Muffin Talk invites listeners to pause and reflect on diverse dimensions of spirituality and public life, exploring themes that include religion, ecology, history, philosophy, civil society, storytelling, and practices of meaning‑making in everyday life. Conversations are intentionally wide‑ranging, thoughtful, and grounded in lived experience.

In this episode, Joerg Rieger joins Muffin Talk’s host, Beate Matthies for a conversation that connects scholarly inquiry with questions of purpose, responsibility, and social transformation. Drawing on his work as a theologian, educator, and program director, Joerg engages themes that are deeply intertwined and grounded in the Wendland‑Cook Program’s focus on international, interreligious, and intersectional work.

The discussion exemplifies the engagement the Wendland‑Cook Program seeks to foster—where conversations do not remain confined to academic settings, but speak to wider audiences.

We invite students, alumni, colleagues, and friends of the Wendland‑Cook Program to listen to the episode featuring Joerg Rieger on Muffin Talk:

Muffin Talk – Study & Joy

In this study, we seek to ask a broad range of people what eco-anxiety looks like in their settings and the material strategies they are engaging to be more resilient in the face of climate change.

We are seeking participants for 1-1 interviews to discuss what anxiety and resiliency mean and how they play out in the contexts of their lives.

These conversations will be 60-75 minutes, recorded and transcribed. Participation is completely voluntary.

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In this special episode of “Religion and Justice,” join the roundtable discussion featuring Rev. Sekou, Joerg Rieger, and Aaron Stauffer as they unravel the roles of scholars and seminaries in the contemporary fight for justice and equity. Delving into the intricate dynamics of communities of belonging, education, and activism, the episode explores these components as integral aspects of identity within the marketplace of ideas. Gain unique insights into the challenges and triumphs encountered in the Southern context and discover how these thought leaders navigate the intersections of academia, activism, and identity. Subscribe for more engaging discussions on the complex dynamics of religion and justice.

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Originally published in March 2024.

This episode is part of our Sesquicentennial Grant project, “Unexplored Legacy of the Social Gospel in the South: The Vanderbilt Contribution.”

For more information: https://www.religionandjustice.org/grant-announcement

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What might have kept democratic and egalitarian spirits alive in the midst of opposition and pushback, and what accounts for the ongoing development of these spirits? In US politics, many assume that it is the intellectual legacy of the founding fathers; in religion, liberal theology and its proponents are cherished for similar reasons. Yet intellectual traditions and ideas alone are hardly sufficient to transform the world, as most teachers and preachers find out at some point in their careers, and the liberal traditions have their own myopias when it comes to minorities and working people.

As argued in an earlier contribution, political democracy cannot save itself. Democratic relationships need to expand into all areas of life, starting with places of work, where most people spend the bulk of their waking hours. This is where culture and religion are deeply shaped, although this is rarely accounted for.

In the United States, the history of power at work begins with working people developing relationships early on. In the early 1600s, long before the founding of the nation, black and white sharecroppers and indentured servants connected so successfully that the white masters had to use all the tricks of classical divide-and-conquer models to uphold their rule. Anti-black racism was invented and employed by the masters in order to crush the power of people that was gained at work. In the process, both black and white workers were further subdued, except that the latter were less likely to notice because racism misled them into assuming that the interests of their white masters were identical to their own. Religion, for the most part, was on the side of the masters, except when African Americans reclaimed it in their own communities.

Not all was lost for economic democracy, however, as working people continued to build relationships and to organize. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the labor movement with the help of many mainline churches won victories that today are taken for granted, without awareness of their roots. Yet the end of child labor, protection for women at work, eight-hour workdays, weekends off work, pension plans, and social security provisions were not given by benevolent politicians but fought for by broad coalitions of working people.

The Methodist social creed of 1908, which became the foundation for the 1908 Federal Council of Churches social creed, is an example for the difference progressive religion was able to make when it joined efforts to expand political and economic democracy. Not only were these early social creeds more radical in terms of their push for economic democracy than almost any contemporary social creed, they were also successful in accomplishing many of their demands because they intuitively combined economic, political, and religious democracy. And even though the labor union movement and relations of religion and labor have experienced severe pushback in the United States since then, the fortunes of the labor movement may be rising again at present and even some religious support is returning.

Another equally significant—although less known—development that helped lay the foundations of economic democracy in the United States are cooperative businesses. Worker cooperatives, in particular, developed as places where working people could build their own businesses, asserting their own agency and the ability to determine democratically what would be produced and how, and how the profit is shared. Such cooperatives often thrived especially among minorities in the United States. Many African American cooperatives, in particular, became so successful that dominant business interests kept pushing back against them, undermining them, and ultimately destroying them.

Today, there is another wave of cooperative developments in the United States. According to the Democracy at Work Institute, worker cooperatives build local wealth, as profits stay with the workers and their communities. Worker cooperatives also create higher-quality jobs that are longer-term and provide better wages that comparable jobs in conventional businesses. But it is opportunities for greater participation in the workplace are at the heart of worker co-ops, leading to a profound change in quality of life and transforming cultural behavior. More than half of worker co-ops in the United States are developed in low-income communities, providing opportunities and empowerment where it is most needed, addressing not only economic and political discrimination, but also discrimination along the lines of race, ethnicity, and immigration status.

