This is the third live Q&A for The Christ Empire Couldn't Keep, and this week we did everyone's favorite theologian: Anselm. Here's the setup for those who've carried atonement baggage since youth group. The angry God demanding a victim is not Anselm. That caricature is a later invention, and Joerg asks why contemporary conservative theology needs a version of the tradition that the tradition never actually taught. His answer: because empire reshapes God's image in the image of the powerful, to celebrate the top and keep the bottom in check. And here's the surprise — Anselm's God cannotjust forgive and forget, and that's not cruelty; it's the opposite. The tyrant can forgive and forget because the tyrant answers to nothing. Anselm's God is bound by the order of creation. A God who follows the rule of law. (Imagine.) So the satisfaction theory becomes an argument against the Norman practice of bloody revenge, written by a man who watched William the Conqueror's troops cut off the right hand and right foot of every male inhabitant of a village that gave offense. We also got into the feminist divine-child-abuse critique, whether reason is a gentler instrument of empire or just a more effective one, Brecht on banks, techno-feudalism, and a closing riff on economic democracy that got Joerg going and ran out of clock. Next week: Bartolomé de las Casas.

The Christ Empire Couldn’t Keep⁠ is running now. Sign up at ⁠homebrewedclasses.com⁠ — you don’t have to donate anything. You’ll get access to all the lectures, you can send in questions by replying to any class email (that’s where every question in this Q&A came from), and you’ll be connected to the online community working through the material together.

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

• ⁠Who Owns the Creed? Joerg Rieger on the Conservative Gimmick and the Surplus They Missed
• Empire Goes All the Way Down⁠
• ⁠⁠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. It's free to join, every session is recorded, and it kicks off Thursday, August 27. Grab your spot at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HomebrewedClasses.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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