New Books in Biblical Studies

Blood. It is more than a thing and more than a metaphor. It is an effective concept, an element, with which, and through which, Christianity becomes what it is. Western Christianity – if there is such a thing as “Christianity” singular – embodies a deep hemophilia (a love of blood) and even a hematology (a theology of blood) that divides Christianity from itself: theology from medicine, finance from politics, religion from race, among many other permutations. This is the claim of Gil Anidjar, Professor in the Departments of Religion and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His recent book, Blood: A Critique of Christianity (Columbia University Press, 2014) is a wide-ranging, challenging monograph that is both searing and poetic, taking the reader on a journey through biblical texts, medieval controversies, and contemporary critical theory. It asks what Anidjar calls “the Christian Question” in order to destabilize taken for granted assumptions about the naturalness of certain categories related to blood and contextualize them instead within the particular history of post-Medieval Christianity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

People living in the modern west generally have no problem criticizing religiously-justified violence. It’s therefore always interesting when I discuss John Brown, a man who legitimized anti-slavery violence Biblically. My most recent batch of students sought to resolve this tension by declaring John Brown to be “crazy but right.” In his new book Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (Stanford University Press, 2014), Ted A. Smith unravels the tensions that led to my students’ ambiguous conclusion. By providing a profound ethical meditation on Brown and his fellow raiders to challenge how people, particularly Americans, think about morality; the relationship between religion, the state, and violence; and to the possibilities of judgment and redemption, Smith illustrates how an ethical and philosophical reading of history can help us to better understand the world we live in, what we should do, and of the importance of going beyond just what we ought to do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

The subject of statebuilding has only become a more visible issue since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, the world has continued to deal with a host of problems related to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and collapse of authority in “failed states” such as Somalia. The recent U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have raised important questions about how best to establish legitimate and well-functioning governments in these countries. If these issues were not enough, the global community still needs to find lasting solutions to the fallout of Syrian civil war and rise of ISIS/ISIL. Countries such as Yemen, Libya, and even Egypt also face a host of statebuilding issues. Drawing on his theological studies and work as an international civil servant, Denis Dragovic addresses the subject of statebuilding in his new book Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding: Roman Catholic and Sunni Islamic Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). This work explains why scholars and policymakers make a fundamental mistake when they overlook the importance of religion or treat it as an interest group issue when conceptualizing statebuilding. To rectify this shortcoming, Dragovic explains how and why Sunni Muslims and the Catholic Church can contribute to the process of statebuilding. He also uses the test case of Bosnia-Herzegovina to drive home his larger arguments. As people search for lasting solutions to global disorder, Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding demonstrates the limitations of trying to remake countries in the image of the West and the pitfalls of overlooking the important role that religion still plays in many people’s lives. Dragovic also reveals how religion can make important contributions to peace and stability rather than just fueling discord and violence as many authors contend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Kevin O’Neill‘s fascinating book Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala (University of California Press, 2015) traces the efforts of multi-million dollar programs aimed at state security through gang prevention in Guatemala. O’Neill is most interested in the ways that Christianity and ideas about piety, salvation, redemption, and transformation guide and shape a variety of programs in prisons, rehabilitation centers, and, perhaps surprisingly, reality television and call centers. This is a finely hewn multi-sited ethnography as well as a moving account of the life of a single former gang member. At its core is a tension between the critique of programs that range from the absurd to the tragic, and a recognition that without those programs, former gang members in Guatemala would be relegated to the barest of bare lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