In addition, collaborations between cooperative development and faith communities are emerging, providing new inspiration for religion and opportunities to move from providing charity to participating in systemic changes. The Southeast Center for Cooperative Development, in collaboration with the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt, supported by the Louisville Institute, has brought together co-op developers, representatives of labor unions, religious officials, and academics in efforts to crossfertilize the work of cooperative development and religious communities, with benefits for each. In this work, both economic and religious democracy are being strengthened in climates where hierarchical relationships are still mostly the norm.

These examples of emerging economic democracy highlight opportunities for building more democratic relationships that can affect all areas of life, including religion. Nevertheless, the benefits are not automatic, which means that work needs to be done in all of these areas if democracy is to benefit.

This brings us back to political democracy. Universal suffrage was not an automatic benefit of the founding of the United States, and neither was it accomplished by well-meaning politicians persuaded by enlightened arguments. Universal suffrage was achieved in the struggles against slavery, for women’s voting rights, and for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Similar dynamics were at work as Christianity reclaimed parts of its egalitarian heritage. The voices of the oppressed and the exploited were not heard primarily because some well-meaning theologians became “the voice for the voiceless.” In the United States, working people rather than religious leaders organized some of the most vibrant embodiments of the Social Gospel, both in white and black churches. The work of politicians, community leaders, pastors, and theologians can find inspiration in these dynamics, but without the agency of working people little will change.

This is where economic democracy enters the conversation once again today, reminding us of the need to consider and deepen it, for the benefit of all.

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Joerg Rieger is the Distinguished Professor of Theology, Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, Affiliate Faculty, Turner Family Center for Social Ventures, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, and the Founder and Director of the Wendland-Cook Program.

This Interventions forum was originally published in 2021.

Contributors: Larissa Romero; Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger; George Schmidt; Joerg Rieger.

Be sure to check out the Bible Study.

In the excerpts that follow, Rieger reminds us that Jesus’s passion and resurrection were never abstract spiritual dramas. They were embodied confrontations with the forces of empire. Rieger challenges us to see that Jesus’s way of life (his compassion, his anger, his public actions, and his death) exposed and resisted top‑down power. He argues that the cross and resurrection lose their meaning when detached from the material struggles of real people. The kind of faith that floats above suffering is not the faith of Jesus. As you read, I invite you to discern how the same dynamics of domination and liberation remain alive today.

To support this discernment, I’ve offered a set of reflection questions. Take a moment to place yourself within the text and the story. Notice what stirs in you, whether it be consolation, discomfort, longing, or resistance. Ask where the Holy Spirit might be inviting you toward deep solidarity, greater attention, or a more grounded hope.

According to the testimonies of these early Christians recorded in the New Testament, Jesus’s whole way of life (not merely his theology and his ideas) contested top-down power. And if that was not enough to challenge status quo theism, Jesus was anything but impassible. He was moved by the pain and suffering of others and he lived a passionate life. His constant run-ins with the authorities, from local synagogue leaders all the way up to the high priests—often protégées of the Roman rulers—speak volumes on the matter.

His stunt of mimicking the powerful entry of the Roman governor on horseback into Jerusalem by riding on a donkey (Mark 11:1-11)—while an act of humility—was also a blatant challenge of top-down power that would not have been lost on both his followers and the broader public. His untimely death on a cross was another unmistakable indication of an open conflict with the imperial powers, because this is how insurgents under Roman rule were dealt with to deter further insurgencies. That Jesus showed not only compassion but also raw passion is well known even by people who have only cursory knowledge of the Bible, though some of us who have spent our lives in churches often seem to forget this.

In the Gospels, Jesus weeps over the fate of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), gets acutely angry and goes on the attack in the holy place of the temple in Jerusalem where most people would consider it least appropriate (Luke 19:45-46), extends both love and tough love (Luke 19:41-44; 20:45-47), and even gets severely depressed: “I am deeply grieved, even to death” (Mark 14:34). Neither could it be claimed that Jesus is immutable (unmoved or unchanged by the world around him); on occasions he even appears to change his mind, like in the conversation with the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter he heals, despite first refusing to do so (Mark 7:24-30).

Yet even the Gospels, which often take great care not to antagonize the Romans, note the real-life tensions. Early on in the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, the religious and political powerbrokers at the scene (identified as “Pharisees” and “Herodians” [Mark 3:6]) conspire to kill him. The method of Jesus’s execution is also noteworthy, as there would have been other options: crucifixion was reserved for political insurgents in the Roman Empire. Crucifixions were not rare events, and even mass crucifixions were part of life under the conditions of the empire, calculated to produce collective trauma among the subjects of the empire that, as we know today, can last for generations. Crucifying Jesus would, therefore, send a distinct message of which Paul was still fully aware a few decades later when he preached “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23). (24-25)1

• As you imagine Jesus moving through Galilee and Jerusalem, confronting systems of religious and political control, what stirs in you (consolation, resistance, discomfort, curiosity)?

• Where in your own life do you sense the tension between the “way of Jesus” and the “way of top‑down power”?

• When have you felt moved by the suffering of others?

  • What interior responses (compassion, fear, avoidance, courage) do you notice as you recall those moments?

