I’ve just ordered Jonathan Tran’s new book, Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism after listening to a conversation between him and the guys at the Crackers and Grape Juice podcast. I’ve appreciated Tran’s past work (particularly The Vietnam War and Theologies of Memory) and there is an essay co-authored by Tran and Hauerwas in Minding the Web, but I was especially struck in this conversation by how Tran is providing a much needed theological voice of sanity in the midst of contemporary struggles surrounding race. Continue reading A Voice of Sanity
Tag Archives: Jonathan Tran
The Siren of Safety (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“Shockingly there remain to this day Christians who support Trump’s anti-migration policies because they believe his policies will “keep us safe.” Surely one could not wish for a more misleading understanding of what it means to be Christian. Christians worship at the church of martyrs; they seek fellowship with the crucified Lord. Being a Christian is not about being safe, but about challenging the status quo in ways that cannot help but put you in danger. Continue reading The Siren of Safety (Series on “Minding the Web”)
The Failure of Political Imagination (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“Christian participation in politics starts with Christians first appraising the world in which they find themselves. This appraisal involves examining political situations as if God mattered for those situations. This is why for us ethics is a matter of seeing the world in such a way that one can accurately survey one’s available options. Those options, moreover, depend on the existence of a people who make options available because of the kind of people they are. Continue reading The Failure of Political Imagination (Series on “Minding the Web”)