Essays

The Immanent Frame publishes essays reflecting on current events, debates in the field, and other public matters relevant to scholarship in secularism and religion.

The Immanent Frame typically publishes essays by invitation only. To see our open calls for content, click here.

To read essays from our archive that are written by scholars introducing or reviewing a recently published book, click here and here.

Essays

They tell the Bible so: On hermeneutical determinism

William Stell·

November 13, 2024

One of the largest religious schisms in American history has occurred in the last few years. Around one quarter of the 30,000 congregations in the United Methodist Church (UMC), the second-largest Protestant denomination in…

November 13, 2024

Essays

Revisited: Jesus, religion, and revolution in the South African elections

Rachel C. Schneider·

October 30, 2024

Ten years ago, I examined the entanglement of religion and politics in South Africa ahead of the 2014 national election. Today, the political landscape has shifted, yet many struggles persist. Thirty years…

October 30, 2024

Essays

Revisited: Making budgets moral again

Ruth Braunstein·

October 16, 2024

Ruth Braunstein revisits her 2019 essay on efforts to reframe the budget as a moral concern. Her work sheds light on an active, if fragmented, network of faith leaders who reject the…

October 16, 2024

Essays

Virūpa, meet Fichte: Uncanny resonances in comparative philosophy

Alexander Englert·

Jonathan Gold·

July 31, 2024

Comparative approaches, especially those couched as “East/West” philosophy, are beset with simplification, projections, and biases, often resulting in narrowness and caricature. It is common to chase dead ends. To avoid this, responsible…

July 31, 2024

Essays

Revisited: Underestimating the force of the New Evangelicals in the public sphere

Rebecca C. Bartel·

May 6, 2024

Undoubtedly, transnational pulls and uneven relations of power shape political realities throughout the Americas. However, not all political and cultural phenomena in the region reflect realities in the United States.

May 6, 2024

Essays

The surprising history of global blasphemy law

J. Barton Scott·

April 15, 2024

Who gets to say what about religion? When does free speech verge into something more insidious — insult, offense, even blasphemy? These questions remain highly contested across much of the contemporary world.…

April 15, 2024

Essays

Revisited: On “beyond Trump”: Evangelical politics, born again

Joanna Tice Jen·

April 1, 2024

Survey data indicates a growing generational split among evangelicals, with the younger generation supporting a range of left-leaning policies that their parents and grandparents vehemently opposed. These young evangelicals are interested in…

April 1, 2024

Essays

We the People of the Book

Abby Kulisz·

December 20, 2023

In 2004, four US college students were arrested for stealing a book. A rare first edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America was stored in special collections at Transylvania University in…

December 20, 2023

Essays

Mysteries of transmission: Thinking in a pandemic

Pamela Klassen·

March 11, 2021

Realizing my pandemic amnesia is yet another confirmation of the interpretive power of positionality and the never-ending work of learning about the limits of one’s own knowledge as a scholar.

March 11, 2021

Essays

Revisited: The case of religious environmentalism

Roger S. Gottlieb·

January 13, 2021

"Much has changed since this essay was published in 2008—much scary and depressing, but some—thank goodness—hopeful." In this update, Roger S. Gottlieb reflects on what has changed since this essay was first…

January 13, 2021

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