In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

This paper discusses potentially negative consequences of the Lutheran principle of Sola Scriptura in light of three theoretical approaches: Reichel's understanding of theology as affordances, hermeneutical conditions for understanding, and psychological theory that points to the negative consequences of the neglect of experience/feeling, with the concomitant effect of insecurity, lack of self-reliance, and immature dependence on authorities.  Thereby, it shows the potential of this doctrine for supplying a theology that creates pathologies. Against the backdrop of a discussion of such pathologies, which includes an analysis of an empirical example, the paper also moves on to suggest what elements in Lutheran doctrine that can contribute to the avoidance of such pathologies. 

This paper argues that the Confession of Sin can create shame for queer Lutherans who participate in church bodies (both local and national) that do not affirm their sexual orientation.  I use Reichel's notion of an "Affordance" as a resistance strategy for queer Lutherans who choose to remain in such Lutheran bodies. Furthermore, I argue for a a renewed process for how one comes to understand oneself and one's sin that can help the Confession of Sin and doctrine of justification by faith can be liberating and transformative for those who seek the Holy Spirit's action in the transformation and sanctification of queer lives and loves. 

Drawing on a qualitative study of how young people in Christian youth ministries theologize about existential dilemmas related to sin and shame, this paper explores the affordances and dis-affordances (Reichel, 2023) of the Lutheran doctrine of sin. The study discloses an unresolved ambiguity: the liberating force of the doctrine of sin, as theologized by the young people, is not connected to what they describe as their primary existential dilemma – a profound sense of shame. Taking the approach of theology as design (Reichel, 2023), the paper points to how the doctrine of sin could be made more relevant to the young people’s lived experiences if it were to integrate the language of shame more explicitly. To make such a move we draw on Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance (Rosa, 2019) and particularly the concept of categorial inadequacy related to the Lutheran understanding of sin as being curved in on oneself.

This paper examines the Abhidharma Buddhist debates, preserved within the translation corpus of Xuanzang 玄奘 (602?-664 C.E.), the Sinitic scholar-monk of the Tang Dynasty, regarding whether the “intermediate being” (Skt.: antarābhava) has the capacity to generate new karma. Furthermore, if an intermediate being, the “extremely subtle” (Skt.: accha) embodied form that persists throughout the “intermediate state” (Skt.: antarābhava), the interstitial space and time between the biological death and the gross corporeal rebirth of an “individual sentient being” (Skt.: ātmabhāva; Chi: ziti自體), has the capacity to generate new karma, when and how are its consequences realized? 

How does Buddhism conceptualize human agency and subjecthood? Buddhist ontology critiques the notion of a permanent self (ātman), advocating instead the doctrine of non-self (anātman). It upholds karma as the governing force behind human actions and conventional phenomena. This raises a critical question: How can anātman be reconciled with the soteriological goal of liberating all sentient beings—a task requiring a volitional, compassionate agent? A metaphor in Buddhist sūtra—mechanical wooden figure (jiguanmuren 機關木人, Skt. vetāla-yantra)—symbolizes the constructed nature of human existence and dependent origination in a karmic reality. By analyzing this metaphor in Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra and Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra, alongside Chinese commentaries, this paper argues that its interpretive diversity reflects ongoing efforts to reconcile the deterministic nature of karma with the conditions necessary for a subjecthood for compassion. This discourse gained prominence during the late imperial period as Buddhists increasingly engaged with the phenomenological aspects of reality and the intersubjective nature of mind.

The “karmic” worldview stands at once larger and smaller than a “Buddhist” or “religious” worldview. This study demonstrates how the idea of collective karma came to the fore in an array of Buddhist discourses on nation building in late Qing China. It features three case studies: (1) Yan Fu’s invention of the term, zhongye, literally “seeds-karma,” in Tianyan lun, the Chinese translation of British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and the single most influential book in initiating Chinese readers into social Darwinism; (2) Liang Qichao’s postulation of an undying “karmic totality” as the essence of the Chinese national “spirit”; (3) Zhang Taiyan’s critique of evolutionism based on Yogācāra teachings of karmic seeds. As these cases show, at a time when “karma” assumed the other name of “heredity,” discourses of collective karma played a critical role in the conceptualization of nationhood at the inception of the modern Chinese revolution.

