Author: Justin DaMetz

Father of Julian and Evelyn, Husband of Tabitha, Christian theologian, writer, 5th grade teacher, book addict, displaced Middle-Earth resident

conservative-liberal-socialist-democrat-leftist-anglican-anabaptist-christian

I’m working on a longer piece for my newsletter (which you should subscribe to!) in which I try to account for my political and ideological wanderings over the last couple of years. But, a couple of shorter pieces have come across the radar in recent weeks that I identify strongly with. First, as pointed out by Kevin Drum, is this piece by Ruy Teixeira at Politico. Teixeira is formerly of the progressive Center for American Progressive, but is moving to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mostly because of his disillusionment with the identarian left and its illiberal proclivities. Drum highlighted the line that really hits home for me:

I’m just a social democrat, man. Trying to make the world a better place.

Ain’t that the truth. Progressives would be a lot better off if we remembered what kinds of policies put food on the table for most people (and thus what policies most voters actually care about.) It points me back to Alan Jacobs’ short and helpful reminder from a couple months back:

Your periodic reminder from Leszek Kołakowski: It’s possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. 

I resemble that remark. It feels nice to be seen, amidst a progressive left that seems in many ways to have left me and some of my fellow travelers behind. Its for that very reason that I don’t really claim the term “progressive” anymore, but instead float somewhere between “leftist” and “classical liberal”, with a smattering of social democrat sprinkled in, and floating above it all (and really, superseding it all), “Christian.”

a note on the task of theology

I’m going back to my roots this summer and re-reading the major works of Jurgen Moltmann. His Crucified God had as profound an effect on my own calling as a theologian as any work ever has, and even today, when I depart from Moltmann on much of his theology, I still turn to the Crucified God regularly. I’ve blogged about it here and here.

I’m presently reading his first major work, Theology of Hope, and early in the book this sentence stood out for me:

The theologian is not concerned merely to supply a different interpretation of the world, of history and human nature, but to transform them in expectation of a divine transformation.

This is a good reminder for me, and for anyone doing the work of academic theology: our work must live in the world in a profound way. It must escape the library stacks and the Gothic towers, and be something for the transformation of the world in anticipation of God’s coming kingdom. Good theology is living theology.

racial justice politics

21st century racial politics always takes place in the shadow of our inability to do anything about our racial problems. We are forever creating weird rituals to center and honor and elevate Black people, in lieu of feeding poor Black children or freeing Black prisoners. The deal we’ve made, essentially, is to say “Sorry about all the oppression, Black people. Can’t do anything about it! But tell you what, white liberals will be very weird around you for the rest of your lives, out of a very sincere desire not to offend or oppress you. We can’t do anything about Black poverty or violence against Black people, but we’ll act like racial injustice is, like, double plus bad in polite society. Also Wells Fargo will send out a very respectful Kwanzaa email every holiday season. So that’s nice.”

Freddie DeBoer, “I’m Somehow Less Concerned with Whether the Holocaust was ‘About Race’ Than I Am with the Six Million Murders”