In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

This paper draws on extensive fieldwork with Maya and Mennonites navigating land conflict in southern Mexico in order to map possible paths towards common freedom understood as collective self-determination. Over the past 40 years, European Mennonites have begun settling in Maya ancestral territory and have brought with them industrial agricultural practices which deplete the local ecosystem. Their large families have fed a sharp expansion in this industry while their religious and economic systems remain resistant to innovation. Nonetheless, a Maya peasant network resists animosity with their new, insular neighbors and has invited us to accompany them as they seek paths toward sharing in the land. We offer this report on these Indigenous-led processes for transformative justice and share political and theological insights we are gleaning over seven years of collaboration. 

This paper focuses on contemporary debates about the dynamic between individual reproductive freedom and collective environmental sustainability. I examine two competing views: 1) population policy advocates, who argue that reproductive freedom should be constrained by governments because of global climate threats, and 2) reproductive justice advocates, who reject the notion that governments should constrain reproductive freedom for any reason. While environmentalists are correct that population growth exacerbates climate threats, RJ advocates are also right to direct our attention to the systemic conditions that situate reproductive choices. As such, I argue that governments are responsible for improving the environmental contexts in which reproduction takes place, namely by reducing our reliance upon the most carbon-costly energy sources. Because massive fossil fuel subsidies and the influence of industry lobbies make this difficult, I conclude with lessons from religious environmentalists who participate in anti-fossil fuel activism through institutional divestment campaigns and intergenerational organizing.

This essay enters and responds to a live and ongoing debate in global politics regarding the climate crisis—namely, between ecomodernism and degrowth theory—using Sabbath as a theological lens. I begin by developing Sabbath as a theological and political lens. In particular, I emphasize Sabbath as a spatial politic. With the help of the Marxist geographer Doreen Massey, the first half of this essay challenges Abraham Joshua Heschel’s notion that Sabbath is a purely temporal practice. Instead, I highlight Sabbath as a spatial project. A spatial Sabbath, then, enables a reorientation of Sabbath as both a spiritual and political project. This leads to the second half of the essay, where I use the spatial politics of Sabbath in combination with degrowth theory to build a collaborative vision of post-capitalist economics from a theological perspective. I conclude by offering one modern concrete example of spatial Sabbath in highlighting Agrarian Trust and the FaithLands project.

The #NoDAPL movement at Standing Rock (2016-2017) ushered in a new era of spiritually grounded eco-activism. Over six years, I conducted fieldwork and participated in grassroots organizing among three of the most high-profile spiritually anchored eco-activist movements in the US: the Anishinaabe-led #StopLine3 oil pipeline resistance (MN); the coalition of Yogis and Baptists who helped derail the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (VA); and the partnership of Mennonites and Roman Catholic Sisters who resisted a fracked gas pipeline with a cornfield Chapel blockade (PA). Through the process, I identified the following themes running through all three campaigns: (1) a deep conviction that eco-activism is a sacred duty; (2) a shared commitment to principles of non-violent mass action; (3) the performance of religious ceremony as a tool of direct-action; (4) the embrace of an intersectional theory of justice; and (5) the emergence of new, interreligious spiritual communities arising from the crucible of eco-activism.

It is undeniable that human beings are at the heart of environmental issues. The root of the ongoing ecological crisis is in human exploitation of the Earth. In light of the Marxian concept of primitive accumulation, this paper explores the ecological crisis, focusing on the detachment of humans from the land as a pivotal condition of exploitation. Engaging with the feminist reinterpretations by Silvia Federici and ecological insights in Marx’s understanding of human-nature relations, the paper highlights the process of capitalist appropriation, expropriation, and exploitation in the commodification of land. Incorporating an animist perspective, the study examines how the detachment of humans from the land has contributed to the alienation of both humans and nature. The anthropological and religious literature on animism and indigenous wisdom is proposed as an entry point to call for a revolutionary imagination to restore the reciprocal relationship between body and land.

This paper examines the reinterpretation of Victorian womanhood in Korean Christianity, arguing that rather than serving solely as a tool of patriarchal subjugation, the ideal of the "good wife, good mother" has been transformed into a source of spiritual authority. Using Duranno Eomeoni Hakgyo (Mother School) as a case study, this research explores how Korean Christian women navigate traditional gender norms while asserting agency through prayer, family leadership, and religious devotion. Despite lacking institutional power of the women, their numerical dominance and engagement in spiritual practices have allowed them to exert significant influence within the church. By reframing Victorian femininity as a mechanism for theological and social agency, this study contributes to a broader discourse on gender and leadership in World Christianity. Therefore, this paper highlights the complexity of non-Western feminist expressions like Gina Zurlo emphasizes in her book, demonstrating how Korean Christian women craft their own models of empowerment.