The Tzu Chi Foundation, established by Dharma Master Cheng Yen證嚴 in 1966, is the world’s largest Buddhist charity. From its headquarters in Taiwan, Tzu Chi oversees a vast global volunteer network that provides disaster and poverty relief, medical assistance, educational resources and more. For volunteers of the foundation, a doctrinal emphasis on karmic connections serves to orient their everyday practice toward the need to establish positive relationships in the human realm. Volunteers draw on their affective experiences of karmic entanglements to help them form new affinities or transform negative relationships. This paper analyzes narratives volunteers have offered from their own life experiences of how they interpret their actions through a karmic worldview.

This paper examines the Abhidharma Buddhist debates, preserved within the translation corpus of Xuanzang 玄奘 (602?-664 C.E.), the Sinitic scholar-monk of the Tang Dynasty, regarding whether the “intermediate being” (Skt.: antarābhava) has the capacity to generate new karma. Furthermore, if an intermediate being, the “extremely subtle” (Skt.: accha) embodied form that persists throughout the “intermediate state” (Skt.: antarābhava), the interstitial space and time between the biological death and the gross corporeal rebirth of an “individual sentient being” (Skt.: ātmabhāva; Chi: ziti自體), has the capacity to generate new karma, when and how are its consequences realized? 

How does Buddhism conceptualize human agency and subjecthood? Buddhist ontology critiques the notion of a permanent self (ātman), advocating instead the doctrine of non-self (anātman). It upholds karma as the governing force behind human actions and conventional phenomena. This raises a critical question: How can anātman be reconciled with the soteriological goal of liberating all sentient beings—a task requiring a volitional, compassionate agent? A metaphor in Buddhist sūtra—mechanical wooden figure (jiguanmuren 機關木人, Skt. vetāla-yantra)—symbolizes the constructed nature of human existence and dependent origination in a karmic reality. By analyzing this metaphor in Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra and Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra, alongside Chinese commentaries, this paper argues that its interpretive diversity reflects ongoing efforts to reconcile the deterministic nature of karma with the conditions necessary for a subjecthood for compassion. This discourse gained prominence during the late imperial period as Buddhists increasingly engaged with the phenomenological aspects of reality and the intersubjective nature of mind.

The “karmic” worldview stands at once larger and smaller than a “Buddhist” or “religious” worldview. This study demonstrates how the idea of collective karma came to the fore in an array of Buddhist discourses on nation building in late Qing China. It features three case studies: (1) Yan Fu’s invention of the term, zhongye, literally “seeds-karma,” in Tianyan lun, the Chinese translation of British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and the single most influential book in initiating Chinese readers into social Darwinism; (2) Liang Qichao’s postulation of an undying “karmic totality” as the essence of the Chinese national “spirit”; (3) Zhang Taiyan’s critique of evolutionism based on Yogācāra teachings of karmic seeds. As these cases show, at a time when “karma” assumed the other name of “heredity,” discourses of collective karma played a critical role in the conceptualization of nationhood at the inception of the modern Chinese revolution.

The Tzu Chi Foundation, established by Dharma Master Cheng Yen證嚴 in 1966, is the world’s largest Buddhist charity. From its headquarters in Taiwan, Tzu Chi oversees a vast global volunteer network that provides disaster and poverty relief, medical assistance, educational resources and more. For volunteers of the foundation, a doctrinal emphasis on karmic connections serves to orient their everyday practice toward the need to establish positive relationships in the human realm. Volunteers draw on their affective experiences of karmic entanglements to help them form new affinities or transform negative relationships. This paper analyzes narratives volunteers have offered from their own life experiences of how they interpret their actions through a karmic worldview.

This presentation examines a series of woodcut prints depicting religious leaders who fought for freedom in their communities, including Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Óscar Romero, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and Judy Heumann. Drawing on Alejandro García-Rivera’s theology of community-oriented beauty and justice, Karl Barth’s theology of prayer, and the icon tradition, this study explores the body’s religious freedom to pray through creative action. Just as these leaders embodied their prayers in the struggle for justice, artists engage their whole selves in the act of creating. Through the physical motions of making, artists reflect deeply on their materials and subject matter, expressing their lament, hope, protest, and joy. When rooted in their communities, their work becomes a reflection on and a prayer for communal flourishing. In this way, artistic practice is a lived prayer—an embodied response of hope and a witness to change.

This paper examines William Blake's innovative synthesis of visual and textual elements in Plate 2 of "The Book of Thel" (1789) to illuminate his theological-artistic vision. Through analysis of the plate's compositional strategies and variations across different copies, the research reveals how Blake's integration of image and text transcends conventional boundaries between material and spiritual expression. The Thel-Lily dialogue serves as a pivotal moment where the apparent binary of innocence and experience dissolves into a nuanced spiritual dialectic. By positioning Thel in a liminal space between states of consciousness, Blake creates a theological framework where childlike wonder coexists with profound understanding. The paper contributes to religious aesthetics discourse by demonstrating how Blake's visual-textual synthesis challenges traditional theological distinctions between spirit and matter, offering new pathways for understanding the interplay between divine revelation and human perception.