• As you contemplate the reality that crucifixion was Rome’s punishment for insurgents, what do you feel in your body?

  • What does this reality and contemplation reveal about the risks Jesus embraced?

• Where do you see people today facing consequences for resisting unjust systems?

  • What interior response arises in you (admiration, fear, solidarity, hesitation)?

Jesus vs. Caesar

Two things are important here: The first is that the cross shows us the real-life consequences of the way of Jesus over against the way of Caesar—consequences that are suffered to this day by many people. Jesus’s experience of brutal pushback is part of the Christian experience. Without romanticizing pushback, experiencing pushback can often help us gauge whether we are following Jesus or Caesar, and whether our religion and our spirituality are material enough. Otherworldly religions and spirituality rarely provoke massive pushback. Second, as Richard Horsley has pointed out, the cross turns out not to be a defeat but provides a source of energy for resistance that, like trauma, can also endure for generations.

Whatever theologies of the cross Christians ultimately embrace—we can leave this open for the moment—we will have to make sure that the cross is more than merely an otherworldly symbol. This has implications for how we envision God: only the false god hovers safely above the cross, untouched, unaffected and cold; the true God is the one who moves through real-life suffering and death, deeply affected by it and transforming it. Similar reflections apply to the resurrection as well.

If the resurrection is merely an otherworldly event that is disconnected from Jesus’s gruesome struggles with the empire, it likely amounts to nothing more than pie in the sky. If, however, the hope for the resurrection and for life after death is rooted in life before death—continuing the way of Jesus—then it rests on a more solid foundation. Remember, the question whether there is life after death can only be meaningfully addressed in light of the question whether there is life before death! Only the false god promises life after death without attention to life before death. (68)2

• Rieger suggests that pushback can help us discern whose way we are actually following. As you review your choices, commitments, and comforts, what do you notice?

• Ask yourself: Where am I drawn toward the safety of Caesar’s way, and where am I being invited into the risk of Jesus’s way?

  • What stirs within you as you listen?

• Sit with Rieger’s contrast between the “false god” who hovers above suffering and the true God who moves through it. Which image feels more familiar to you, and why?

• As you imagine God standing within real material, human suffering, what emotions or insights arise?

  • How does this shape your understanding of divine love and power?

• Consider Rieger’s claim that resurrection hope must be grounded in the struggle for life before death. What does this awaken in you?

• Where do you sense an invitation to participate in resurrection now?

  • What form might that take (community building, organizing, etc.)?

• In quiet reflection, ask yourself: Does my spirituality engage the material realities, suffering, and injustice of the world? Or does it drift toward escape and abstraction?

  • What do you notice?

• What practices, relationships, or commitments might help you root your faith more deeply in the material realities of life, as Jesus did?

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In addition to the above reflections, Joerg Rieger partnered with Lifelong Learning at Vanderbilt Divinity School to offer a brand new course: Jesus vs. Caesar: For Those Tired of Serving the Wrong God! Jesus vs. Caesar presents an indictment of the pieties of empire and their push for political, economic, cultural, and religious domination. Some forms of Christian faith (following Jesus) versus other forms of Christian faith (following Caesar). Whom and what will we trust and serve? Jesus embodies and exposes this tension in ways that transform destructive images of God, engender political and economic resilience, and model community solidarity with others who are different, including solidarity with other religions.

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Gab Lisi is the Assistant Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. They reside in Columbus, OH with their dog, Franklin. Gab graduated from Union Theological Seminary in May 2022 with a Master of Divinity. In 2019, they graduated from Xavier University with a Bachelors in Criminal Justice and Theology. They are passionate on issues of Catholicism, queer identity, and class anlysis. In their spare time, you can find them camping in their truck or reading a book at home.

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Each Solidarity Circle is a virtual peer network that brings together about a dozen representatives from faith communities to “investigate, educate, and organize.” Each individual faith community engages in a specific project of the solidarity economy in consultation with seasoned organizers, including worker coop developers and labor leaders, all in conversation with theologians and religious ethicists. Solidarity Circles harness the profound synergies of economic and religious developments, broadening common fixations on policy and politics.

In a world where all of life, including religion, tends to be dominated by the forces of what is sometimes called the “Capitalocene,” developing alternative economic relationships creates freedom and empowerment, which are typically lacking today. We suffer from electoralitis, where our political imaginations are dominated by capital and the never-ending elections they govern. What the solidarity and cooperative economy offer is a new way of living democratically — political democracy, yes; but economic and religious democracy are needed to develop it. These democratic relationships, in turn, inspire alternative religious relations determined by mutuality of people and the divine rather than by hierarchical structures that increasingly resemble the structures of corporations.

Religious inspiration and theological study thrive when it becomes clear that God is often at work most penetratingly where the pressure is greatest. Many participants in Solidarity Circles are finding that this is the context in which studies of biblical and other traditional sources of faith traditions are most fruitful. All of these components are processed over nine months in conversation with the best insights of broad-based community organizing, aided by educational resources and monthly group meetings facilitated by leading theologians, ethicists, and some of their affiliates.

