New Article in the Journal of the Masonic Society

When I arrived home from the Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity conference I found the new issue of The Journal of the Masonic Society in my mailbox, which has an article that I wrote which begins a larger conversation that I intend to continue about ritual violence and Masonic ritual from a Girardian perspective.  Before I saw the article in print, I know that a robust conversation had already begun about the article on some Masonic chatrooms and local groups, based on the number of emails sent to me within hours of the journal’s mail delivery.  Needless to say, the article touches some sensitive issues.

The cover depicts a sculpture of Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum, the three ruffians who murder the architect of Solomon’s temple in the Masonic Hiramic Legend. 

On Diaspora Reading

For those in the New York area, in case you have interest, I’ll be reading from On Diaspora this Saturday, 8pm, at Gowanus Studio Space, as one of the participants in this month’s installment of the Private Line reading series. (Mainly / usually it’s poets, I’m something of an exception, but I’m going to try to make it a smooth reading!)

Info can be found here.

Also, the following week will be the Laruelle / Black Universe / Mysticism event at Recess.

Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity

I’m really excited to be presenting a workshop on The Synaptic Gospel at “Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity” this May in Washington, DC, because the speaker list looks great.  Further, at least in the world of religious education, there’s a buzz going around about this confernce being a unique gathering that could be a game-changer for a sub-discipline of practical theology that is being systematically axed from seminaries and is sorely in need of some new vitality.

Here’s the conference agenda…

What better way to celebrate the upcoming Mad Men premiere…

than to preorder Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television (forthcoming) (Amazon: US, UK, Book Depository)?

(I talk about Mad Men a lot in the book — that’s the connection.)

UPDATE: The Book Depository appears to have it in stock, with free shipping worldwide.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s in stock on the Amazon UK site as well. We Americans must wait stoically.

UPDATE: And finally, the US Amazon site has a specific date when it will be in stock: March 25.

The Synaptic Gospel Sale and Children & Youth Ministry Conference in DC

Sorry to so shamelessly promote, but I have a special offer:  You can get your own copy of The Synaptic Gospel directly from me for $1-5 less than other venues, for $23.99 delivered.  This deal is a special promotion until Monday 2/27, and I have a limited quantity that I can offer at this rate.  Simply Paypal the funds to me (cdrodkey [at] yahoo [dotcom]) and you will soon get it in the mail; if you’d rather pay another way, e-mail me directly and I’ll make sure I reserve your copy.  You’ll note that this price is even less than Amazon’s. 

Also, while I’m at it, I’ll also mention that I will be offering a workshop on The Synaptic Gospel at the Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity conference in Washington, DC, this May.  This conference is shaping up to be an interesting event; keynote speakers include Jeremiah Wright, Brian McLaren, John Westerhoff, Tony Campolo, Joyce Ann Mercer, Dori Baker, and others.

Don’t forget to purchase On Diaspora!

Dan Barber’s On Diaspora: Christianity, Religion, and Secularity is available for purchase direct from the publisher, as well as from Amazon (US, UK) and Book Depository — and wherever fine books are sold!

Even if you can’t get it in time to follow along with the book event, you should rest assured that the questions raised by this book will continue to shape conversations in theology — blog-based or otherwise — for a long time to come.

Thandeka to Preach This Sunday

Thandeka, from her website.

 

Thandeka, author of Learning to be White and The Embodied Self, will be the guest preacher at my church, Zion “Goshert’s” United Church of Christ, in Lebanon, PA, this coming Sunday, Jan. 22, at 10 AM.  If you’re in the area, stop by.

The Synaptic Gospel: Published!

The Synaptic Gospel habituating in my basement work area.

I am pleased to report that The Synaptic Gospel is published and I have now seen the finished product.  Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered the book.

The book is an attempt to force a conversation between phenomenology and affect neuroscience to re-think religious communities’ practical paradigms for worship and religious education.  Thinkers engaged along the way include Husserl, Stein, Panksepp, Csikszentmihalyi, and others.

Class on Liberation Theology

I wanted to make a shameless plug for a class I’m teaching at First Presbyterian Church in Arlington, VA on liberation theology. The class starts next Sunday on January 15th from 9:45-10:45, and I anticipate the class will wind down by late April. We will be reading Elizabeth Johnson’s text Quest for the Living God. The text covers important theological developments from various perspectives: political, liberation, feminist, black/womanist, Hispanic, interreligious, process, and ecological. I also am planning on covering other liberation movements that Johnson fails to cover in her text, especially queer liberation theology and a liberation theology of disability. Let me know if you’re interested and I can provide you with more information. Anyone in the DC area is welcome to attend.

Audio of the AAR Panel “The Secular and the Speculative”

You may download an mp3 of the complete three hour session of the 2011 AAR Theology and Continental Philosophy Group session “The Secular and the Speculative: Exploring Themes from Anthony Paul Smith’s and Daniel Whistler’s After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion”. (Apologies for not being able to include it on the page itself, but it was too large a file for any of the free services offered.) Speakers include AUFS authors Bradley Johnson, Daniel Whistler, and Daniel Colucciello Barber, as well as Rocco Gangle. We also have a new AUFS contributor, Joshua Ramey, as a respondent alongside of Ken Surin. I presided and made a short response to the responses at the end.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me the panel felt good. Many of us in this group have been self-valorizing, with our intellectual friendships and engagements with one another, but with this panel it felt like some Big Other, who of course didn’t attend the session, had finally recognized us as well. There was little engagement from the main theological targets of critique (namely the new apocalypticists like Nate Kerr and Radical Orthodoxists), but perhaps that critique was always spoken in a language they could never understand. What did happen, however, was a great discussion with secular theologians and Catholic philosopher-theologians as well as a debate between the panelists themselves. I hope you all enjoy the recording and consider it a holiday present of some sort. Not unlike the socks that you end up liking quite a bit anyway.