David W. Congdon

@dwcongdon.com

2752 Followers 1253 Following

Senior Editor, University Press of Kansas | Lecturer, KU | Who Is a New Christian? (Cambridge, 2024) | Bylines: Christian Century, Sojourners, Presby Outlook, Revealer

Lookout near Oswald West State Park in Oregon
First page of the article "Resident Arsonists: The Postliberal Ecclesiology of Project 2025" by DAVID W. CONGDON.
Cover image for the Korean translation of my introductory book on Rudolf Bultmann
Then there are the Biblical arguments. Within this theological framework, “mononormativity” is seen as exclusionary, hierarchical and judgmental, whereas polyamory reflects the radical acceptance and divine grace embodied by Jesus. “The very nature of Jesus’s ministry suggests the abolition of exclusive norms,” theologian David Congdon wrote last year. Hence the early Christian community’s decision to share all possessions in a communal spirit. “If one’s material goods ought not belong exclusively to one person,” Congdon wrote, “how much less should a fellow human being be viewed as exclusively belonging to another?”
White House X account posted an image of "Let Us Have Peace" by American artist Jean Leon Gerome Ferris with the words “whose broad stripes & bright stars through the perilous fight.”
Redeemed Zoomer @redeemed_zoomer X.com "If you wanna stay and fix the church and not leave it, why not just join Rome?" BECAUSE, in the PCUSA, you can reject their recent liberal councils without getting excommunicated. In Rome, you CANT DO THAT. They just excommunicated the dissenters from Vatican II
I’m Gay, but That Doesn’t Make Me ‘Queer’ My sexuality doesn’t require me to reject all that is ‘normal’ and ‘legitimate.’ By Ben Appel April 2, 2026 2:59 pm ET
Is Trump v. Barbara the New Roe? RACHEL BOVARD The Supreme Court's decision against Trump's birthright citizenship ban is a disaster for the nation, writes Rachel Bovard. The conservative movement must work to undo it.
Is Trump v. Barbara the New Roe? RACHEL BOVARD The Supreme Court's decision against Trump's birthright citizenship ban is a disaster for the nation, writes Rachel Bovard. The conservative movement must work to undo it.
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Cover image for American by Birth by Nackenoff and Novkov, published by University Press of Kansas
Michael O'Fallon - Sovereign... ° @SovMichael X.com RESOLVED: America Needs a Caesar Moved by Curtis Yarvin and Alex Petkas Opposed by Matthew Peterson and Jeremy Carl - who have entertained Caesaropapism, Francoism, and various Integralists in the past. All sides would support the Schmittian "unbound executive" so I am not sure what the purpose of the debate would serve outside of sublation and bringing all sides of the revolutionaries together.
Cover image of 1999 by Ross Benes
Confronting Christian nationalism: A faithful responsibility In 2024, the Domestic Engagement Committee overwhelmingly approved a study on White Christian nationalism, recognizing it as a distortion of Christian faith that elevates nation, race, and cultural power alongside – or above – the Gospel. According to Americans United, an organization that defends the separation of church and state, “White Christian Nationalism is the dangerous belief that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation founded for its white Christian inhabitants and that our laws and policies must reflect this. Christian Nationalists deny the separation of church and state promised by our Constitution, and they oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.” The Domestic Engagement Committee’s study, which will be presented for approval at GA227, defines Christian nationalism as “a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian identity with U.S. civic life and national identity. It asserts that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should continue to be governed according to what its proponents see as Christian values or biblical principles.” • The GA Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations is adding liturgical and educational resources, affirming that confronting Christian nationalism is a spiritual as well as intellectual task. • Local congregations are drawing from the Book of Confessions to challenge any fusion of Christian faith with national or cultural identity. • Voices from local congregations underscore that this challenging work is already happening on the ground. Churches utilizing the Book of Confessions are discovering that their own tradition provides language to challenge any fusion of Christian faith with a single national or cultural identity. As theologians like David W. Congdon argue, the danger lies less in obvious heresy and more in familiar orthodox language that is bent towa…
But in the end, Pluribus leaves us with a palliative centrist message. To defeat the Others, we must stop short of building anything better than what one wealthy white lady in Albuquerque has right now. We can no more imagine a way to survive under capitalism than we can imagine a world without it.