This paper explores African women's historical and contemporary challenges in navigating systemic oppression within political, religious, and cultural contexts. Despite progresses, African women continue to confront deeply entrenched barriers rooted in patriarchy, classism, and imperialism, which hinder their participation in leadership roles and decision-making processes. The study investigates the intersectionality of women's oppression, particularly within the socio-political and religious spheres, and highlights how these forces impact women's flourishing. By examining the internalized effects of this oppression, the paper offers insights to challenge these structures and foster solidarity among women. The research aims to empower women through self-determination and collective actions toward liberation and transformation, ultimately enabling them to contribute fully in the church and the public sphere.

This paper attempts to recover women’s voices about their sexuality by tracing how women in medieval China might have strategically used religion to overcome the silencing of female sexual desire. This paper first examines a medieval litigation text judging a widow’s application for official recognition as a chaste woman on the grounds that she was rewarded by Heaven for pregnancy due to her commitment to her deceased husband. By turning the Confucian ideology – good acts elicit supernatural rewards – on its head, the widow sought to have sexual activities without having her reputation compromised. Foregrounding women’s sexual agency, this paper then offers an innovative reading of a type of tales about the seduction of women by deities. I propose to treat the invocation of deities as serving an exculpatory function for “illicit” sexual conduct. Overall, this paper aims to understand women’s sexual agency within the given oppressive cultural and historical contexts.

This paper explores the case of a Korean evangelical businesswoman who operates a global franchise, investigating the complexities of economic class and the shifting freedoms of evangelical women in the historical context following the 2008 Global Recession. In contemporary society, evangelical womanhood is no longer confined to domestic spheres. The expansion of women’s education and the economic downturn have increased female workforce participation, resulting in women shouldering dual responsibilities at home and in the workplace — a reality that extends to evangelical women as well. By analyzing this case study, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the interconnectedness of class, gender, and liberation.

This paper focuses on the reception of the Council of Nicaea in Rome during the pontificates of Julius (337–352) and Liberius (352–366), as reflected in their correspondences. It examines how the Nicene canons, creed, and the council itself were perceived and referenced within the Roman and Italian episcopate. Key letters in Julius’s correspondence include those from Marcellus of Ancyra, Hosius of Cordova, Protogenes of Sardica, Valens of Mursa, and Ursacius of Singidunum. For Liberius, attention is given to his letters to the Bishops of Macedonia, Italy, and Emperor Constantine, as well as the epistle from Eustathius, Silvanus, and Theophilus. Additionally, the study considers appeals to Nicaea’s authority in the Pseudo-Julian letters Decuerat vos fratres and Decuerat vos adversus. Through this analysis, a nuanced perspective emerges on the role of Nicaea in shaping Roman ecclesiastical identity until the mid-360s.

This contribution examines the Coptic tradition’s preservation and reinterpretation of the Nicene (N) and Nicene-Constantinopolitan (C) Creeds, uncovering textual plasticity within doctrinal stability. Through interdisciplinary analysis of manuscripts like CLM 359, it traces creedal transmission from canonical collections to liturgical codices, revealing lexical adaptations and contextual theological refinements. By integrating non-Greek/Latin sources, the study highlights how Coptic scribes negotiated Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian influences, maintaining at center the “true” Nicene faith. The research underscores the dynamic interplay of culture, authority, and theology in late antique Egypt, challenging narratives of Nicene legacy and exploring the impact of other literary traditions.

The reception of the Nicene Creed among the Goths reveals the complex interplay between doctrinal boundaries and fluid identities in late antiquity. While the Creed sparked theological debates, its acceptance or rejection also influenced social and cultural dynamics, particularly in the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Traditional historiography often presents a rigid Latin-Nicene versus Gothic-Arian dichotomy, but evidence suggests a more nuanced reality. Arian communities, far from being marginalized, included prominent figures and remained vibrant into the fifth century. Similarly, Nicene communities included Gothic members, indicating that religious and ethnic boundaries were not strictly aligned. Gothic literature, such as the Skeireins, reflects sophisticated theological engagement with the Nicene Creed, often rejecting it through nuanced terminology. The fluidity of these boundaries is further evidenced by doctrinally neutral texts, suggesting that doctrinal differences did not always lead to social division. Instead, political and historical contexts often influenced the prominence of these disputes.

