Rethinking Theology From Below

Contrary to widespread belief, theology is part of life. Whatever ideas people hold about God and the world, those ideas have been shaped to a considerable degree by the events of their lives.  Their lives, in turn, are shaped by flows of power that are often not fully visible, including the powers at work in politics and economics. Few people realize, for instance, how the free-market economy influences not only their financial options but also the way they think about themselves, the world, and God. When these ideas about God, life, and power go unreflected, we are doomed to perpetuate these power flows.

Why Theology?

Theology today not only needs to help us reflect on God, life, and power, it needs to help us  develop alternative ideas about God and the world that are linked to alternative ways of life, which grow out of very different power flows.  In many of the Judeo-Christian traditions, power moves not from the top down, the default position under the conditions of empire and capitalism, but from the bottom up. The traditions of the Exodus, the Jubilee, the Hebrew Prophets, the life of Jesus Christ, as well as the lifestyles of the early church that value community over hierarchy, all testify to this reversal.

Theology in this perspective contributes to liberation from all forces that restrict the flourishing of humanity and the world.

Featured Book

No Rising Tide
by Joerg Rieger

Even though economic downturns are still followed by upturns, fewer people benefit from them. As a result, economic crisis is an everyday reality that permanently affects all levels of our lives. The logic of downturn, developed in this book, helps make sense of what is going on, as the economy shapes us more deeply than we had ever realized, not only our finances and our work, but also our relationships, our thinking, and even our hopes and desires. Religion is one arena shaped by economics and thus part of the problem but, as Joerg Rieger shows, it might also hold one of the keys for providing alternatives, since it points to energies for transformation and justice.

No Rising Tide Study Guide

An interview with Dr. Rieger

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Recommendation

This book is significant because it exposes the fetishism and false-faith of contemporary free-marketeconomics which precipitated the recent economic crisis and theologies complicity in legitimating unjust economic conditions. This book shows a way forward for Christians to rethink theology and begin to think about how to transform unjust economic systems.