Stop Saying Snip! The Rhetoric of Vasectomy by Jenna Vinson Paperback $32.95 S Hardback $120.00 SS eBook (ePub) $32.95 S Quantity 1 Publication details Price: $32.95 S ISBN: 9781978843585 Published: Apr 14, 2026 Add to Cart Publication details Release Date: 14th April 2026 Publisher: Rutgers University Press Imprint: Rutgers University Press Pages: 222 Illustrations: 7 B-W images Subjects: Cultural Studies, Film, Media Studies, and Communications, Gender Studies, Health and Medicine, Sociology Description Contents Authors In the US, the most common contraceptive methods rely on women’s time, labor, and vulnerability to risk. Comparatively few people rely on vasectomies as a means of preventing pregnancies. Something is happening rhetorically—through meaning-making symbols and the material practices they manifest—that sustains a collective disinterest in vasectomies. Jenna Vinson draws from her feminist rhetorical study of thirty-seven television and film representations, health insurance policies, and interviews with seventeen people who have experienced vasectomy, surfacing barriers to vasectomy uptake, including problematic tropes and practices that keep vasectomy unappealing, out of mind, and inaccessible. Stop Saying Snip! also illustrates tactics and circumstances that lead people to get a vasectomy, sharing real vasectomy stories and showing that women often play an important (and until now unheeded or pathologized) role in this communication process. This book intervenes in the misogynistic cultural expectation that it is women’s responsibility to endure the pain, labor, and risks of managing fertility by identifying the rhetorics that make men’s reproductive bodies seem unnatural sites for pregnancy prevention work. Fostering a persuasive vision of vasectomy is an urgent project that contributes to the movement toward reproductive justice.
NYT article: Three people died and more than a dozen emergency officials were hospitalized after suspected exposure to an unknown substance at a home in a small town near Albuquerque on Wednesday, the New Mexico State Police said. nytimes.com 3 Die After Suspected Exposure to Unknown Substance in New Mexico
The Historian and the Theologian: On the Role of New Testament Studies in the Christologies of McCormack and DeHart David W. Congdon Abstract Two recent works of Christology attempt to bridge the gap between systematic theology and biblical studies by engaging historical research about the Bible in a constructive way: Bruce L. McCormack’s The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon and Paul J. DeHart’s Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology. McCormack seeks to repair Chalcedon by drawing on what he takes to be the correct reading of Paul’s Christ Hymn in Philippians. Drawing on recent scholarship from Paula Fredriksen, Paul Holloway, and Matthew Novenson, this article shows that another reading is possible, one that conflicts with McCormack’s reparative project. McCormack’s effort to avoid speculation fails, since his argument depends on presupposing certain metaphysical claims about the Bible. DeHart’s work offers a different model of engaging biblical studies, one that avoids speculation in McCormack’s sense but engages in reconstructive historical speculation as a constructive thought experiment. DeHart’s project relies, however, on a Catholic ecclesiology, in which the incarnation is an ongoing process of cultural and cultic imagination. The conclusion proposes an alternative approach that builds on McCormack’s actualistic ontology and DeHart’s embrace of critical historical research without assuming the validity of the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition. Key words: Chalcedon, Nicene tradition, Paul within Judaism, divine identity Christology, angelomorphic Christology, great angel tradition, theological ontology, Bruce L. McCormack, Paul J. DeHart, Paula Fredriksen
Cover image for Poly Theology by David Congdon
Philip Pilkington @ @philippilk•1h 1 am still getting plenty of offers to translate my book - lots of intetest. These guys are complete crackpots. You can't just declare "X has failed" and it happens. This is like tribal people doing a rain-dance or something. Weirdly primitive behaviour. Funny though.
Mark Maddix 1d -% ... Here is a new book that was Al-generated that l edited. The book is part of the "Essential Theological Series" developed by Tom Phillips of the Digital Theological Library. It is a basic introduction to spiritual formation that includes four aspects: our relationship with God, with others, with self, and creation.
Iet iThe mere fact that war has regrettablv broken + out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties. 2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic 42 minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command geno-cide. 2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. To A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons-espe-cially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons-to commit such crimes. 2315 The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adver- 106 CE. GS 79 $ 5. 107 Cf. GS 79 $ 3. 108 GS 79 S 4. 109 GS 80 $ 3.
gravity of the pos an moral don Or recourse to v olence, with all its destruction and death. 103 Avoiding war 2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intention destruction of human life. Because of the evils and inju ties that accompany all war the Church insistently ung everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Gooc ness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. 2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged t work for the avoidance of war. However, "as long as the danger of war persist: and there is no international authority with the neces. sary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."10s 2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: -the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and cer- - all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
Liberately desires him grave harm. "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven,% 2304 Respect for and development of human life require peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war, and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of per-munication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of frater- 07 nity. Peace is "the tranquillity of order." Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity 2305 Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic "Prince of Peace." By the blood of his Cross, "in his own person he killed the hos- 68 tility,"100 he reconciled men with God and made his Church the sacrament of the unity of the human race and of its union with God. "He is our peace."o He has declared: "Blessed are the peacemakers."102 2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of 2267 those means of defense available to the weakest, bear Witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the 94 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh IT.I1 St. Aup
Cover image of The Covert Magisterium
Allie Beth Stuckey @conservmillen I do believe that he didn't think of this as a depiction of Jesus when posting. Still, there has to be more care and discernment here.