In The Anthropology of Protestantism:Faith and Crisis among Scottish Fishermen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), anthropologist Joseph Webster takes readers deep into the lives of fishermen in Gamrie, a village perched above the sea in northeastern Scotland. It’s a place of great wealth and also poverty, a place of staunch Protestantism among many of the older people and reckless abandon or religious unconcern among the young and “incomers” – that is, new arrivals in the village. By tracing the millennialist faith of the village’s many Presbyterian and Brethren churches, this careful ethnography calls into question assumptions about the decline of religion in modern societies. It asks, how do the fishermen of Gamrie experience life as both modern and enchanted? Joseph Webster is Lecturer in Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast. The Anthropology of Protestantism comes out in paperback in June 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Much of the public debate about the relationship between science and theology has been antagonistic or adversarial. Proponents on both sides argue that their respective claims are contradictory–that the claims of science trump and even discredit the claims of religion or theology. Some have sought to portray the relationship in a different light. The evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould famously asserted that the two realms were “nonoverlapping magisteria.” But recently theologians and scientists have begun to mark out new ground for robust conversation. Tom McLeish‘s book Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014) takes this conversation to new heights. Locating the impulse for science in much biblical literature, particularly the wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible, he shows how one might understand science as a theological endeavor. Rather than a paradigm of “science and theology,” he posits a “theology of science,” an interrelationship that not only gives us new eyes with which to read the history of science more coherently but also yields a renewed appreciation for science as part of a “ministry of reconciliation” with the natural world and the causes of human suffering. Tom McLeish is Professor of Physics and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University. He studied for his first degree and PhD in polymer physics at the University of Cambridge and in 1987 became a lecturer in physics at the University of Sheffield. In 1993 he took the chair in polymer physics at the University of Leeds. He took up his current position in Durham in 2008. He is a fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Physical Society, and the Royal Society. He is also involved in science communication with the public via radio, television, and school lectures, discussing topics ranging from the physics of slime to the interaction of faith and science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Dealing with moral issues in a fair and balanced way is never easy. This is especially true since many contemporary moral questions are of such a highly personal nature. However, in his book An Introduction to Catholic Ethics Since Vatican II (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Dr. Andrew Kim does an excellent job of sensitively introducing the Catholic Church’s teachings on moral issues and the reasoning behind them. Through his deep knowledge of Catholic moral theology and an ability to explain difficult concepts through easy-to-understand metaphors, Dr. Kim has written a rich and thought-provoking book that will be useful for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of Catholic ethics, as well as for those who have to teach it to undergraduates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Kevin M. Kruse is professor of history at Princeton University and author of One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (Basic Books, 2015). Kruse argues that the idea that America was always a “Christian nation” dates from the 1930s. In opposition to FDR’S New Deal, businessmen and religious leaders began to promote the idea of “freedom under God.” The post-war era brought new fears of the advancement of domestic communism. In a decisive turn from an earlier social gospel, these leaders established a Christian ethos based on the ideas of private property, capitalism, and individual economic freedom. Adding “under God” to the pledge of allegiance, designating “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the nation, the controversial attempt to institute prayer and bible distribution in American schools were all forerunner to the Christian Right at the end of the century. Kruse’s narrative focuses on how American leaders from different powerful sectors of the nation sought through legislation and public practices to unify a pluralistic nation under a capitalist-affirming Christian framework. The result was not unity but a more fragmented and divided nation. In unfolding the narrative Kruse challenges the often-benign public religious images of men like Billy Graham, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and a multitude of recognizable business leaders. The book opens up a timely conversation on the meaning of religious pluralism and the place of religion in American public life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

The intersection between ethnic and religious identities can be both complex and rich, particularly when dealing with a community that still has deep roots in the immigrant experience. In his book, Memory and Honor: Cultural and Generational Ministry with Korean American Communities (Liturgical Press, 2013), Fr. Simon C. Kim explores these issues in the Korean American Catholic community. In this deeply reflective work, Fr. Kim grapples with the many issues, such as the generational divide between ethnic Korean Catholics who immigrated, the children they brought with them from Korea, and their grandchildren born in the United States, and what it means to be a Catholic of Korean ethnicity when Protestant forms of Christianity are linked so tightly with that ethnic group in the popular imagination. This pioneering work will be of interest not only to scholars working in Asian American religion, but anyone who is curious about the connection between ethnicity and Christianity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Christians, like other religious people, have to manage the relationship between their belief in supernatural forces and an afterlife on one side, and how those beliefs impact their daily life on the other. This was especially difficult for Korean Protestant Christians (and members of an indigenous religion influenced by Christianity during the Japanese Colonial period (1910-1945), when Christians faced a repressive government, growing criticism of religion, and the social and cultural dislocations caused by the continued onrush of modernity into the peninsula. In his thorough and well-researched book, Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism, and Protest in Japanese Occupied Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2015), Albert L. Park examines how Korean Protestant Christians dealt with these challenges by developing theologies that found the source of renewal and Korean national identity in the countryside. Through a sensitive and careful interrogation of the thought and efforts of these activists, Park unearths a largely ignored aspect of Korean religious history, leading to a book that will be of interest to both scholars of Christianity as well as students of religious responses to modernity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies