Foolishness to Gentiles

Essays on Empire, Nationalism, and Discipleship

Michael L. Budde

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781725264328
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

What happens to the Gospel when you put other loyalties into positions of power in Christian life and practice? You get deformations, distortions, and caricatures of Christianity - killing in the name of love, defense of worldwide systems of domination, idolization of the nation instead of the membership in the global body of Christ, and baptism of exploitative and destructive economic ideologies. You get much of what world sees as contemporary Christianity, in other words.Too often, however, the inadequacies of contemporary Christian life, especially in the United States, are seen as separate issues in need of 'improvement' or 'reform.' Foolishness to Gentiles invites readers to see the pathologies of the churches not as a series of disconnected problems, but predictable outcomes of deep defects of Christian formation, commitments and theology. Having mortgaged so much of the integrity of the Gospel in the pursuit of imperial and national citizenship, and having allowed the powers of race and capital to divide the unity of the church, Foolishness to Gentiles calls Christians into deeper reflection, repentance and redirection.In a series of essays (new and previously unpublished, previously unpublished in English, and published previously in specialized venues), Foolishness to Gentiles opens doors to deeper theological and socio-political reflection, and some guideposts for more adequate practices of Christian discipleship in a variety of contexts and circumstances.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Uncle Sam and His Son: The Church and the End of the American Empire
• Chapter 2: Send Lazarus to My Father’s House: The Failure of US Catholicism as a Cautionary Tale for African Catholics
• Chapter 3: Killing with Kindness: Can a Plague Cure a Plague?
• Chapter 4: An Interlude
• Chapter 5: The Church after Development
• Chapter 6: The Patron Saint of Anarchism: Dorothy Day and the Construction of Ecclesial Memory
• Chapter 7: Real Presences and False Gods: The Eucharist as Discernment and Formation
• Chapter 8: Giving Witness, Receiving Testimony
• Chapter 9: Happy Carnage: Sacrifice and Popular Entertainment
• Chapter 10: Political Theology and the Church
• Chapter 11: God Bless America—Or Else
• Chapter 12: After Twenty Years: John Paul II and the Search for Pan-American Catholicism
• Bibliography