Once again, in a consistent pattern, the ideological framework doesn’t exist until the underlying repression is challenged. Conservatism doesn’t merely exist to defend the hierarchical social order—the hierarchical social order produces conservatism to defend itself against liberal and egalitarian attacks on its components. Thus, someone like Burke isn’t a founder of conservative thought—he is simply one of the first to defend it. Why does this matter? Because it undermines the core idea that frames fascism and conservatism as distinct epistemic currents. In reality, conservatism and fascism are simply working towards the same ends—the defense of the hierarchical and patriarchal social order—with different means, at different temperatures.
A spam email asking an author to feature their book for a fake book club.
The Politics of God’s Yes: Karl Barth in Conversation with American Christian Nationalism Papers Session: Karl Barth and Christian Nationalism Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words) Karl Barth’s critique of German Christian nationalism is well known, but some American Christian nationalists have drawn on the theology of Barth and Barmen to justify and support their agenda—notably John MacArthur’s Grace Church during the COVID-19 crisis, the masterminds behind Project 2025, Kevin Roberts and Russell Vought, and antiabortion activist Katelyn Walls Shelton. This paper argues that Barth’s political writings in the 1930s evince a characteristic weakness—an overly abstract notion of Christian freedom and an overly sanguine confidence in the self-evidence of the Bible’s witness against Christian nationalism. Both points may have made sense within the context of Germany, but they have translated poorly in the American context. Those committed to Barth’s intentions must recover elements of his earlier theology from the first Romans commentary and his more overtly socialist writings as a necessary supplement and corrective to his later work.
Cover image of my book
Donald J. Trump TruthSocial post @realDonaldTrump Davy Crockett, obviously a distant relative of Jasmine Crockett, and a very High IQ Frontiersman, would be proud of the legacy that he began long ago, and especially Jasmine's Great Success as a Politician from the Great State of Texas! President DONALD J. TRUMP
If what one wants is revolution, of course it isn't enough to be a revolutionary of sex-but neither does that mean that we shouldn't be. The answer to any critique which distinguishes between sexual and material freedom must be to claim both. In a system that seeks to atomize and isolate, there is still some emancipatory potential in exploring different styles of living. For all the magazine covers and memoirs lately devoted to its alternatives, the dominant lifestyle in America remains monogamy, and the dominant means of maintaining that order remains compulsion.
Portland moves to extend discrimination protections to polyamorous people The move would expand city anti-discrimination laws to protect families in a variety of relationship structures, including multi-generational households and nonmonogamous relationships.
Yoshi Matsumoto substack 7m Edited • Subscribe I am not pro poly nor pro Igbt. I don't hate or wish ill on any of them, i just think it's a gross mistake in what the purpose of sexuality is. That said... The comments to this guy's article are exactly a one to one mirror image of how people used to talk about homosexual relationships, and I would wager approximately zero of these people would declare homosexuality "degenerate" with the same vigor, even though, 20 - 30 years ago, they're exactly the same people who would have. My point is that polyamorous acceptance is probably likewise inevitable, and that people's moral sensibilities are near infinitely malleable by peer pressure and the surrounding culture. In the late 2030s or 2040s we'll see "polyamorous blessings" in churches, maybe full on marriages, in both Protestant and Catholic communities alike. Indeed, there's far, far more of a case for
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Cover image for David Congdon’s who is a true Christian?
Cover image of 1999 by Ross Benes from University Press of Kansas
After an 87-35 vote on the Kansas House floor on Tuesday morning, a day in October will now be recognized as Charlie Kirk Free Speech Day in Kansas. ksn.com Kansas Legislature approves Charlie Kirk Free
Cover of Aaron Griffith, God’s Law and Order
FIRST THINGS will launch a newsletter about Protestantism next Tuesday, February 10. The Protestant Mind is about the intellectual movements that have driven and still drive the continual reformation of American Christianity. Dale M. Coulter, a frequent contributor to First Things and professor of historical theology at Pentecostal Theological Seminary, is the author.