One thing that’s always struck me about so much of the Christianity that’s not the imperial form (whether it be a fringe form on the right or the left) is the last resort feeling that seems to pervade it. Whether someone has lost their faith in Marxism, or revolution, or environmentalism, nationalism, or capitalism Christianity has always been so ubiquitous, and it shows up in so many different forms, that it always just seems to be there for people when other methods have failed. It’s the existential social safety that changes form, but never seems to disappear. I don’t think it will stop being the existential last resort until something else can provide that net. Even secularism has essentially been dropping people there.
Hmm -- the reasons I wouldn't arrive at this view of Christianity's role should be obvious based on my life trajectory, but I can see it now that you point it out. Christianity as a kind of "meaningfulness backstop." And it has the benefit that a smart late convert can always say that the arbitrarity of it is *precisely the point*, etc.
But I think what’s struck me about this recent media commentary on the trad revivalism, the Gen Z interest in religion, the possible revival of the church is how last resort it feels; a sort of groping for belonging and community as the economy and democracy crumble.
& also culturally nostalgic/reactionary? “a better world isn’t possible, but what if we tried to undo the death of god? maybe suffering would mean something again, like it used to…”
Looking forward to the intro to PT book. Do you devote any space to non-Christian traditions? (I've used your arguments about theodicy and legitimacy quite fruitfully in Jewish PT contexts.)
Thanks for letting me know that -- it means a lot when people find my work helpful! I have an argument for why this is primarily a Christian narrative (i.e., the very concept of "the political" as a sphere separate from "the religious" is a Christian invention), though I plan to make references to Jewish sources throughout (most notably Spinoza, if he "counts") and to have a coda on a couple case studies from Islam.
The whole story is an esoterically embedded joke. The parabolic trajectory of those parables took 1800 years to land. Welcome to disclosure. The Bible was written by artificial intelligence. It’ll take a few years for everybody to hear about it, but this whole fucking thing is over.
There’s a way in which the openness to reinterpretation has been there since the beginning. The Book of Acts is Season 3 Episode 1 of a show that ran out of source material in its second season. So the showrunners use the shopworn tricks of their trade. A new third God! Fresh cast members! Freaks and Greeks. The discontinuity between the old and new testaments parallels the one between the gospels and the Acts narrative. Then come Paul’s letters, where one guy riffs on the whole thing in an attempt to clarify what has been happening, but ends up becoming a determinative, transformational actor rather than an explanatory third-party. The whole tradition reinvents itself multiple times inside its own canonical text.
This is a wonderful piece, I'm very moved - It also has a powerful echo of Weil's Spiritual Autobiography, which is something more people should read than do (though of course she, too, stumbled over some of the same issues discussed here).
Following the links to your earlier posts, especially the one on Holy Saturday, makes me wonder if you've ever seen this from Slacktivist aka Fred Clark. I'm neither a theist nor a Christian, so take with liberal heaps of salt, but personally it's one of my favorite bits of Christian theology: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2026/04/03/holy-saturday-16/ (He posts it annually but it's from a number of years ago). Happy Easter.
I’m of the old school liberation theology tradition that doesn’t seek to get rid of redemptive suffering but rather reframe it in light of current realities. This was a well written piece!
Nice post! *as I dejectedly delete my paper on the anti capitalist agenda of the gospels.*… I’ve had a growing realization that routing my own lefty political project through this ‘one weird guy’ has been somewhat untethered from anything he or the gospel authors would have recognized. Although there is enough source material in the gospels for some basic things like ‘greed, oppression, wealth’ bad. ‘Caring for the poor, sick, and outcast’ good… I guess I find the gospel story (as told by the synoptic authors) itself so compelling that it is difficult to NOT project my political project onto the guy. Im also inspired too by the (minority) radical tradition of socialists, communists, abolitionists, etc who have attempted to construct that kind of Christianity from the source material of the gospel.
I preached a sermon last year on the ‘shrewd manager’ parable, basically stating that it was about the petite bourgeois finally realizing that their economic self-interest lies with the poor, rather than with the rich manager, and how this is ‘good news’ for both him and the poor. I don’t know how good the sermon was, but it generated a lot of discussion!
One thing that’s always struck me about so much of the Christianity that’s not the imperial form (whether it be a fringe form on the right or the left) is the last resort feeling that seems to pervade it. Whether someone has lost their faith in Marxism, or revolution, or environmentalism, nationalism, or capitalism Christianity has always been so ubiquitous, and it shows up in so many different forms, that it always just seems to be there for people when other methods have failed. It’s the existential social safety that changes form, but never seems to disappear. I don’t think it will stop being the existential last resort until something else can provide that net. Even secularism has essentially been dropping people there.