A fundamental question underlying these efforts is how to build and construct the kinds of projects that present real alternatives to the dominant status quo. Such alternatives, we have learned, require certain forms of solidarity. Solidarity economies are places where solidarity becomes most real and can be practiced. What we call “deep solidarity” brings together people from all walks of life. Unlike right-wing solidarity, which is based on sameness and identities (such as race, gender, and nationality), the paradox of deep solidarity is that it is does not require sameness but becomes stronger the more diverse those who collaborate are. This is true not only for racial, ethnic, gendered, or sexual identities, but for different religions as well.

The goal of Solidarity Circles, therefore, is not to erase difference, to become more alike, or merely to “see” and “hear” others—the goal is to work together to build a different world, paying attention to the places where the powers that be are often most severe and damaging and shape us most deeply, even as faith communities: in relationships at work, where most people spend the largest part of their waking hours (or, if they are excluded from work as an many people are, in informal economic relationships that are often even more dehumanizing and destructive).

Deep solidarity as cultivated by Solidarity Circles requires the distinction of privilege and power. Privilege is real and can be observed in many places: residing in the Global North carries privilege, as does being white, male, heterosexual, and so on. Privilege also accrues to certain national, professional, and religious identities. However, privilege does not necessarily translate into power, especially the power to change things. The confusion of privilege and power is promoted by those who seek to preserve dominant power. White supremacy may serve as an example: the privilege of whiteness is used to suggest to white employees that they have more in common with their white employers than nonwhite fellow employees. This leads to the commonly noted phenomenon that large numbers of white people vote against their own interests. The result is frustration all around, because solidarity is undercut while even most white people are not benefiting from this confusion of privilege and power.

Distinguishing privilege and power can lead to alternatives both in church and world when it is seen that dominant power is shared by relatively few people—the proverbial 1 percent. Those who assume prematurely that their privilege translates into power—professionals, pastors, professors, middle managers, politicians, and many mainline churchgoers—need to take another look at what is going on. Solidarity emerges when people realize that they are not benefiting from the dominant powers as much as they think, which includes an increasing number of members of the middle class, whose fortunes are dwindling. As this becomes clearer, whatever privilege people have can be put to use for the building of alternatives, resulting in the ability to employ privilege for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

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In sum, Solidarity Circles provide places where entangled relationships in faith communities and the economy can be reinvisioned and reenergized from the bottom up. The foundation is not moral appeals to do better but the realization how everything is always already connected. The suffering of some is connected to the suffering of all, as the apostle Paul famously argued in 1 Cor. 12:26. As a result, the lives of those who experience various interlocking forms of exploitation and oppression in their own bodies, via the intersections of class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability, can inform the alternatives that are being developed. Those who are more privileged need to pay attention to those with less privilege, not in order to launch yet another Olympics of oppression, but to understand what we are up against and what it takes to build a new world and transformed faith communities together.

The extraordinary theological weight of this process has to do with a growing understanding that this is where God is found—core traditions of Christianity and many other religions testify to it—and where relationships with the divine can be deepened in such a way that neither the world nor faith communities will ever be the same.

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In climate change literature two terms standout: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to the dramatic necessity to cutback greenhouse gas emissions while facilitating the use of cleaner energy sources. Mitigation speaks to the need to prevent the worst case scenarios from taking place, i.e. biological annihilation. Adaptation, however, refers to the planning and implementing of the necessary technologies and political solutions needed to live within a world that has been drastically remade in the wake of climate change. Without a doubt, we live in what Courtney White calls the “Age of Consequences.”

On the one hand, mitigation efforts, as incredibly inadequate as they now stand, appear to be gesturing in a positive direction. Adaptation, on the other hand, is becoming increasingly violent and authoritarian. In fact, the Transnational Institute recently released a study entitled “Global Climate Wall” that reveals wealthier nations (those who are also the greatest emitters of greenhouse gas) are spending nearly twice as much on militarizing their border security than they are on combating the climate emergency. That is to say, wealthier countries are adapting to climate change by separating themselves from the rest of the world, seeing survival as something pursued in opposition and in competition to others.

This approach is perhaps most famously put forth in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: the survival of the fittest. While this phrase (originally put forth by Herbert Spencer but adopted by Darwin) tends to obfuscate a complicated network of concepts within evolutionary biology, it more importantly reflects Darwin’s preconceived economic worldview. It goes without saying that Darwin’s theory grew up within a specific historical context and drew its guiding metaphors from British capitalism. For this reason it is not surprising that we see within Darwin a legitimation of capitalism as “natural.” For this reason, it is not surprising that as he began to derive his theories, he saw reflected in nature the British society in which he lived. In a letter to Engels, Marx writes, “It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions’ and the Malthusian struggle for existence.” The concluding reference is particularly telling because in the introduction to On the Origin of Species Darwin credits Thomas Malthus, the political economist, for many of his key insights. The “survival of the fittest” is, therefore, by no means a perfect expression of the natural world.

Interestingly, evolutionary biologists not exposed to the same harsh world of ruthless British industrialism as Darwin came to very different conclusions about the natural world. For a great deal of evolutionists, rather than seeing species and individuals in competition with one another they stressed cooperation and mutual aid. Recent evolutionary biology is reflecting these earlier insights. It is not that competition and opposition play no part in survival, but evolutionary biologists are noting the greater role that cooperation plays in survival. One major example is what is referred to as the “Wood Wide Web.”

