Religion, Theology, and Class New Approaches to Religion and Power

Religion, Theology, and Class New Approaches to Religion and Power Series editor: Joerg Rieger While the relationship of religion and power is a perennial topic, it only contin- ues to grow in importance and scope in our increasingly globalized and diverse world. Religion, on a global scale, has openly joined power struggles, often in support of the powers that be. But at the same time, religion has made major contributions to resistance movements. In this context, current methods in the study of religion and theology have created a deeper awareness of the issue of power: Critical theory, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, subaltern studies, feminist theory, critical race theory, and working class studies are contributing to a new quality of study in the field. This series is a place for both studies of particular problems in the relation of religion and power as well as for more general interpretations of this relation. It undergirds the growing recognition that religion can no longer be studied without the study of power. S e r i e s e d i t o r : Joerg Rieger is Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Th eology in the Perkins School of Th eology at Southern Methodist University. Titles: No Longer the Same: Religious Others and the Liberation of Christian Th eology David R. Brockman Th e Subject, Capitalism, and Religion: Horizons of Hope in Complex Societies Jung Mo Sung Imaging Religion in Film: Th e Politics of Nostalgia M. Gail Hamner Spaces of Modern Th eology: Geography and Power in Schleiermacher’s World Steven R. Jungkeit Transcending Greedy Money: Interreligious Solidarity for Just Relations Ulrich Duchrow and Franz J. Hinkelammert Foucault, Douglass, Fanon, and Scotus in Dialogue: On Social Construction and Freedom Cynthia R. Nielsen Lenin, Religion, and Th eology Roland Boer In Search of God’s Power in Broken Bodies: A Th eology of Maum Hwa-Young Chong Th e Reemergence of Liberation Th eologies: Models for the Twenty-First Century Edited by Th ia Cooper Religion, Th eology, and Class: Fresh Engagements after Long Silence Edited by Joerg Rieger Religion, Theology, and Class Fresh Engagements after Long Silence Edited by Joerg Rieger ISBN 978-1-137-35142-5 ISBN 978-1-137-33924-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137339249 RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND CLASS Copyright © Joerg Rieger, 2013. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-35137-1 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–137–35137–1 (hc) ISBN: 978–1–137–35142–5 (pb) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religion, theology, and class : fresh engagements after long silence / edited by Joerg Rieger. pages cm 1. Christian sociology. 2. Social classes. I. Rieger, Joerg, editor of compilation. BT738.R447 2013 230.086Ј2—dc23 2013011021 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents P r e f a c e vii A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s ix L i s t o f C o n t r i b u t o r s xi Introduction Why Class Matters in Religious Studies and Theology 1 Joerg Rieger Part I Basic Definitions and Challenges of Class 1 R e l i g i o n a n d C l a s s 2 7 Richard D. Wolff 2 Save Us from Cynicism: Religion and Social Class 43 Jung Mo Sung 3 Class, Sin, and the Displaced 61 V í t o r W e s t h e l l e Part II Understanding Class in Historical Contexts 4 The Theological Value of Social Class Analysis and O t h e r S o c i a l D i s t i n c t i o n s 7 7 N é s t o r O . M í g u e z 5 Religion and Class in the Construction and Deconstruction of the Myth of American Exceptionalism 99 S h e i l a D . C o l l i n s 6 Protesting Classes through Protestant Glasses: Class, Labor, and the Social Gospel in the United States 121 Ken Estey vi ● Contents Part III Class in Relation to Poverty, Gender, Race, and Ethnicity 7 Poverty and Poor People’s Agency in High-Tech Capitalism 143 Jan Rehmann 8 Inequality, Class, and Power in Global Perspective: Feminist Reflections 157 P a m e l a K . B r u b a k e r 9 Black Reconstruction: Thinking Blackness and Rethinking Class in Late Capitalist America 175 Corey D. B. Walker 10 Instigating Class Struggle? The Study of Class in Religion and Theology and Some Implications for Gender, Race, and Ethnicity 189 Joerg Rieger Index 2 1 3 Preface eligion, theology, and class are much more closely related than is commonly recognized. It is this association that the chapters in this book R highlight in their own ways. What is most surprising, perhaps, is not that this relation exists but how rarely it has been accounted for in the work that we do as scholars of religion, theology, economics, politics, history, and many other fields. As tensions are mounting everywhere along the lines of class— symptomatically expressed by the Occupy Wall Street movement’s notion of the 1 percent and the 99 percent, which affects the very fabric of society including the academy—the realities of class can and need to be addressed in new and fruitful ways. This book is, therefore, an invitation to our readers to join us in taking another look at the tensions that mark our age, beginning with a deeper understanding of class. Although matters of class may be even more controversial than matters of theology and religion, the authors of this book share in some fun- damental agreements. Traveling on different paths, all of us have come to the conclusion that class cannot be understood in terms of social or income stratification—the two most common paradigms in the Western academy and in popular discourse. Instead, class needs to be seen, we argue, in terms of relations between classes, which include tensions and conflicts, factors that are usually neglected by theories of stratification. This means that class is not just a matter of wealth but also of power. Moreover, and this comes as another surprise, class is not merely a matter of distribution of resources but, more importantly, a matter of production and work and how production is valued. The deeper understanding of class presented in this volume is aimed at pro- ducing a deeper understanding of religion and theology. Awareness of class relations and tensions adds an important item to the toolbox of critical reflection in the study of religion and theology as well as many other fields that cannot be explored here. This may be especially important for white men, who are not encouraged to think critically about relationships of power and who thus often feel they have only themselves to blame when things go wrong. In this volume, we will show how women, racial, and ethnic minorities can also learn from reflections of class, but they have the advantage that they are often already attuned to the need to reflect on relationships of power. viii ● Preface Religion is inextricably connected to matters of class. This reality, devel- oped in the chapters of this book, broadens the various definitions of what religion is. Religion is always intertwined with real life in the broadest sense, as those who refuse to understand religion as matters of ideas, mind games, or as private and individual affairs know. Contemporary scholars of religion who are aware that religion is a matter of practices rather than of mere ideas should have no trouble understanding the communal—and, therefore social, politi- cal, and economic—character of practices. The notion of class broadens these approaches further because it provides fresh insights into the all-pervasiveness of power that shapes us all the way to the core, for good or for ill. Theology also gains from a reflection on matters of class. In the Abrahamic religions, for instance, there are a substantial number of ancient traditions that find the divine at work in the midst of tensions between classes, frequently taking the sides of the class that is oppressed. There is a common thread, accord- ing to which God supports the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, the Jewish tribes exiled by the Babylonian Empire, and the “least of these” in the times of Jesus. Even theological themes like election and justification, central themes of the Pauline corpus, identify God in terms related to notions of class and the corresponding tensions. 1 For most of its history, theology has found it difficult to interpret these traditions, which explains why they were commonly ignored despite their ubiquitous presence in the sacred texts. A closer look at class will, therefore, not merely add an interesting facet but might help us understand and pursue more adequately what is at the heart of so many of our traditions.

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