Although episcopal participants at Gallo-Frankish councils regularly claimed to be reliant on canonical tradition in crafting their own decrees, direct citations and quotations in published acts are relatively rare. This scarcity has made it difficult for modern scholars to evaluate the nature and extent of this ostensible reliance. This paper addresses this problem by looking specifically at the use of non-Gallic canonical materials by Merovingian-era synods, with a particular focus on Eastern and African canons. Special attention is paid to Nicaea (325) as a venerable, albeit selectively-utilized, reference point. It will be suggested through an examination of these exempla that Gallo-Frankish bishops recognized and sought to navigate an inherent tension between localism on the one hand and a canonical orthodoxy not limited by political borders. 

This paper focuses on the liturgical transmission of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which became central to the liturgy of the churches from the 6th century onward. Initially a baptismal creed in Constantinople, it was introduced into the Eucharistic celebration by the monophysite Patriarch Timothy, marking a pivotal transition. From there, its use spread to Egypt, the Iberian Peninsula, and ultimately Rome by the 11th century. The Second Vatican Council later reintroduced liturgical pluralism, allowing the Apostles’ Creed in Catholic worship. While the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed remains a key reference in ecumenical dialogue, theologians like Karl Rahner have argued for the need to develop new creedal expressions for contemporary faith transmission. This historical perspective highlights the liturgy’s essential role in shaping ecclesial identity and interpreting the legacy of the Council of Nicaea through the evolving use of the Creed.

In the context of early Church council studies and the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, analyzing Greek and Latin patristic texts presents linguistic and historical challenges. Advanced Artificial Intelligence techniques applied to linguistic datasets offer new insights into the reception and interpretation of such texts.
This presentation introduces DamSym, a computational tool designed to retrieve semantically similar sentences in both languages, aiding the study of thematic transmission and evolution in ancient literature. The first part outlines the tool’s methodology, focusing on its architecture and the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI to handle ancient text complexities.
A case study on the Council of Nicaea and its aftermath demonstrates DamSym’s application in tracing how Nicene theological concepts evolved over time. By surpassing verbatim matching, this approach identifies authors, perspectives, and conceptual cores. The presentation highlights how digital tools enhance our understanding of Church councils' legacy and impact.

This paper focuses on the reception of the Council of Nicaea in Rome during the pontificates of Julius (337–352) and Liberius (352–366), as reflected in their correspondences. It examines how the Nicene canons, creed, and the council itself were perceived and referenced within the Roman and Italian episcopate. Key letters in Julius’s correspondence include those from Marcellus of Ancyra, Hosius of Cordova, Protogenes of Sardica, Valens of Mursa, and Ursacius of Singidunum. For Liberius, attention is given to his letters to the Bishops of Macedonia, Italy, and Emperor Constantine, as well as the epistle from Eustathius, Silvanus, and Theophilus. Additionally, the study considers appeals to Nicaea’s authority in the Pseudo-Julian letters Decuerat vos fratres and Decuerat vos adversus. Through this analysis, a nuanced perspective emerges on the role of Nicaea in shaping Roman ecclesiastical identity until the mid-360s.

This contribution examines the Coptic tradition’s preservation and reinterpretation of the Nicene (N) and Nicene-Constantinopolitan (C) Creeds, uncovering textual plasticity within doctrinal stability. Through interdisciplinary analysis of manuscripts like CLM 359, it traces creedal transmission from canonical collections to liturgical codices, revealing lexical adaptations and contextual theological refinements. By integrating non-Greek/Latin sources, the study highlights how Coptic scribes negotiated Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian influences, maintaining at center the “true” Nicene faith. The research underscores the dynamic interplay of culture, authority, and theology in late antique Egypt, challenging narratives of Nicene legacy and exploring the impact of other literary traditions.