The next time you take a walk in the woods, dig lightly into the earth around a tree. You will find almost imperceptibly-thin white strands of fungus, what scientists call mycorrhizal networks. What you will have uncovered is an incredibly small part of a vast interconnected and subterranean network of microbial fungi that facilitate water, carbon, and nitrogen sharing among the forest community. Not only do the trees share nutrients among themselves, but they also have a rudimentary system of communicating with each other in regard to threats. For instance, as one tree experiences pests it will send out an alarm to the trees around it to grow their leaves more bitter. Through this very same network, weaker trees are supported by healthier ones.

In this sense, nature is telling us a deep truth we seem to have forgotten as we struggle to make ends meet within the unnatural landscape of laissez-faire capitalism: it is not survival of the fittest but rather survival of the most cooperative. Bertrand Russell once wrote,

The only thing that will redeem [humanity] is cooperation… it is common to wish well to oneself, but in our technically unified world, wishing well to oneself is sure to be futile unless it is combined with wishing well to others.

Biblically speaking, the first question ever posed to God was “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Deep within Christ’s ministry is the answer: yes. The work of the Church is to remind us of our deep connection with each other and to facilitate opportunities to meaningfully live that out, and the CIT tool kit offers a path for developing these connections.

We need each other… And manufactured forms of competition, at their most sinister, hide this wisdom from us, and it is our duty as keepers of one another to lean into that truth put forth by the ancients. For if we are to survive and adapt to what is to come, it will not be by way of wall building that cuts us off from our local or international neighbors. Our survival, and the survival of those yet to be, depends upon our capacity to lean into the truth of our dependence upon one another.

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Rev. Dr. George Schmidt is the husband of Rev. Larissa Romero and the father of Frida and Colwyn Romero-Schmidt. He was born in southern Indiana along the banks of the Ohio River, and is Assistant Professor of Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care at Illif School of Theology. He is ordained with the Disciples of Christ. He currently serves as a Lieutenant Commander and supervisory chaplain in the Navy Chaplain Corps, where he operates with the III Marine Expeditionary Force out of Okinawa. George completed his MDiv at Union Theological Seminary under the advisement of Dr. James Cone, and finished his PhD at Vanderbilt University under the direction of Dr. Joerg Rieger.

This Interventions forum was originally published in 2021.

Contributors: Larissa Romero; Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger; George Schmidt; Joerg Rieger.

Be sure to check out the Bible Study.

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Lifelong Learning offers faith-informed continuing education and formational programming for individuals, organizations, and religious communities. The programs include executive education, certificates, vocational training, seminars, and parish teaching that will cultivate new skills and form deeper callings throughout all seasons of one’s vocation.

Course Description

A fundamental tension exists at the heart of Christianity. Contrary to widespread belief, this tension is not between religion and atheism or between religion and secularism. Nor is it between organized religion and personal spirituality or between Christianity and other religions. The tension is located within Christianity itself because it embodies a radical conflict between Christian faith that is life-giving for all and Christian faith that is damaging and destructive of people and the earth.

Jesus vs. Caesar presents an indictment of the pieties of empire and their push for political, economic, cultural, and religious domination. Some forms of Christian faith (following Jesus) versus other forms of Christian faith (following Caesar). Whom and what will we trust and serve? Jesus embodies and exposes this tension in ways that transform destructive images of God, engender political and economic resilience, and model community solidarity with others who are different, including solidarity with other religions.

Course type: Online, Asynchronous

Course Fee(s): $55.00 (non-credit)

Potential Discount(s): 100% off tuition

Interested in purchasing this course for your group or class? Email Nathan Cost at nathan.a.cost@vanderbilt.edu.

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Instructor: Dr. Joerg Rieger, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Cal Turner Chancellor's Chair in Wesleyan Studies, Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice

While not required for the course, we highly recommend checking out a copy of Rieger’s Jesus vs Caesar (2018). Purchase a copy here or ask your local bookstore!

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This episode of Religion and Justice was produced by Peterson Toscano Studios. Learn more about their other podcasts and projects. Visit petersontoscano.com.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

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• More than half (56 percent) of all workers in the US between the ages of 25 and 50 are employed at jobs that pay a median annual income of $17,950. While these low-wage workers are a racially diverse group, people of color and women are overrepresented. Nearly one-third of these low-wage workers live below 150 percent of the federal poverty line (about $36,000 for a family of four). Most low wage workers are concentrated in the care, retail, and food industry sectors.

• While 20 percent of all households have zero or even negative wealth, the top 1 percent hold 40 percent of all wealth in the United States, increasingly widening the income and wealth gap in our communities. For almost five decades now, the top income earners have accounted for roughly 86 percent of all income gains, while 90 percent of earners have seen their income values decline.

• And then there is the crisis not many are talking about: the “silver tsunami,” or small business closure crisis. With baby boomers owning more than half of all privately held small businesses, an estimated 29 million firms, these companies are destined to transfer ownership as the owners are ready to retire in the near future. Not only do these enterprises employ an estimated 1 in 5 workers, they also face a 1 in 5 chance of finding a buyer when the time comes to sell. This tidal wave of business closures will endanger an estimated 25 million jobs and put entire communities at risk.

