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.
Highlights from the conversation
- Attraction isn’t the same as liberation. Alec asked why nonviolence isn’t enough to get Christ out of empire. Joerg brought in James Lawson: “We’re not talking about non-violence. We’re talking about non-violent resistance.” Once you say resistance, you have to name what you’re resisting, which takes us back to Anselm and the weight of sin.
- “We don’t need miracles because we are the miracle.” Delia asked how that still works. Joerg’s answer was that most Americans, whatever their politics, assume the world envies us, even while about 68,000 people here die every year for lack of health insurance.
- Innocence without colonies. Arnold brought up Susanne Zantop’s argument that Prussia’s lack of colonies made its colonial fantasies stronger. Joerg compared it to Iraq: no American viceroy, but the first oil contracts were written in Dallas. I added that the “miracle” rhetoric shifted from the colonial state to the market.
- Seven Mountains and liberal love. Jeremy asked whether Christian nationalists wanting to take the world by force and liberals wanting to fix it with love share one assumption about who owns the world. Joerg said yes, and that unless you’re in the 1%, you don’t actually own it. His answer was Joe Hill’s: “Don’t mourn, organize.”
- Sin talk without being a scold. Sandy asked how liberal churches can learn to name empire again. Joerg said sin isn’t “nobody’s perfect.” It’s a power analysis, which is why he says Capitalocene instead of Anthropocene. I brought in Schleiermacher’s picture of the church as “an open community of deeply committed friends” that begins its liturgy with confession.
- Millionaires and homeless people in the same pew. Braxton asked which of Schleiermacher’s surpluses are worth reclaiming. Joerg pointed to his insistence that everyone worships together, with no separate services for rich and poor. He added a warning: it only counts if it changes how we live, so that in the future there are fewer homeless people. Diversity on display isn’t the goal.
About our guest
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 
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