Mary, Mother of Jesus was selected and has since been honored as an exemplar worth imitating for generations to come. Some of the early Christian writers even viewed her as an ascetic role model, one whose commitment and discipline to the call of the angel would go on to justify the establishment of Christian and “pagan” cults, religious denominations and ceremonies to be celebrated throughout the year. These moves toward asceticism were a calling to resist and thus restore the social dynamics of the time. Therefore, this paper analyzes the research that inspired the mixed-media collage visual art piece Imitatio Mary. It uses Black feminist and womanist thought as its primary interpretive lens for contemporary settings to address how the life of Mary, Mother of Jesus, draws attention to class oppression, yet also the resiliency and value of oppressed beings. 

In his 1843 "Address to the Slaves of the United States," Henry Highland Garnet declares, “The Pharaohs are on both sides of the blood-red waters!” This metaphor captures the tragic circumstances of enslaved individuals caught between oppression and the desire for freedom. This paper explores Garnet’s call for freedom as a moral reorientation. Garnet presents freedom as individual responsibility and collective action that requires moral reform in addition to physical liberation. By analyzing Garnet’s critique of slavery, this paper considers how his prophetic vision offers an ethical framework for reclaiming freedom in the face of oppression. It ultimately asks: How can moral reorientation shape our understanding of freedom in the context of persistent and pervasive injustice?

In exploring the relationship between freedom and responsibility, this paper first briefly diagnoses the outsized attention given to blameworthiness and guilt in the philosophical and Christian ethical literature on moral responsibility. Then, this paper locates the sympathetic response (as a kind of practical wisdom) as a capacity central to the concept of responsibility. The sympathetic response, or acknowledgement of another’s suffering, is an achievement fundamental to being responsive to and responsible for others. Drawing from Stanley Cavell’s distinction between “knowing” and “acknowledging,” this paper dramatizes the claim (that acknowledgment of human suffering is essential to knowledge of it) through insights from the lives and legacies of Mamie Till-Mobley and Frederick Douglass.

Martin Luther King Jr. characterized freedom as a kind of self-determination—the ability to deliberate, decide, and take responsibility for one’s own actions. Poverty and segregation remove one’s ability to be fully free by attacking one’s sense of self-regard. One common expression of this unfreedom is sloth, specifically, apathy toward one’s unjust and unfree circumstances. This paper reconstructs King’s reflections on the vice of sloth and proposed solutions. It proceeds in three parts: first, it reconstructs King’s account of the psychological roots of sloth. Second, the paper examines one of King’s most common political constructions of the apathetic agent—white moderate liberals—and his positive proposal about removing apathy through democratic participation and direct action. The paper concludes by connecting King’s arguments about nonviolent resistance and the dual formation of self and society to contemporary debates about the usefulness of virtue and vices for an ethics of social change.

In his 1843 "Address to the Slaves of the United States," Henry Highland Garnet declares, “The Pharaohs are on both sides of the blood-red waters!” This metaphor captures the tragic circumstances of enslaved individuals caught between oppression and the desire for freedom. This paper explores Garnet’s call for freedom as a moral reorientation. Garnet presents freedom as individual responsibility and collective action that requires moral reform in addition to physical liberation. By analyzing Garnet’s critique of slavery, this paper considers how his prophetic vision offers an ethical framework for reclaiming freedom in the face of oppression. It ultimately asks: How can moral reorientation shape our understanding of freedom in the context of persistent and pervasive injustice?

In exploring the relationship between freedom and responsibility, this paper first briefly diagnoses the outsized attention given to blameworthiness and guilt in the philosophical and Christian ethical literature on moral responsibility. Then, this paper locates the sympathetic response (as a kind of practical wisdom) as a capacity central to the concept of responsibility. The sympathetic response, or acknowledgement of another’s suffering, is an achievement fundamental to being responsive to and responsible for others. Drawing from Stanley Cavell’s distinction between “knowing” and “acknowledging,” this paper dramatizes the claim (that acknowledgment of human suffering is essential to knowledge of it) through insights from the lives and legacies of Mamie Till-Mobley and Frederick Douglass.

