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All posts by Bruce Woll
Knowing the Self in Some Gnostic and Valentinian Writings
A paper written for David Brakke, University of Chicago, 2012. Download and Read
The Liberal Jesus: A River of Traditions, Saint Paul and the Redeemer
October 16, 2011 Download and Read
A radical-democratic trickster and a fool for Christ in conversation
“A radical-democratic trickster and a fool for Christ in conversation, Bruce Woll. Review of Stanley Hauerwas and Romand Coles, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian,”American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, Volume 30/2, May 2009. Download and Read
“Faith” As Fetish
I suggest that “Crazy for God is a story about growing up in a Christian Right subculture, with habits, rituals, language and beliefs that will strike many Americans as distinctive and as peculiar as exotic Philippine headhunters. It is the ultimate anthropological field report, told by an insider, of what it was like “being raised…
A Chaos Theory of Christian Origins
This article draws on two books by the Canadian historian, Donald Akenson, whose significance for how to understand the origins of Christianity is, in my judgment, ground-breaking, though to date it has been almost completely ignored by biblical scholars. 2006. Download and Read
The Scholar of Religion and Jonathan Z. Smith’s ‘Iron Law.’”
In this 2019 article, the focus is on the responsibility of the university in particular, in a democracy, more specifically, the focus of the article from start to finish, is on Smith’s academy in a democracy. In it, I argue that Smith, in addition to his extensive contributions to the study of religion, makes a…
The Contribution of Jonathan Z. Smith’s Study of Religion to Democratic Politics: Religion as Thinking, Thinking as World-making
From the outset Jonathan Z. Smith has regarded his study of religion as a matter of public concern, not something separate and apart. He makes this explicit in a number of ways, but does not offer a fully-developed political theory. To make what I argue is his implicit non-sovereign political theory more fully explicit I…
Essay on a book about Arendt by Peg Cunningham, “Hannah Arendt and Human Rights”
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A guide to reading The Human Condition
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