James Cone, Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody, on What It Is to Be Black in America Today: What U.S. White Christians Refuse to Hear

Here is more from James Cone's book Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2018) which glosses what I posted earlier today about the conversation white American Christians, who are singularly responsible for the nightmare that is the Trump presidency, refuse to allow the nation to have:

Where Have All the Christian Intellectuals Gone? (Does Anyone Remember John Paul's and Ratzinger's Purge of Catholic Theologians?)

It's a thing now among journalists and religion commentators to ask what has happened to the public intellectuals of the churches in the past few decades — as Catholic commentator E.J. Dionne does in this Commonweal essay. Where have they gone? Why are they not with us any longer — the Niebuhrs (or, as Fred Clark points out, the Martin Luther Kings who never get mentioned in this discussion, and isn't that curious, and noteworthy)?

Quote for Day: "Liberal Christians Often Pay Lip Service to Many Politically Radical Christian Thinkers and Activists While Lining Up Behind the Political and Economic Forces That They Fought Against"

At Religion Dispatches, Daniel José Camacho responds to a recent article at the same venue by Ruth Graham which argues that liberal Christians could, if they so chose, position themselves to retrieve the designation "party of God" under Hillary Clinton's leadership: Camacho demurs for the following reasons,

Why Wheaton College Is Really Going After Dr. Larycia Hawkins: The Full Story Begins to Emerge

Several days ago, I took note of Wheaton College's firing of its controversial tenured theology professor, Dr. Larycia Hawkins. Many of you will know that Dr. Hawkins teaches political science at Wheaton, the "Harvard of evangelicalism," and ran afoul of the college's administrators when she chose to wear a hijab (as an evangelical Christian) to protest the targeting of all Islamic Americans as terrorists. The ostensible reason Wheaton has given for moving against her is that this gesture and statements she made about it contravene the college's statement of faith by implying that the God worshipped by evangelical Christians is the same God worshipped as Allah by Muslims.

Beverly Wildung Harrison on Connections Between Racism and Misogyny, and Story of Donald Sterling: These -Isms Hang Together in Web of Patriarchy

Recently, when I wrote about Andrew Sullivan's take on Jonathan Rauch's essay calling for special tolerance for those who oppose same-sex marriage out of sincere religious conviction, I concluded by noting, 

Liberation Theology Founder Gustavo Gutiérrez on Legacy of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI: "Ratzinger Was More of a Theologian"

The Iglesia Descalza blog offers an English translation of an interview with the founder of Latin American liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, summarized in a report by Religión Digital following Gutiérrez's recent appearance at a Vatican book-signing for a book written by the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. Religión Digital reports on questions that several journalists asked Gutiérrez following his presentation at the book-signing. What's interesting to note is what Gutiérrez didn't say as he was interviewed--and that's to say, what's interesting to note is what he did say by implication and through silence.

More Brief Takes from Week's News: Pope Francis, Catholic Reform, and Liberation Theology

More brief takes from the past week's news--these focusing on discussions of Pope Francis and the Vatican:

Angela Bonavoglia's To-Do-List on Women for Pope Francis, with Theological Reflections from Ivone Gebara

At Huffington Post, Angela Bonavoglia has published a very fine open letter to Pope Francis entitled "For Pope Francis: A To-Do List for Women." The letter calls on Francis to stop talking about the role of women in the church, when the subjects that should really be under discussion are justice and equality. As Bonavoglia notes, further talk about where women's "place" is only further underscores assumptions that the male experience and perspective are normative, and women's experiences and perspectives are somehow to be wedged into the normative paradigm established by males.

Sister Teresa Forcades Receiving Increased Attention as Leading European Public Intellectual (as Pope Francis Meets with Gustavo Gutiérrez)

I've been writing about the Catalan Benedictine nun Teresa Forcades for some time now, since I discovered her last year via Rebel Girl's Iglesia Descalza site and Terry Weldon's Queering the Church blog. As I noted this past April, I find great hope in the fact that Catholic religious women like Forcades in Europe or the nuns on the bus in the U.S. have claimed strong public voices in the face of repressive movements in the culture at large, often backed by the Catholic hierarchy, to return women to positions of mute servitude.