Martin Luther King Jr. characterized freedom as a kind of self-determination—the ability to deliberate, decide, and take responsibility for one’s own actions. Poverty and segregation remove one’s ability to be fully free by attacking one’s sense of self-regard. One common expression of this unfreedom is sloth, specifically, apathy toward one’s unjust and unfree circumstances. This paper reconstructs King’s reflections on the vice of sloth and proposed solutions. It proceeds in three parts: first, it reconstructs King’s account of the psychological roots of sloth. Second, the paper examines one of King’s most common political constructions of the apathetic agent—white moderate liberals—and his positive proposal about removing apathy through democratic participation and direct action. The paper concludes by connecting King’s arguments about nonviolent resistance and the dual formation of self and society to contemporary debates about the usefulness of virtue and vices for an ethics of social change.

This paper examines the lived experiences of first-generation Bahá'ís from European Catholic backgrounds, focusing on their religious transitions through the lens of progressive revelation. Drawing on life story interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Ireland and Italy, I analyze how first-generation Bahá'ís navigate their religious identity within personal, familial, and community contexts. The research reveals how the Bahá'í theological framework of progressive revelation facilitates a unique form of religious transition that enables continuity with Catholic heritage while embracing Bahá'í beliefs. The absence of clergy and of ceremonial rupture with previous affiliations in the Bahá'í Faith allows individuals to maintain familial and cultural connections while developing personal relationships with religious figures, particularly Jesus Christ. This study contributes to understanding how Bahá'í approaches to religious plurality shape convert experiences and challenge traditional anthropological models of religious conversion based on rupture.

This paper examines conceptualizations of ‘virtue’ which emerge in literature drawn from positive psychology and the Bahá’í Faith, exploring the relationship between the two approaches. While positive psychology draws upon a range of religious and philosophical approaches to inform its classification of virtues and strengths (known as the ‘Values-In-Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths’), it has not yet drawn upon or been studied in relation to the Bahá’í Faith.

This paper considers how the approaches may complement and inform one another as distinct bodies of knowledge, contrasting the ways in which their respective empirical and theological frameworks shape the concepts of virtue which emerge. It further highlights the syncretic and ‘integrative’ approach of positive psychology (which integrates specific aspects of religion) with the ‘inclusive’ approach of the Bahá’í Faith (based upon the principle of the oneness of religion). In turn, it considers the unique potential for future dialogue between the approaches.

This paper examines the intersection of religious freedom and academic methodology by comparing the treatment of Bahá’ís in Iran and Germany. While Iran, reflecting an exclusivist Islamic theological framework, denies Bahá’ís religious freedom, Germany allows them to practice their faith freely. A key factor in this disparity is the absence of a developed methodology for religious studies in Iran. Unlike Germany, where religious studies evolved alongside or even merged with Christian theology—exemplified by the Religionsschule des Verstehens—Iranian institutions largely follow an exclusivist theological paradigm. Although some Shi‘a scholars advocate for greater tolerance, their influence remains limited. Additionally, a broader challenge to global religious freedom arises when Muslim institutions in the West demand rights that are not granted to minorities, such as the Bahá’ís, in the Islamic world.

The interpretation of dreams is hardly an exact science. When we mine Islamic and Baha’i texts for instruction, we find that much depends on factors like the favor of God and purity of the heart. These textual traditions agree that while techniques may help to induce dreams of significance and familiar symbols may point in consistent directions, only divine guidance ensures that we distinguish between the truth and illusion. If divine guidance is in place, the truths of the dream realm can be closer to ultimate reality than our wakeful experiences. The state of sleep frees the soul to perceive beyond the bodily senses. On the other hand, our baser desires can cloud our dreams and turn them into a meaningless jumble. When read together, texts from Islam and the Baha’i Faith reveal a complex framework in which dreams lead us closer to or pull us farther from divine truth. 

 In this paper, I will summarize Lebens’ approach to apophatic theology (Section 1), and defend it from the main criticisms to which it was subject (Section 2). I will, then, show that Lebens’ approach to apophatic theology faces a dilemma, that is, either many claims about God are false or many claims about God are nonsense (Section 3). I will also argue that, in both cases, Lebens’ account of apophaticism faces some important issues (Section 4 and Section 5). To conclude, I will show that the failure of Lebens’ apophatic theology can show some remarkable feature of grammatical thomism, and its employment of nonsense.  