Employee ownership can be the solution for these multiple economic challenges we are facing today. At the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development (SEC4CD), we look at worker cooperatives (for-profit businesses that are owned and managed by the people who work there) as a way to create good jobs and equity for people who have been left out of the economy. In our work we give priority to women, people of color, youth, formerly incarcerated individuals, low-income folks, and those living in underserved and underdeveloped areas of Tennessee and the Southeast.

Worker co-ops impact more than just the immediate employee-owners. They create a whole new business culture by developing democratic workplaces with a voice in key decisions by the worker-owners, higher job satisfaction, and autonomy compared to traditional firms. They also create higher paying jobs. The average entry level hourly wage paid at all reporting worker cooperatives in a recent study was $19.67. This is over $12.00 more than the federal minimum wage that is currently still set at $7.25 per hour. In addition to wages, worker cooperatives distribute surplus earnings as patronage to the worker owners (usually based on the number of hours worked). The average distribution in 2019 was $8,241 per member.

The primary purpose of a worker cooperative is to benefit the member-owners and not maximize to profits for investors as is the goal for traditional investor-owned corporations. With profits circulating locally instead of being siphoned off by remote investors community wealth is increased. Since most workers are community residents, worker cooperatives are more likely than other businesses to employ sustainable business practices that do not harm the local environment. These community benefits are not short lived as studies of worker co-ops around the world show that worker cooperatives are more resilient compared to traditional small businesses, especially during economic downturns.

Furthermore, racial demographics show that the majority of worker co-op owners are people of color and/or women, with 58.6 percent of member-owners being non-white. The majority of the workforce at worker co-ops (62.5 percent) identifies as female. This shows that worker co-ops give individuals who are most often left out of entrepreneurship an opportunity to become business owners and economic players.

Employee ownership can also be a solution for the small business closure crisis mentioned above. By selling to their employees, owners can ensure a lasting legacy by retaining jobs in the community and keeping the business locally-owned. Conversions to employee ownership create community wealth by keeping money (and jobs) local for the long haul. With a focus on creating worker cooperatives in partnership with those communities left out of the economy we can democratize entrepreneurial opportunity to build an economy that works for all.

It will definitely take a village to address the economic challenges we face. And that is why we are turning to faith communities to build a collective vision of a just economy based on values that we share with each other, like solidarity, democracy, equity, equality, mutuality in terms of caring for each other, and being responsible towards each other and the community.

Together with our partners at the Wendland Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School and with financial support from the Louisville Institute’s Collaborative Inquiry Team Grant a project was born to engage people of faith in creating a new, democracy-centered economy, one that works for all. We are excited to offer a virtual toolkit that seeks to put more people of faith on this path and helps them understand the deep connections of this project to their sacred traditions. Let’s “build forward” towards an economic future that creates equity and agency through shared ownership and control of land, labor, and capital to fundamentally reshape our relationships with each other and with the means of production. This is a monumental task that can only be built in solidarity.

Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger is a community organizer, author, lecturer, and a co-founder of the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development. She has been involved with worker rights advocacy as the community engagement coordinator with the Dallas AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and director of Texas New ERA Center/Jobs with Justice. Before working in nonprofit and cooperative development, Rosemarie worked in biotech research for many years and was a Montessori educator. She holds an M.S. degree from Eberhard Karls University (Germany) and an M.Ed. degree from Loyola University Maryland.

This Interventions forum was originally published in 2021.

Contributors: Larissa Romero; Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger; George Schmidt; Joerg Rieger.

Be sure to check out the Bible Study.

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Originally recorded in January 2024 and published in February 2024.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

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If one thing is abundantly clear on a larger socio-economic level, and so too the church level, it is that we cannot go on with business as usual. At many of its “heights” the church was an echo of empire, tied in to its domineering paradigms. Church flourishing was far more aligned with the exploitative practices of the governing elite. This most recent peak ended in the late ‘60’s, and since then many churches have been trying to tweak old ways of living in the “Christendom church.” In what scholars of early Jesus movements might call a revisiting of our roots, churches now find themselves less and less the purveyors of normative power. Like our spiritual ancestors, we find ourselves in need of a paradigm shift - a transformation bent on the ability to adapt.

Bolsinger’s Canoeing the Mountains is so named to acknowledge the adventurousness required when, like Meriweather and Lewis, we come with particular tools only to find that the terrain is entirely unlike what we expected. We now necessarily start from a place of unknowing - and that’s a new kind of power.

What is needed? ‘A spirit of adventure,’ where there are new, unexpected discoveries (serendipities), and ultimately, ‘new perceptions.’ To be sure, this is an adapt-or-die moment. This is a moment when most of our backs are against the wall, and we are unsure if the church will survive to the next generation. The answer is not to try harder but to start a new adventure: to look over Lemhi Pass and let the assumptions go. To see not the absence of a water route but the discovery of a new, uncharted land beckoning us forward - yes, in the face of the uncertainties, fears and potential losses - to learn and be transformed… What is needed? An adventure that requires adaptive capacity.

In the Churches and Cooperatives toolkit, Southeast Center and Wendland-Cook state, “People have been actively creating cooperative and solidarity economies all over the world for thousands of years. The paradigm is built on values of cooperation, democracy, equality, solidarity, equity, justice, openness, honesty, inclusion, social responsibility and caring for others and the environment.” Cooperatives are, like churches themselves, both utterly old in all their rooted radical ways of being, and also resurging with a new vigor as they meet the need for adventurous adaptation.

