We Are the Miracle: Schleiermacher and Soft Empire

This is the fifth live Q&A for ⁠The Christ Empire Couldn't Keep⁠ in which Joerg and I got to Friedrich Schleiermacher: the father of liberal theology, the DNA of American mainline Christianity, and yes, a card in my theologian baseball card collection. (Joerg wants to trade for it. Negotiations are ongoing.) Joerg started by saying this session isn't meant to make anyone in the liberal tradition feel bad. It's an invitation to dig deeper. There's plenty worth celebrating here, like the leveling of old hierarchies, thinking for yourself, and Christ working by attraction instead of coercion. But Schleiermacher also wrote that "we are the miracle," fantasized about colonies Prussia didn't have, and called Judaism "charming." That's where the soft empire hides, and it's the version American liberals find hardest to see in the mirror. The surplus is still there, and the work is ours. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Dr. Joerg Rieger is the Distinguished Professor of Theology and the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University and founding director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice. For three decades, he has worked to bring together theology and the struggles for justice and liberation that mark our age. His work addresses relations of theology and public life, reflecting on the misuse of power in religion, politics, and economics. His interest is in movements that bring about change and in the positive contributions of religion and theology. His constructive work in theology draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary traditions, with a concern for manifestations of the divine in the pressures of everyday life. Several of his 24 authored and edited books address the topics of this course, including No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, and the Future; Unified We Are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities (with Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger); and Faith, Class, and Labor: Intersectional Approaches in a Global Context (with Jin Young Choi). www.joergrieger.com Previous Episodes w/ Joerg Empire Hard, Empire Soft: Joerg Rieger on Las Casas and the Conquest That Learned to Be Nice Anselm’s God Can’t Just Forgive: Joerg Rieger on Why That’s Good News, Not Cruelty Who Owns the Creed? Joerg Rieger on the Conservative Gimmick and the Surplus They Missed Empire Goes All the Way Down: Joerg Rieger on What “Christian Nationalism” Misses Why Religion Matters Now Theology in the Capitalocene Divine Justice & our Ultimate Concern  the End of Religion & Business as Usual Joerg Rieger: Jesus vs Caesar  Different Gods, Different Religions? Wild Goose Theology Happy Hour with Joerg Rieger and Emilie Townes The Economy, Election, Ayn Rand-Ryan-Romney, Occupy, & More Occupy the Church! Rita Nakashima Brock, Joerg Rieger, & Christophe Ringer Economics, Theology, and Discipleship JOIN OUR OPEN ONLINE CLASS: The Empire Christ Couldn’t Keep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ever notice how Christian nationalism gets talked about like it's some bizarre new glitch in the faith? It isn't — it's a 2,000-year-old arrangement wearing new clothes, and once you see how the pattern works, you can also spot the Christ who keeps slipping free of it. Join theologian Joerg Rieger and Tripp Fuller for The Christ Empire Couldn't Keep, a free six-week online class tracing the holy alliances, imperial creeds, and stubborn resistance that have shaped Christianity from Paul to the present. You'll get six lectures from Joerg, six live Q&As, weekly readings from his book Christ and Empire, and a community of fellow troublemakers thinking it through together. 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