Online June Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

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Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion

The Center for Religion and American Culture

The Institute for Religion, Media and Civil Engagement

APRIL (Association for Religion and Intellectual Life)

Baker Academic

Baylor University Press

DE GRUYTER

Indiana University Press Journals

RNA (Religion News Association)

Reading Religion

Search the Online June Annual Meeting program book with keywords, participants' names, program unit or seminar name, etc.

Wednesday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO25-402
Papers Session

This online session introduces the economic, political, and theological questions and contexts that will be further engaged in our in-person session this winter. Building off of last year's theme of increasing access in the field, our online session combines impactful presentations of original research and sharing of high quality resources for doing research in the field. We highly encourage all those interested in the study of human enhancement, transhumanism, and artificial intelligence to attend and discuss developments in the field.

Papers

This study explores the theological tensions surrounding AI and human enhancement technologies (HETs) by revisiting the scriptural concepts of Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27), human stewardship (Genesis 1:28), and Khalīfa (Al-Baqarah 2:30). It examines whether AI-driven advancements undermine or fulfill the telic reasoning of the genesis in the scriptures, analyzing Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theological perspectives. Employing philological and exegetical critique, the study questions whether human identity is immutable or dynamically participatory in creation. The discussion integrates AI applications—Neuralink, CRISPR, and AI prosthetics—comparing the Halakha, Christian ethics, and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah in the underlying scriptural references. Ultimately, the research investigates the literature shaped around the discussion in the religious communities whether technological progress constitutes a violation of divine role assigned to humanity via hubris or the fulfillment of its concept of genesis with humility.

Thursday, 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM (June… Session ID: AO26-105
Papers Session

The year 2025 marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, and in recognition of this significant anniversary, this panel aims to explore the understanding of the concept and doctrine of God as interpreted in the nineteenth century. One of the papers presented in this session will investigate the ideas of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) and another paper will analyze the trinitarian theology of Gottfried Thomasius (1802-1875). 

Papers

Friedrich Schleiermacher is perhaps a curious figure with whom to reflect on the reception of the Nicene Creed in the modern era, since he was not shy about pointing out the difficulties in trinitarian thought that are enshrined in the Nicene Creed, and his Glaubenslehre (1830/31) called for a fresh Protestant treatment of the doctrine. This paper complicates the prevalent interpretation of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God and trinitarian thought, which sees his work as marginal to the discussion, instead suggesting not only that Schleiermacher’s dogmatics had an enduring influence in this regard but also that his work has significance for constructive theology in the present era.

This essay examines the trinitarian theology of nineteenth-century Lutheran theologian Gottfried Thomasius, contextualizing his work within the theological and philosophical challenges to traditional trinitarian doctrine during the German Enlightenment. While Thomasius is primarily known for his controversial kenotic Christology, this analysis focuses on his doctrine of God and defense of Nicene orthodoxy. The essay argues that Thomasius sought to preserve and extend the Niceno-Constantinopolitan trinitarian consensus by developing a robust concept of divine personality (Persönlichkeit) in response to modern philosophical critiques. This study demonstrates how Thomasius articulated a trinitarian theology that maintained both divine unity and personal distinction through his innovative concept of "absolute personality." 

Thursday, 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM (June… Session ID: AO26-100
Roundtable Session

This book panel creates a conversation between two critical new works focusing on genocide and the Bible, particularly in the context of Gaza:

• Theology After Gaza: A Global Anthology, edited by Mitri Raheb and Graham McGeoch (Wipf and Stock, Cascade Imprint, 2025), assembles theological responses to Israel’s 2023–2024 assault on Gaza. It engages diverse traditions and perspectives on scholars' theological and ethical responsibilities in the face of state violence.

• Gender, Genocide, Gaza and the Book of Esther: Engaging Texts of Terror(ism) by Sarojini Nadar (Routledge, 2025), which applies a decolonial feminist lens to the Book of Esther and interrogates the co-constitutive relationship between sexual and ethnic violence in both the biblical text and its contemporary reception.

Thursday, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-104
Roundtable Session

This panel will explore theological responses to recent developments related to Israel/Palestine, including Gaza and widening regional conflict. Among these theological responses, the panel will assess recent efforts to promote analysis of Christian Zionism beyond traditional theological and biblical discourse

Thursday, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-101
Papers Session

This panel presents a range of important but neglected esoteric approaches to reading the Qurʾan that illustrate the different ways scriptural hermeneutics have served throughout Islam’s history as both a source and manifestation of freedom, whether of humans, texts, or both. Specifically, our papers explore Shiʿi and Sufi interpretative strategies that sought hidden meanings to creatively connect the world of the Qurʾan with the worlds “in front of the text,” forging relationships between scripture and areas of human experience as diverse as history, politics, poetics, and talismanry.  In the case studies surveyed, our panel thus shows how what we understand by the Qurʾan’s reception history should be expanded.  Rather than simply an inventory of different scholastic prescriptions aimed at dictating human thought and conduct, esoteric hermeneutics show how the “Qurʾan in history” has always offered – and itself exhibited – profound freedoms, an irrepressible reservoir of meaning and agency for countless Muslims.

Papers

Thursday, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-103
Roundtable Session

Courses on religion and health have become more popular with the rise of health humanities and applied religious studies as well as efforts to enroll health science undergraduates in our courses. In this online session, we will hear from a panel of teacher-scholars based on their experiences teaching about religions, medicines, and healing. The presenters represent a range of institutions and subfields, and they will explore pedagogical approaches and examples related to teaching courses and/or educating the public on religions, health, and healing. Our goal is to address some of the current challenges, opportunities, and effective strategies for those teaching or developing public resources in this area.

