Considering the multiple relations of religion and power, what difference does religion make, for good and for ill, and what might be the constructive contributions of theology be in fostering global solidarities??

Why Global Solidarities are a Matter of Life and Death: The Difference Religion Can Make

Even though the globe is moving closer together, solidarity among people appears to become more difficult. Nationalisms, racisms, ethnocentrisms, and sexisms are on the rise, dividing and conquering and thereby producing false solidarities. While religion is often part of the problem, it can also become part of potential solutions. As the apostle Paul observes, “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). This insight may hold true not only for personal relationships and communities but also for our global situation. The solidarity that emerges here goes deep, as it reconnects us with people, planet, and the divine.

Professor Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology and the Cal Turner Chancellor's Chair in Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University. He also directs the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at the Vanderbilt Graduate Department of Religion and is an affiliated Faculty member of the Turner Family Center for Social Ventures, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. With degrees from the Theologische Hochschule Reutlingen, Germany, Duke Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Ethics from Duke University he previously served as the Wendland-Cook Endowed Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Rieger’s work brings together the study of theology and the movements for liberation and justice that mark our age, exemplified by the following questions: What are the implications of various embodiments of faith for politics, economics, and ecology? What options and alternatives can we envision and how might the tools of theology help us make appropriate choices? Rieger’s constructive work in theology draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary traditions, with a concern for the roles that images of the divine play in the pressures of everyday life, locally, nationally, and internationally. Rieger is the author and editor of 26 books and more than 184 academic articles, with his most recent monograph being, Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity (2022).

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Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon

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