The reception of the Nicene Creed among the Goths reveals the complex interplay between doctrinal boundaries and fluid identities in late antiquity. While the Creed sparked theological debates, its acceptance or rejection also influenced social and cultural dynamics, particularly in the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Traditional historiography often presents a rigid Latin-Nicene versus Gothic-Arian dichotomy, but evidence suggests a more nuanced reality. Arian communities, far from being marginalized, included prominent figures and remained vibrant into the fifth century. Similarly, Nicene communities included Gothic members, indicating that religious and ethnic boundaries were not strictly aligned. Gothic literature, such as the Skeireins, reflects sophisticated theological engagement with the Nicene Creed, often rejecting it through nuanced terminology. The fluidity of these boundaries is further evidenced by doctrinally neutral texts, suggesting that doctrinal differences did not always lead to social division. Instead, political and historical contexts often influenced the prominence of these disputes.

Although episcopal participants at Gallo-Frankish councils regularly claimed to be reliant on canonical tradition in crafting their own decrees, direct citations and quotations in published acts are relatively rare. This scarcity has made it difficult for modern scholars to evaluate the nature and extent of this ostensible reliance. This paper addresses this problem by looking specifically at the use of non-Gallic canonical materials by Merovingian-era synods, with a particular focus on Eastern and African canons. Special attention is paid to Nicaea (325) as a venerable, albeit selectively-utilized, reference point. It will be suggested through an examination of these exempla that Gallo-Frankish bishops recognized and sought to navigate an inherent tension between localism on the one hand and a canonical orthodoxy not limited by political borders. 

This paper focuses on the liturgical transmission of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which became central to the liturgy of the churches from the 6th century onward. Initially a baptismal creed in Constantinople, it was introduced into the Eucharistic celebration by the monophysite Patriarch Timothy, marking a pivotal transition. From there, its use spread to Egypt, the Iberian Peninsula, and ultimately Rome by the 11th century. The Second Vatican Council later reintroduced liturgical pluralism, allowing the Apostles’ Creed in Catholic worship. While the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed remains a key reference in ecumenical dialogue, theologians like Karl Rahner have argued for the need to develop new creedal expressions for contemporary faith transmission. This historical perspective highlights the liturgy’s essential role in shaping ecclesial identity and interpreting the legacy of the Council of Nicaea through the evolving use of the Creed.

In the context of early Church council studies and the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, analyzing Greek and Latin patristic texts presents linguistic and historical challenges. Advanced Artificial Intelligence techniques applied to linguistic datasets offer new insights into the reception and interpretation of such texts.
This presentation introduces DamSym, a computational tool designed to retrieve semantically similar sentences in both languages, aiding the study of thematic transmission and evolution in ancient literature. The first part outlines the tool’s methodology, focusing on its architecture and the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI to handle ancient text complexities.
A case study on the Council of Nicaea and its aftermath demonstrates DamSym’s application in tracing how Nicene theological concepts evolved over time. By surpassing verbatim matching, this approach identifies authors, perspectives, and conceptual cores. The presentation highlights how digital tools enhance our understanding of Church councils' legacy and impact.

As recounted in the popular romance fiction community, many women readers and writers got their start in the genre as youth by stumbling upon an older female relative (mother, grandmother, sister)’s stash of romance novels, and surreptitiously secreting books away to read in private. The commonality and repetition of this act as a habit establishes it as a rich site for ethical analysis which directs us not simply to literary analysis at the level of narrative depiction, but to book historical considerations of circulation, material culture, and embodiment, among reader reception. In this paper, I argue that this romance reader rite of passage – stash theft – is a form of moral agency. I show how Black readers’ juvenile pilfering of their mother’s and grandmother’s stashes generationally communicates “womanish” ethical sensibilities through Black women’s strategies of dissemblance, hiddenness, and sociality, grounding a womanist virtue ethic for romance reading and embodying flourishing.

PBS television host and guidebook author Rick Steves is often lauded as the most trusted American voice in European tourism. While most scholarship configures travel through lenses of leisure, consumption, and even settler-colonialism, this paper examines Rick Steves’ five-decade-long career through the lens of religion. Drawing on work on secularism, religious nationalism, and popular culture, as well as ethnographic data of six Rick Steves tours and text analysis of his PBS show, guidebooks, and radio show, I argue that analyzing Steves’ project through the lens of religion affords an important hermeneutic perspective that illuminates how travel is a form of pilgrimage and moral formation—specifically, a project of civil repair. Steves’ progressive vision as a Lutheran philanthropist and Democratic activist, including his resistance to the Trump administration, affords us the chance to examine the consistencies and contradictions of travel as a project of civil repair, including cosmopolitan identity and overtourism.

