Sunday, January 11

SCE Board Meeting       Executive Lounge

Co-Editor Search Committee     Georgia Room  

Ecumenical Worship Service        New York Room

8:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Exhibit & Poster Hall Open      Congressional & Senate Room

Registration Desk           Coat Check

SCE Editors/Cabinet/Staff         Executive Lounge

CONCURRENT SESSION #5 

Memory, Anamnesis, and Ritual: Keeping the 1986 “People Power Revolution” Alive      Federal A Room             

Agnes Brazal, De la Salle University 

This paper argues the spiritual-ethical importance of commemorating the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that toppled the fourteen-year Marcos Sr. dictatorship. The first section elaborates on the value of "remembering" in memory studies and the Christian concept of anamnesis. The second section discusses contesting memories of the Revolution by the military, the Church/NGOs and ordinary participants, and the far-left organizations, and how political divisions have reframed or challenged its legacy. The last section reflects – amidst attempts at erasure – on the challenges to actualizing the memory (anamnesis) of this active non-violent restoration of democracy through [religious] rituals. 

Convener: Thomas Massaro, Fordham University

OutLAWS: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, Accountability, & Legitimate Authority in the Just War Tradition       Federal B Room

Jennifer Wotochek, Marquette University

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems’ machine learning and battlefield adaptation introduce the dilemma of warfare accountability. Using a Thomistic virtue framework applied to political leadership, I propose a reformulation of Just War Theory’s jus ad bellum category to relocate accountability for the use and actions of LAWS to the criterion of legitimate authority, such that prior to deploying LAWS in any form, a legitimate authority must be legally bound to a transparent, public regime of accountability on behalf of the state. As a practical response, I consider international tort law and the feasibility of holding LAWS creators and direct deployers accountable.

Convener: John Alexander, Independent Scholar

“The Future Runs Through Angola”: Climate Change, Slavery, and Ethical Life in Eco-Imperial Times     South America B Room                 

Matthew Elia, Baylor University

In one of the last speeches of his presidency, Joe Biden stood in front of the National Museum of Slavery in Angola and invoked both the enduring effects of slavery on the present and the crucial role of Angola’s mineral wealth in fighting climate change, while positing no relation between the two. This paper reexamines the link between slavery’s afterlives and climate futures by redescribing the contemporary geopolitics of energy as the ongoing imperial politics of race. Drawing from Black and Indigenous environmental thought, I show how these eco-imperial times challenge key axioms of moral reasoning—not only those of the western tradition, but the very attempts to overcome this tradition in recent environmental humanities and Anthropocene ethics.

Convener: Christopher Franks, High Point University

Powers of Affect: When What You See is Not What You Get        South America A Room

Sunder John Boopalan, Canadian Mennonite University

The paper critically considers the rhetoric of “decolonization,” assessing the various modes of its use by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous proponents. The paper examines such rhetoric among dominant actors in North American contexts, on the one hand, and locally dominant actors in the global south, on the other by critically considering affective modes such as guilt, pity, patronization, and shame. In so doing, the paper argues that a cross-cultural and transpacific approach to the problematic allows Christian ethicists to better understand affective politics and the myriad ways in which affect is used to gain power.

Convener: TBA

Race to Jerusalem: Christian Nationalist Zionism and the BDS Movement from a Transnational Feminist Perspective     Statler A Room

K. Christine Pae

From a transnational feminist perspective, this paper critically examines Christian Nationalism, intertwined with Christian Zionism, as an ideological force that sacralizes American imperialism across the globe. In pursuit of Christian ethics fostering global solidarity for peace with justice, the paper considers the transformative potential of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Positioned as an oppositional politics of Christian Nationalism-Zionism, BDS may emerge as an avenue toward achieving a more just global order.

Convener: Christian Iosso, Presbyterian Church (USA)

Ethics for the Apocalypse: Christian Ethics and Power Analysis in the Face of Christian Nationalism      Statler A Room

Bryan Ellrod, Wake Forest University 

The concept and rhetoric of apocalypse have been generative for political theology, signaling the possibility of a redeemed world. However, as critics point out, “apocalypse” and “redemption” are ambiguous categories capable of justifying oppression no less than liberation. Although political theologians have offered theoretical solutions that attribute apocalypticism’s liberative potential to its commitment to “destitutent power,” these solutions prove insufficient when applied to the political theologies advanced by Christian Nationalists. Vindicating our desires for redemption requires a theological rejoinder to Christian Nationalism that supplements power analysis with a theological defense of marginalized bodies’ axiological priority to abstract concepts of nation.

Convener: Russell Johnson, University of Chicago

Resonance, Attention, and Craft: Toward a Christian Ethics of Attunement       Massachusetts Room

Travis Pickell, George Fox University

In recent years, Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance has provided a compelling critique of late modernity’s acceleration and alienation, offering a framework for understanding meaningful human engagement with the world. This paper applies Rosa’s concept of resonance to ethical traditions emphasizing attention (Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch) and craft (Matthew Crawford, Richard Sennett), arguing that resonance provides a unifying lens through which to understand these diverse traditions. Furthermore, I explore the implications of this synthesis for Christian ethics, particularly in reorienting moral life around practices of attunement rather than control.

Convener: Brett McCarty, Duke University

Power Through Solidarity: Integrating Catholic Social Ethics & Community Organizing      Ohio Room

Nicholas Hayes-Mota, Santa Clara University

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is frequently criticized for lacking an adequate analysis of power, resulting in exaggerated optimism about the prospects for constructive social change and a political naivete about what might be required to enact it. After identifying this real lacuna, I address it in this paper by drawing on insights from broad-based community organizing (BBCO), a form of politics highly consonant with CST yet highly attuned to power. By integrating CST’s ethical understanding of solidarity with BBCO’s relational and agency-centered understanding of power, I develop an ethical framework for analyzing power and guiding its use in political action.

Convener: Derek Buyan, Niagara University

Pacifism Kills: A Queer Critique of Stanley Hauerwas        California Room

David Kemp, University of Denver & Iliff School of Theology

When rights are under unprecedented attack, what is the just response from queers and Christian allies? By critiquing Hauerwasian ethics I will argue queerness not only necessitates a rejection of individualistic pacifism, but is its own social ethic that radically questions the very foundations of Christianity. Because queer history’s lived reality is not the “peaceable kingdom,” being “resident aliens,” or living “out of control,” instead embodying a militant, active, and radical response to oppression, this “Bonhoeffer moment” necessitates Christians taking ethical ques from queerness as human lives and democracy are at stake. At this time, pacifism will kill us.

Convener: Elizabeth McKenney, Union Theological Seminary

Shadowboxing with Justice: Mutual Learning in Christian Ethics and Legal Practice     Pan American

Peter Dickson, New Hampshire Public Defender

Drawing on my work as a public defender, I show how Christian theologians and ethicists often engage a theoretical caricature of punishment rather than the everyday administrative practices of courts. Dominant theological frameworks – shaped by penal substitution and redemptive suffering – miss how bureaucratic rationality drives contemporary punishment, obscuring key challenges for implementing restorative justice practices. To ameliorate such hermeneutical gaps, this paper invites closer collaboration between practitioners and theorists. Reflecting on my formation in theology and law, I argue for integrating professional usefulness and authenticity in theological education. This kind of integration requires recognizing secular professionals as full participants in theological discourse and formation.

Convener: Emma Kennedy