Another aspect of adaptive capacity that Bolsinger illuminates is the square focus of mission. “The focused, shared, missional purpose of the church or organization will trump every other competing value. Does it further our mission? The mission trumps all.” For most churches with solid biblical teaching and theological grounding, our mission necessarily intertwines with the economic needs of our siblings. Cooperatives can be a large part of keeping us aligned with our gospel values and mission. Take the toolkit’s Bible study, as an example. Ask yourself, “Does this align with our mission?” We can almost certainly reply with a resounding, “Yes!”

Similar to the need for mission focus, a large part of Christian practice is gathering together as an alternative people shaped by God and creating an alternative world that glorifies God. In The Art of Gathering Well, Priya Parker emphasizes how important to any kind of gathering it is to create an alternative world with real life formats, rules, and adherences, such that we are not merely abiding by the status-quo cultural norms. Cooperatives create an alternative economy to the cultural norms of exploitation and dominance of late-stage capitalism. Again, where mission eclipses all else, if part of our mission is to facilitate God’s alternative kin-dom come here on earth, cooperatives give us tools to live out that alternate reality, not just dream of it in hope.

Finally, another tool of great importance in the transformation of churches is the process of affirmative inquiry. In this process, you approach organizational change through positive reinforcement of strengths already present in the organization. As the toolkit teaches us, churches have actually lived cooperatively for some time - it has been part of their staying power. In this way, cooperative relationships are a strength of churches; think of denominational relationships and structures, nevermind the polity of individual churches. What kind of energy does it lend to change initiatives to lean into, support, and celebrate a way of relating in which many churches already show great strength? Relationships with cooperatives give churches another way of celebrating what they already do well and that can generate good energy for thriving.

In all the ways working with cooperatives stretches churches, it stretches us towards life-giving processes. In all the ways working with cooperatives is more difficult in the rest of the world, it is where we have the capacity (even already) to shine, and can gain energy for the work in recognizing and affirming that. The relationship between churches and cooperatives could potentially yield an ongoing cycle of healthy socio-economic adaptive changes that both the church itself, and our wider society, so needs.

Larissa Romero is the Senior Minister at Park Hill Congregational Church, UCC in Denver. She comes from serving Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville as Interim Pastor and Pascack Reformed Church in Park Ridge, New Jersey as a solo pastor. Prior to her first call, she worked at Scarsdale Congregational Church in Scarsdale, New York, and Greenpoint Reformed Church in Brooklyn. Pastor Larissa’s theological curiosity lies in discovering the intersections of liberation mestizaje and Brujeria alongside painted prayer and gardening. She continues to be blessed by lots of love in her life: incredible friends, caring in-laws, dear cousins, parents Darla and Gabe Romero, sister Aleya and brother-in-law Will, hyperactive pup Strider, fierce cat Kali, darling comrade and husband George, and greatest joy, daughter Frida.

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Introduction to Churches and Cooperatives, an Interventions forum.

People have been actively creating cooperative and solidarity economies all over the world for thousands of years. The paradigm is built on cooperation, democracy, equality, solidarity, equity, justice, openness, honesty, inclusion, social responsibility and caring for others and the environment. Our current economic system is broken. Worker cooperatives--businesses owned and controlled by the people who work there--are a concrete vision of what a more just society can look like. Social ventures, like cooperatives, bring a triple bottom line to current business structures: a focus on people, planet, and profit.

The solutions to the problems created by the Great Recession aren’t working. A just economy is not a service economy that keeps workers contingent, with stagnating wages, and without benefits while concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer CEOs and shareholders. Working for a more just economy is not an optional charity project: it is at the heart of many faith traditions. But even faith itself can be distorted as the hallmarks of our current economic system find their way into our faith communities and theology. There are biblical traditions that counter these distortions and point toward a cooperative, bottom-up alternative. Featuring voices from four leaders from the Churches and Cooperatives Collaborative Inquiry team, this Interventions forum takes up this imperative -- that faith communities can be part of creating a new economy -- and explores the value of cooperatives to churches and their mission.

This Interventions forum was originally published in 2021. Contributors: Larissa Romero; Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger; George Schmidt; Joerg Rieger.

Be sure to check out the Bible Study.

During its June 2024 meeting, the working group addressed chapter 3 of Dr. Joerg Rieger’s book, Theology in the Capitalocene. Charlotte Jacobs, and gave the following presentation.

Response on Chapter 3 of Theology in the Capitalocene

Charlotte Jacobs

In Jörg Rieger’s significant book Theology in the Capitalocene, we explore the role that theology typically assumes within the context of the Capitalocene—what role it can potentially fulfill, and importantly, what role it should embrace in the pursuit of liberation.

In the third chapter (Class and Its Discontents in the Study of Religion and Theology), Jörg Rieger convincingly shows us the path and the task we face in today’s social conditions. He does this by focusing on the organization of life and labor – so to say – and thereby skillfully combating serious misunderstandings especially in the understanding of class. In doing so, he provides fundamental translations and rectifications that are urgently needed, as the class perspective has not only been neglected in the past, but also misunderstood to such extent that it is almost impossible to grasp or convey today.

