to disability while simultaneously rendering disabled persons as unproductive and "lazy." Using the work of crip theologian Karen Bray and race and cultural theorist Sarah Ahmed, this paper will propose that living into the disabled "lazy" life can dismantle the ableism of white academia while simultaneously working towards life-giving and generative academic practices.

Do comparative theology and (non-theological) religious studies use the same comparative method? The central question to be discussed is how goals, content and methods relate to each other and what role transparency plays with regard to the religious interests of the researcher.

This paper surfaces the unique epistemology being developed at the ritual turn within comparative theology, in and through embodiment. These methodological queries are raised by the example of Catholic Eucharist and Sufi dhikr, demonstrating how learning ritually is structurally different than textually based learning.

Conceptions of God held by comparative theologians are shaped by the sources used. In addition to Moyaert’s foundational work, Mara Brecht offers somaesthetics and embodied reception of revelation to continue the development of the ritual turn.[i] An expansion of comparative theology to ritual, liturgy, embodiment, and beyond requires an interdisciplinary approach.

Previously unexamined questions reveal new aspects of the divine: How does God reveal Godself in and through bodies, shaped by ritual and liturgical practices? How is the comparative theologian’s epistemological perspective shifted through symbiosis of text and ritual?

[i] Brecht, Mara. “Embodied Transactions,” The Enigma of Divine Revelation, eds. Jean-Luc Marion, C. Jacobs-Vandegeer, Springer (Switzerland) 2020. 151-175.

Comparison in comparative theology is more than the determination of similarities and differences, more than a methodically reflected scientific approach, but a rhetorical act. Not only arguments, but also emotions are exchanged and political goals are pursued. How do we deal with a comparison that is more than rational methodology?

The paper “Rethinking Consent: Advocating for Intent-Based Consent” investigates the notion of consent. It extends the current scholarly debate on consent by synthesizing contemporary philosophical insights with medieval Islamic legal formulations on will, coercion, and intent. The paper critiques the traditional reliance on verbal consent in sexual assault contexts. Accordingly, the paper illuminates the failure of verbal consent to truly capture the dynamics of consent and the complexity of human interactions. By utilizing the works of scholars Sarah Conly, Lois Pineau, Ann J. Cahill, and the conceptualizations of intent by medieval Islamic jurists, the paper introduces an intent-based model of consent. This model prioritizes the internal states and genuine intentions of individuals over mere verbal affirmations. The paper incorporates the psychological perspectives provided by Jeffrey Young, which aid the formulation of a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of consent.

This paper describes the mechanisms by which passive and active forms of social power result in testimonial injustice and epistemic violence inflicted upon women who have had abortions.  These forms of imposed power result in the silencing of women who have had abortions, thereby denigrating their embodied wisdom, stigmatizing their actions, and excluding them from policy and political discussions.  I argue that attentiveness to the personal testimonies about the experience of abortion can help disrupt the structures that perpetuate testimonial injustice and give recognition to the real dangers faced by those who may want to disclose their experiences.

In this paper, I critically examine the way in which divine love is commonly discussed in analytic philosophy of religion. I argue that we have good reason from feminist perspectives to focus more thoroughly on divine love in discussions of divine personality than has been done in the past. Furthermore, I entertain the possibility that, in the context of the divine-human relationship, love is an aspect of divine personality of a different order of influence, compared to other traits. Additionally, I show how greater attention to divine love can forge new pathways for discussion by considering this in relation to the topic of divine violence. I conclude by suggesting two ways to give greater priority to divine love, one that takes up my constructive proposal that love ought to be given a special status and another that takes a more conservative approach.

As Christian ethics surveys the ongoing complexity in Gaza, much of the theological reflections come from Western Christian scholars, sometimes in dialogue with Islamic figures, but the Eastern Christian tradition is largely overlooked as an area of ethical discourse. This paper represents the important area of Levantine social ethics in diaspora, specifically the ways in which Arabic and Aramaic speaking communities have liturgized their experiences of genocide and displacement to offer descendant communities a unique social ethic that is non-Western and overtly decolonial. I examine how mass violence has impacted generational identity formation, informed by social science work on suicidality in multigenerational trauma, and then examine discourse on resilience from Eastern Orthodox communities abroad. I argue that the Eastern Orthodox moral tradition has formed language-protective traditions, ritual practices that commemorate experiences of displacement, and other cultural community protective factors which could provide an infrastructure for resiliency after trauma.

Moral traditions have consistently addressed the tragic fact of unjust suffering. The most prominent among the ethical responses are Stoic ones, which counsel apathia, ataraxia, and self-mastery as antidotes. These strategies can nurse complacency in the face of injustice, absorb individual suffering to some overall good, and turn one’s attention away from the historical plane. I propose an alternative by drawing from Mencius and Thomas Aquinas, who are often mistakenly assimilated to Stoicism. By attending to the centrality of lament and protest in them, I suggest a set of spiritual exercises different from Stoicism. I commend these exercises, not because they make catastrophe explicable or justifiable through theodicy, but because they render suffering culturally thinkable. Rather than demanding mental accommodation in the wake of injustice, moral tragedy is more properly seen as material for mutual recognition and a call for collective redress.

The tools of religious ethics are uniquely equipped to propose a vision of democracy as a theory of virtuous practice. Among the primary democratic virtues worthy of attention is hope - which I define as the just response to the tragedy-attuned. I contrast this vision with rival conceptions of hope, Augustinian and otherwise, where hope is understood as a merely internal disposition, where hope requires an object hoped in or hoped for, and where hope is understood to be solely future-oriented. I argue that hope instead is inextricable from the discursive practices endemic to its expression, and that the primary focal point of hope is one’s fellow tragedy-related-citizens for the sake of whom and with whom one is hoping. I conclude with meditations about the necessity of the recognition of tragedy for democratic practice.