In this paper, I argue that ‘grammatical Thomism’, based on a Wittgensteinian interpretation of Thomas Aquinas, has a problem at its heart, relating philosophical discourse with theological speech. In surveying the views of Herbert McCabe, David Burrell, Nicholas Lash, and Stephen Mulhall, I explicate how these thinkers come down on different sides of this question, suggesting that their approach to religious language and particular commitment to analysing Christian forms of life lands them in a puzzle that must be solved, rather than dissolved.

This paper compares the dialectical relationship between speech and silence in the writings of three thinkers. The first, Ignace D’hert OP, was a student of Cornelius Ernst OP in the 1970s, himself a student of Wittgenstein. D’hert’s dissertation develops Ernst’s ideas into a Wittgensteinian ontology, concluding that the function of faith-language is the production of pregnant silence. Similarly, Rowan Williams’ Gifford Lectures, inspired by Ernst’s writings, begin with a Cavellian account of language and culminate in a theology of silence. The following year, Stephen Mulhall delivered his Stanton Lectures on ‘Grammatical Thomism’ that develop the thought of Herbert McCabe OP, Ernst’s Dominican contemporary. Also attending to the failures of language, Mulhall presents his own account of the function of theological language, which he compares and contrasts with Williams’ in a subsequent article. Despite significant convergence between these three accounts, it is well worth examining just where and when they diverge. 

From its inception, the underlying realism of David Burrell’s (1933-2023) Aquinas:
God and Action has been doubted. 1 This is witnessed to in both the early reviews
and clearly evidenced in the work itself, especially the chapter ‘Truth in Matters
Religious’ and the broader discontent with any quest for certainty that Burrell
expresses. This doubt around Burrell’s realism has only intensified since the birth of
the moniker ‘grammatical thomism’, which situated Burrell’s reading of Aquinas in a
broader trend in theology and ‘revisited’ the realism. 2
This paper will also revisit Burrell’s realism, but instead of finding Burrell’s realism
wanting, it will argue that Aquinas is purposefully ambiguous as to how we might
narrate the relationship between language and reality.

 In this paper, I will summarize Lebens’ approach to apophatic theology (Section 1), and defend it from the main criticisms to which it was subject (Section 2). I will, then, show that Lebens’ approach to apophatic theology faces a dilemma, that is, either many claims about God are false or many claims about God are nonsense (Section 3). I will also argue that, in both cases, Lebens’ account of apophaticism faces some important issues (Section 4 and Section 5). To conclude, I will show that the failure of Lebens’ apophatic theology can show some remarkable feature of grammatical thomism, and its employment of nonsense.  

In this paper, I argue that ‘grammatical Thomism’, based on a Wittgensteinian interpretation of Thomas Aquinas, has a problem at its heart, relating philosophical discourse with theological speech. In surveying the views of Herbert McCabe, David Burrell, Nicholas Lash, and Stephen Mulhall, I explicate how these thinkers come down on different sides of this question, suggesting that their approach to religious language and particular commitment to analysing Christian forms of life lands them in a puzzle that must be solved, rather than dissolved.

This paper compares the dialectical relationship between speech and silence in the writings of three thinkers. The first, Ignace D’hert OP, was a student of Cornelius Ernst OP in the 1970s, himself a student of Wittgenstein. D’hert’s dissertation develops Ernst’s ideas into a Wittgensteinian ontology, concluding that the function of faith-language is the production of pregnant silence. Similarly, Rowan Williams’ Gifford Lectures, inspired by Ernst’s writings, begin with a Cavellian account of language and culminate in a theology of silence. The following year, Stephen Mulhall delivered his Stanton Lectures on ‘Grammatical Thomism’ that develop the thought of Herbert McCabe OP, Ernst’s Dominican contemporary. Also attending to the failures of language, Mulhall presents his own account of the function of theological language, which he compares and contrasts with Williams’ in a subsequent article. Despite significant convergence between these three accounts, it is well worth examining just where and when they diverge. 

From its inception, the underlying realism of David Burrell’s (1933-2023) Aquinas:
God and Action has been doubted. 1 This is witnessed to in both the early reviews
and clearly evidenced in the work itself, especially the chapter ‘Truth in Matters
Religious’ and the broader discontent with any quest for certainty that Burrell
expresses. This doubt around Burrell’s realism has only intensified since the birth of
the moniker ‘grammatical thomism’, which situated Burrell’s reading of Aquinas in a
broader trend in theology and ‘revisited’ the realism. 2
This paper will also revisit Burrell’s realism, but instead of finding Burrell’s realism
wanting, it will argue that Aquinas is purposefully ambiguous as to how we might
narrate the relationship between language and reality.