Dancing with the Demiurge
Gregory Shaw’s Hellenic Tantra: The Theurgic Platonism of Iamblichus is a critique of the metaphysics of our age, which disempower the imagination and blind us to our own capacities for the divine. By Simon Cox
Category: Philosophy/Ethics
The Children at 80
Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense offers a still relevant perspective on the idealistic and cynical tendencies in US democracy. By Bradley Shingleton
Dreaming of Superhumans: New Reactionary Nietzschean Fantasies
A fresh round of reactionary groups are appropriating Friedrich Nietzsche to promote virulent new strains of the “superhuman.” By Nicholas E. Low
A Heart-Shaped Rock
Emerson never relinquished his belief in the intimate colloquy of mind and matter. By Susan Lanzoni
Reframing Forgiveness
A Q&A with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on his latest book, Forgiveness: An Alternative Account. By Suzie Greco
Ecotheology
A selected reading list from Dan McKanan’s course.
Climate Grief and the Secular Spirituality of Earth-Mourning
We need to approach earth-mourning as a necessary spiritual practice that reckons with the disorienting power of grief and the potential for meaningful change. By Dorothy Dean
The Trouble with Oneness
Three recent books offer helpful frameworks for considering temperament and conversion in experiences of “oneness with nature.” By Shane Baker
Following the Gaian Way
A new religious philosophy aims to help humans understand again that they are part of and utterly dependent on the living Earth. By Erik Assadourian
Ways of Knowing, Ethics of Care in Piranesi’s Labyrinth
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi evokes an ethics of care within a mythical landscape haunted by continuous loss. By Courtney Sender
Giorgio Agamben, the Church, and Me
Italian philosopher and political theorist Giorgio Agamben’s The Kingdom and the Glory, The Church and the Kingdom, and The Omnibus Homo Sacer, and Simon Critchley’s The Faith of the Faithless offer resources for exploring the connections between temporality, political community, and ordained ministry. By Charles M. Stang
Wakanda and Black Queer Moral Imaginaries
Black Panther serves as a moral imaginary pointing to freedom, fugitivity, and black queer ethical action. By Thelathia Nikki Young
Government Innovation in an Era of White Nationalism
Innovative government programs need a concrete mission, collaboration across sectors, continual learning, and a grasp of local contexts. By Shaun Casey
Seeing as God Sees
Biblical narratives can help us to reimagine what is possible and to pull truth out from its hiding places. By Jonathan L. Walton
The Advice of Mencius
The central focus of Mencius’s thinking was how to let our goodness blossom and how to prevent ourselves from falling prey to immorality. By Jin Li
Zhu Xi’s Breakthrough
Zhu Xi proposed that each of us must cultivate “reverential attention” so that together we might create more harmonious communities. By Stephen C. Angle
The Secular Religion of Plotinus
Plotinus focused on embodied life and envisioned an intricate, complex, interconnected universe. By Margaret R. Miles
Dull Habit or Acute Fever?
More than a century after it was published, William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience illuminates past and present fault lines in American Protestantism. By Bill Leonard
Ronald Dworkin’s Onto-Theology
The onto-theological drive in Ronald Dworkin’s final book, Religion without God. By Ronald E. Osborn
Who is Jesus Today?
Recovering the permanent Jewishness—not just of “Jesus,” but also of “Christ”—defines the essential work that Christians must do after Auschwitz. By James Carroll
