Event start date
July 10, 2023
To purchase your ticket for this event, please see our Eventbrite page.
The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s John Wesley Institute will host a course in Political Theology & Ethics taught by Dr James Thobaben of Asbury Theological Seminary from July 10 to July 14, 2023. Students will examine the spiritual, social, and cultural interpretations of politics. Emphasis is placed on the role of politics in Christianity and how Christians entered or rejected political activity. Moral questions in the biblical and theological meaning of the Kingdom of God, the Lordship of Christ, New Testament commands to either obey or disobey the state, imagery in Revelation, etc., are examined theoretically and applied in the contemporary political context. Readings will include Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics by Theodore Weber, T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology (including Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther, Carl Schmitt, Jürgen Moltmann, Dorothee Sölle, Dorothy Day, John Howard Yoder, Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas), and Exploring a Wesleyan Political Theology edited by Ryan Danker.
The course will cover Old Testament antecedents, the Crucifixion, the early church, Constantine, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, colonialism & contracts, modernism, pacifism, liberalism and liberationism.
Each class will include dinner at 6:00 PM ET, with instruction lasting from 6:30 PM ET to 9:00 PM ET.
Cost for persons attending the class in person at the IRD office in downtown DC (1023 15th St NW, Suite #200, Washington, DC 20005) is $75, and tickets may be purchased here.