First contact novels offer a perfect place for authors of science fiction to explore ethical dilemmas. In The Sparrow duology by Mary Doria Russell and A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys, alien cultures present as accepted fact ideas that humans may reject – that it is okay for one type of sentient being to eat another, and that it is necessary to abandon your planet of origin in order to live safely in space, respectively. The characters in these books struggle to respond ethically, and in each case main characters draw on Judaism to help them define and shape their reactions. The authors’ portrayal of Judaism differs, though: a centering of belief, text, and history in Russell’s texts versus a focus on social relationships, ethics, and narratives in Emrys’ novel. This change is consistent with changes in Americans’ understandings of how and why people are religious even in a “secular” society.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic cinema  attempt to hold two incongruous themes together: a depiction of the end in its brutal, often sensationalist, violence and the promise that this ending will be the opportunity for ‘us’ to become the best version of who ‘we’ always already were. Recent films have embraced a gritty realism in order to depict the near future that may emerge as the result of the intersecting crises of climate change, intensifying social divisions and growing political instability. I argue these  explorations of the polycrisis harbour hidden hopes, but this poses a dilemma. This hope is directionless—it is a hope in hope itself. Taking 2073 (2024) as an example of this dilemma, I contrast polycrisis cinema with the cinema of the Cold War. I show that films from this earlier period were more willing to engage what Günther Anders calls a ‘naked apocalypse’.

Central to Iris Murdoch’s moral-aesthetic philosophy is her conception of prayer, which she derives largely from Simone Weil’s theory of attention, and from Plato’s Eros. In both philosophers she finds a model for moral perfectionism as the turning away from fantasy towards reality and the good. She locates among the most seductive of fantasies the unified image of a personal God, and thus, I argue, seeks to theorize a “demythologized” form of prayer without God, or a practical mysticism of the Good. This position hews close to Weil’s mystical “attention,” but Murdoch trades Weil’s God for Plato’s Good, and diverges from both thinkers in placing greater emphasis on the imaginative practice afforded by art, especially the reading of tragic literature. This paper considers how her practical mysticism poses a modest resolution to “the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry” initiated by Plato, who professed a grave mistrust of literature.

Since the 1980’s, Enrique Dussel has been regarded as the most important scholar in the fields of philosophy and theology in Latin America. An early contributor to liberation theology, a pioneering leader in the concurrent field of liberation philosophy, all the while being a highly respected historian of the Catholic Church in his own right, Dussel’s work spanned fields, geographies, and world history in an effort to dismantle the Eurocentric and colonialist pretensions of modernity. In this short reflection, I will argue that one of the most significant legacies of Dussel’s work is the urgency to rethink disciplinary divides with an eye towards epistemic decolonization. The relation between history and philosophy and the relation between history and theology are good examples of this interdisciplinarity. 

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein asserted that ethics is not finally a matter for philosophy. For him, the ultimately good or ultimately meaningful cannot be captured by reason. Wittgenstein thus gives us a different route for answering Kant’s famous questions: “What should I do?” and “What can I hope for?” If Wittgenstein’s skepticism about ethical philosophy is correct, we do not need a theory to act or hope. Rather, theories serve to procrastinate action and obscure hope. Wittgenstein’s deflationary approach to philosophy teaches us to abandon the hope for a theory of hope. I will argue that this is not a counsel of despair. Rather, Wittgenstein frees us for authentic hope: hope not underwritten by a philosophical or theological system, but simply ordinary hope for this or for that, hope that relies on nothing but itself. It is this hope, hope freed from philosophical theory building, that liberates us to act. 

This paper foregrounds the theme of maturity as the way of life of human freedom in Weber’s political thought. It does so to explore how Weber’s ethic of responsibility bears the trace of the religious that it disavows. This trace, the paper suggests, can be seen in the influence that the exemplary lives of certain religious virtuosi exert upon Weber’s ethic of responsibility, lives which capture his hopeful imagination, spur his desire, and thus motivate his call for a politics of limits. Making this claim, however, entails setting aside an intellectualist understanding of religion premised on belief in favour of understanding religion as a desire-driven practice. Shifting to such a register brings into relief how Weber’s notion of maturity as the exercise of human freedom remains tied to the religious virtuosi even when Weber insists that religious belief has become incredible.