There is no doubt that anthropology needs new approaches for understanding dramatic change, a new way of figuring the relationship…
Falling on the sword of the spirit
Global Christianity, Global Critique
Striking changes are afoot in the way intellectuals address Christianity. Long seen as a largely Western tradition steadily losing its cultural influence in the West, Christianity has recently been re-installed at the center of debates that concern academic specialists and public intellectuals alike.
In this TIF book blog discussion, a range of contributors examine Christianity’s return to prominence via responses to a special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly entitled Global Christianity, Global Critique, edited by Matthew Engelke and Joel Robbins.
South Atlantic Quarterly is edited by Michael Hardt and published by Duke University Press.
Seeing disciplines
In the midst of the interdisciplinary enterprise that Global Christianity, Global Critique undertakes, I want to suggest that the challenge…
Blinded by the light, or, Why can’t liberals see?
Where a century ago liberal Christians (and even some anthropologists) were citing Marx and Bergson in the hope of transforming…
Culture, nature, and mediation
Matthew Engelke is right: religion is about mediation. Ironically so, because it is about the divine; but because the divine…
Paul and today’s emerging Christianities
My sense is that the most important cross-fertilization between contemporary Pauline scholarship and trends, like the so-called anthropology of Christianity,…
The indispensability of form
The salience of ideas and practices that emphasize rupture from previous social settings and modes of thought should not blind…
The many globalizations of Christianity
Globalization, Chalmers Johnson says, is just a new word for what used to be called imperialism. He is partly correct,…
Virtual Christianity
Whether this issue of South Atlantic Quarterly succeeds or fails, it will do so on the basis of its core…
Christianity and its others
In the nineteenth century the new disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities were ‘emancipated’ from Christian theology. To…
Global Christianity, Global Critique
Striking changes are afoot in the way intellectuals address Christianity. Long seen as a largely Western tradition steadily losing its…