Hmm -- the reasons I wouldn't arrive at this view of Christianity's role should be obvious based on my life trajectory, but I can see it now that you point it out. Christianity as a kind of "meaningfulness backstop." And it has the benefit that a smart late convert can always say that the arbitrarity of it is *precisely the point*, etc.
You still haven’t found what you’re looking for.
But I think what’s struck me about this recent media commentary on the trad revivalism, the Gen Z interest in religion, the possible revival of the church is how last resort it feels; a sort of groping for belonging and community as the economy and democracy crumble.
& also culturally nostalgic/reactionary? “a better world isn’t possible, but what if we tried to undo the death of god? maybe suffering would mean something again, like it used to…”
Looking forward to the intro to PT book. Do you devote any space to non-Christian traditions? (I've used your arguments about theodicy and legitimacy quite fruitfully in Jewish PT contexts.)
Thanks for letting me know that -- it means a lot when people find my work helpful! I have an argument for why this is primarily a Christian narrative (i.e., the very concept of "the political" as a sphere separate from "the religious" is a Christian invention), though I plan to make references to Jewish sources throughout (most notably Spinoza, if he "counts") and to have a coda on a couple case studies from Islam.
Yeah that makes sense. And I think we can probably put Spinoza in multiple camps. Anyway, looking forward to it!
FWIW, Tertullian did not say "I believe because it is absurd."
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/abs/i-believe-because-it-is-absurd-the-enlightenment-invention-of-tertullians-credo/69340C3AF8366E79BCF3BDD804DED82E
Alas!
The whole story is an esoterically embedded joke. The parabolic trajectory of those parables took 1800 years to land. Welcome to disclosure. The Bible was written by artificial intelligence. It’ll take a few years for everybody to hear about it, but this whole fucking thing is over.
There’s a way in which the openness to reinterpretation has been there since the beginning. The Book of Acts is Season 3 Episode 1 of a show that ran out of source material in its second season. So the showrunners use the shopworn tricks of their trade. A new third God! Fresh cast members! Freaks and Greeks. The discontinuity between the old and new testaments parallels the one between the gospels and the Acts narrative. Then come Paul’s letters, where one guy riffs on the whole thing in an attempt to clarify what has been happening, but ends up becoming a determinative, transformational actor rather than an explanatory third-party. The whole tradition reinvents itself multiple times inside its own canonical text.
This is a wonderful piece, I'm very moved - It also has a powerful echo of Weil's Spiritual Autobiography, which is something more people should read than do (though of course she, too, stumbled over some of the same issues discussed here).
Following the links to your earlier posts, especially the one on Holy Saturday, makes me wonder if you've ever seen this from Slacktivist aka Fred Clark. I'm neither a theist nor a Christian, so take with liberal heaps of salt, but personally it's one of my favorite bits of Christian theology: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2026/04/03/holy-saturday-16/ (He posts it annually but it's from a number of years ago). Happy Easter.
That takes me back to the Heroic Era of Blogging. Thanks for a nostalgia trip!
I’m of the old school liberation theology tradition that doesn’t seek to get rid of redemptive suffering but rather reframe it in light of current realities. This was a well written piece!
This brings to my mind Alan Strathern’s Unearthly Powers
Nice post! *as I dejectedly delete my paper on the anti capitalist agenda of the gospels.*… I’ve had a growing realization that routing my own lefty political project through this ‘one weird guy’ has been somewhat untethered from anything he or the gospel authors would have recognized. Although there is enough source material in the gospels for some basic things like ‘greed, oppression, wealth’ bad. ‘Caring for the poor, sick, and outcast’ good… I guess I find the gospel story (as told by the synoptic authors) itself so compelling that it is difficult to NOT project my political project onto the guy. Im also inspired too by the (minority) radical tradition of socialists, communists, abolitionists, etc who have attempted to construct that kind of Christianity from the source material of the gospel.
I preached a sermon last year on the ‘shrewd manager’ parable, basically stating that it was about the petite bourgeois finally realizing that their economic self-interest lies with the poor, rather than with the rich manager, and how this is ‘good news’ for both him and the poor. I don’t know how good the sermon was, but it generated a lot of discussion!
My favorite parable!