Thursday, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-102
Roundtable Session

This roundtable session brings together scholars of environmental theology and ethics to advance constructive work at the intersection of theology, ecology, and freedom by way of reflection on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Panelists explore freedom in a context in which environmental and climate injustices constrain human freedom and bind whole populations to environmental conditions that cause suffering, loss, despair, and death. What do Christian teachings about freedom, the gospel, and liberation have to do with the ways in which environmental harms are systematically shifted into the everyday environments of workers, the poor, and other disenfranchised and marginalized groups? Panelists respond through critical and constructive engagement with theology’s shift toward listening to liberative voices and ecology’s shift from mainstream environmentalism to the frameworks of environmental and climate justice. This roundtable is structured to promote conversation amongst panelists and discussion with the audience.

Thursday, 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-202
Roundtable Session

This panel discusses a new book titled Silencing the Drum: Religious Racism and Afro-Brazilian Sacred Music (Amherst University Press, 2024). Silencing the Drum explores the role of sacred music in Afro-Brazilian religions and provides detailed accounts of religious rac­ism connected to music, particularly in relation to the drum. The book situates these attacks within a long history of state repression and persecution of Afro-Brazilian religions – particularly between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The authors argue that the process of neighbors initiating “noise” complaints against Afro-Brazilian religious communities; police and other authorities investigating and adjudicating those complaints; and vigilante violence against leaders and devotees all serve as modern mechanisms of silencing what many still view as “primitive” practices. 

The panel will be a dialogue between commentators and the authors. It will include samples of music that were recorded for the book and are published in the online version. 

Panelist

Thursday, 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (Online… Session ID: AO26-200
Papers Session

At a time when the advancement and proliferation of technology is growing more rapidly than ever before, this panel seeks to shine a light on the multiple ways that Jains have viewed and used these tools for a variety of purposes and the impact this has had upon the Jain world. Whether it be for the promulgation of Jain teachings, the promotion of influential Jain leaders, expanding ideas of the Jain world and collective Jain identities, or to engage with and enhance ritual practices, the adoption of various technologies has played a key role in reaching and bringing together wider Jain audiences, shaping the ways in which Jains practice their religion, and how they conceive of themselves as Jain in an ever-more globalised world. 

Papers

The Jains came relatively late to the adoption of print technology. Whereas most other religious communities in South Asia were extensively printing books and pamphlets using lithography and movable type by the middle of the nineteenth century, it was not until the 1870s that we see significant Jain printing. The first two sustained Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jain print projects were the four-volume Prakaraṇ Ratnākar published by Bhīmsingh Māṇak (Māṇek) in Bombay between 1876 and 1881, and the twenty-three books of the Āgama Saṅgrah sponsored by Rāy Dhanpatisingh Bahādur of Murshidabad and printed in Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Banaras and Murshidabad between 1874 and 1900. Both projects faced opposition from more conservative elements in Jain society. This paper analyzes the publishers’ arguments in defense of the use of mechanical print to publish Jain religious texts.

The changeover from print- to internet-based information dissemination relocates religious authority from lineage-based chains of transmission to a hyper-individualized “consumer appeal” model of the bandwidth privileged. This historical process is illustrated here by comparing the online biographies of Śrīmad Rājcandra (1867-1901) of two organizations: one, the Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram in Agas, Gujarat (AA) (est. 1919); the other, the Shrimad Rajchandra Mission of Dharampur, Gujarat (SRMD) (est. 2001). Regarded as authoritative throughout the 20th century, since 2016 the AA’s online biography has included details found only in the SRMD’s online biography, becoming a “dynamic archive” that authorizes the latter’s version, which simultaneously acknowledges and dismantles both archival- and memory-based challenges to truth-claims. Instead, as the internet is a commercial platform in which all information operates on the logic of capitalist consumption, truth becomes a matter of the superiority of the information producer’s ability to fit into the consumer’s self-image and “lifestyle.”

 

This paper explores how mobility and technology are entangled in creating a shared mental map of the Jain world. As mendicants and other influential Jain figures travel between communities, and report to different audiences, a shared understanding of the geography and boundaries of the Jain world emerges. Although this is not new, I argue its workings merit scholarly attention as the aspects of technology and mobility that shape the shared imagination of a connected Jain world have been subject to change since the mid-19th century.

This paper examines a 1952 travelogue and social media pages of prominent Jain figures (2024-2025) to show how the use of newly adopted technologies by these travelling Jain figures provokes a reconsidering of the imagined map of Jainism, suggesting the inclusion or repositioning of previously excluded or peripheral spaces, which is essential to the integration of overseas communities into an imagined global community of Jains.

The pañca-kalyāṇaka pratiṣṭhā ritual consecrates a new temple image (pratimā), with the re-enactment of the five key events of a tīrthaṅkara’s life, transforming the sculpted image from mere marble to that which embodies the perfected qualities of a jina and is therefore worshippable. Within the Kānjī Svāmī tradition, this ritual has long constituted an important part of temple life and is enthusiastically celebrated, despite the apparent contradiction it poses to the knowledge-based path to liberation that is promoted. This paper aims to explore ways in which the ritual has changed through the adoption of new technology, allowing for novel and expanded means of performance and participation. Using archival images and fieldwork interviews, I will offer a comparative, historical analysis to demonstrate how the incorporation of different technologies has transformed not just the ritual itself but also the experience for the participant, renewing a sense of individual and collective mumukṣu identity.