Another Liberation Theologian Critiques New Papal Encyclical on Faith: Juan Jose Tamayo on Disappointment of Lumen Fidei

Juan Jose Tamayo

I was so far behind with responding to comments to postings here, that I've spent my normal blogging time this morning doing just that. So I don't have a lot prepared to say today in the form of a new posting. I do, however, want to take note of Juan Jose Tamayo's response to Pope Francis's (and Benedict's) encyclical on faith, Lumen fidei. At her Iglesia Descalza site, Rebel Girl offers an English translation of the original Spanish text at Redes Cristianas.

Friends of Pope Francis: The Poor Will "Convert Him Completely," the Church Will Have a Different Face

One of the unexpected gifts of the new pope to the church is this: after having been under a shadow during the last two papacies, after having been attacked and suppressed, the liberation theology movement is now front and center in Catholic conversations. I find this resurrection of a movement many Catholics (and powerful political and economic interest groups outside the church) had believed safely dead and buried something like a miracle.

Lent, Easter, Jesus and the Victims of History: A Meditation

Lent ends today, and it's my 63rd birthday, and I find myself in much the same place in which I was as my 60th birthday approached--and as I remembered my mother's death last year. Throughout Lent this year, I have been haunted by thoughts of the children mercilessly gunned down last Christmas. To be specific: I am haunted by the question of how one prays in the face of such tragedy. I'm haunted by the question of where God is as such tragedy occurs.

More Testimony about Pope Francis from Leading Liberation Theologians

As the work week ends, I want to point readers to two more good statements about Pope Francis by highly regarded liberation theologians, which the Iglesia Descalza site helpfully made available yesterday (with a hat tip to Jayden Cameron for pointing to these at his Gay Mystic site):

Mary Hunt on Theology and Consequences: An Initial Response to Pope Francis

And on the theme of the significance of the new pope in general--beyond particular issues like the dirty war and gay marriage--Catholic theologian Mary Hunt has just offered another powerful statement at Religion and Politics. Hunt's optic: theology has consequences, and "moral do-overs are few and far between."

More Responses to Francis: Clelia Luro, Jon Sobrino, Jamie Manson, James Keenan

More valuable commentary on the new pope that has caught my eye as the day has gone on: 

Quote for the Day: A Tempus Loquendi

Carlos Gamerro writing in the Wall Street Journal in a statement entitled "Pope Francis, the Disappeared, and the Questions That Won't Vanish":

Pope Francis: More Testimony to Be Considered

And yet more commentary--this by way of corroboration of the primary testimony of the three key pieces of testimony to which I just pointed readers, which have caused me to stop and listen (and keep praying and hoping, even as I refuse to shut down my mind and to silence the voice of my conscience):

Commentary on New Pope: Three Voices That Stand Out for Me

Amidst the torrent of commentary that has appeared in the last two days about the new pope, several pieces have stuck out for me. I'd like to point readers to them today, with some notes about why they've caught my attention--and, in contrast to much I've been reading about these matters, have caused me to keep thinking and asking questions that, in my view, I need to ask, if I'm faithful to my calling as a Christian and a theologian.

The Symbolic Imperative of the Papacy Under Pope Francis: Kenotic Atonement

As often happens, I’m feeling considerably out of step with much that’s being said following the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as pope yesterday. As a result, I hesitate to write about this topic today. What if I’m entirely wrong-headed, and misleading people who read what I write here? (But, then, if they had any sense, they surely wouldn’t be taking my flounderings at understanding and finding any path at all in the wilderness as gospel, would they?)

John Allen on Background of Pope Francis

John Allen's write-up on Cardinal Bergoglio at NCR: according to Allen,