The concept of class is something we must reclaim. By identifying and addressing the obstacles to understanding class—particularly the stratification approach and what I refer to as the “myth of the middle”—Jörg lays the foundation for a theology that, whether consciously or unconsciously, does not align itself with the interests of the ruling class.

In response, I would like to stress two crucial aspects: Firstly, the urgently needed relational understanding of class shows us that by class we are talking less about an identity and more about the material matrix of social relations. And secondly, theologians finally have to understand that they are part of the exploited class and – however privileged they may be – they are not outside the clash of class interests which constitute capitalist society.

On the first aspect, the serious and nerve-racking confusion between stratification theory and class analysis is indeed the core of the challenge. Jörg Rieger gets to the heart of the matter when he writes that assumptions about class and the identification of class with social stratification, imagined like the layer of a cake, are the problem (p. 92). In German, there is even another word for this, namely “Schicht”, which is something like layer or stratum and it is not called class.

In his chapter, Jörg Rieger highlights the irony that the Left largely abandoned the concept of class during the same period that neoliberal capitalism triumphed (p. 91). I would go even further: the absence of the relational class perspective and the shift within the Left—from focusing on overthrowing the system to better integrating into it—are intrinsically linked. In the academic field, it is easy to observe how class approaches have been deliberately suppressed over the last 50 to 60 years and replaced by stratification approaches. Because - and this is crucial - stratification approaches only want to describe and have no serious critical character. There is poor, there is rich. Both are described, but not recognized in their emergence nor explained in their relationship to each other. From the description of social strata may follow questions of representation or recognition, and, at best, moral questions of distributive justice. But no profound questions with transformative potential are raised.

So while stratification approaches only want to describe, class approaches want to explain: Why do living conditions look the way they do? Why are people in different class positions? How do they end up there? What are the processes that lead to this and continue to constitute it? Central to this explanation is – and I think this could be made even clearer – that one class is formed by the other class and vice versa through their relationship, that is: exploitation.

The class structure of capitalism, understood in its purest form, is the division between those who have to work for a living and those who live from the work of the people who work for a living. A capitalistically organized society is built in such a way – and this is no secret – that the work of the majority is at the service of the private profits of a few. The power that exists through the ownership of the means of production of these few is literally produced by those who are oppressed by it. This means two things:

1) Exploitation is not the exception but the rule of capitalism. An exploited work is not necessarily one with inhumane working conditions or bad pay. Exploitation means the fact that in a capitalist economy workers receive only a small proportion of the value they produce as their pay as the other is privately appropriated. In this sense, it does not result from violating the rules of our current mode of production, but from following them.

2) This also means that if the power held by the 1% through ownership of the means of production is literally produced by those who are oppressed by it, then this is exactly where the counterpower lies. Consequently, a relational and thereby explanatory class approach is no longer just about a moral appeal of consumer criticism, recognition and not even about redistribution, but about the question of how we actually want to organize our society.

So, class is the relation I am situated in, a relation that assigns me a specific role—a relationship that I don’t have to be aware of to be part of or to be affected by. It is a relation that gives me an objective interest, which might not align with my subjective interest. Sadly, it is a relation that I need to be aware of to avoid confusing my interests with those of the exploiting class.

One of the biggest mistakes frequently made in class understandings is thinking that I, as a theologian, am not part of the working class. It’s not about what we work on, where we work, or whether we work at all. “Working class” is perhaps the most confusing term because it implies that one must be currently working or able to work to belong to it. Instead, it means that I am dependent on my work to make a living. I really like the English term “work for a living” because it highlights that for wage- or salary-dependent people, work is literally a matter of survival. To be more precise: billionaires may work as a hobby or for other reasons, but they don’t have to work for a living. They are not wage- or salary-dependent.

All this to say: Theologians and scholars of religious studies must finally abandon the “Myth of the Middle,” which obscures conflicting class interests and contributes to theologies being complicit with dominant powers. We need to understand that we are part of the exploited class, and despite any privileges we may have, we are not outside the clash of class interests that defines capitalist society. As Jörg Rieger puts it, we are “never merely uninvolved observers but always already pulled into the struggle due to [our] own place in the web of labor relations, whether [we] realize it or not” (p. 137).

This is the social location of theology, where religion – in one way or another – plays a role in class formation. As seen in our traditions and continuing today, religion often supports dominant powers, making it easy to forget or overlook its contributions to resistance movements. Jörg Rieger rightly reminds us that we need the class perspective not only to understand and explain social relations correctly, but also to be part of class formation (p. 136). We should ask ourselves how we actually want to organize our society and remember that the way we organize life and labor is not a law of nature or God-given, but made by people.

Finally, something to think about: I agree with this chapter completely. I’d say the question of whether class relations are the right starting point is not up for debate because it touches on the points that matter most. But what we need to consider is: How can we effectively address this issue? I see a strategic difficulty because the defensiveness and preconceptions on all sides are strong. I would like to know: With all the roadblocks and misunderstandings, is there a shortcut? How do we move past the endless detour where we have to say, “I would like to talk about class. But it’s not what you think, and it’s not what you think either, and it’s certainly not what comes to mind.”

Given the pitfalls of the term “class” alone (and I say this as someone writing her dissertation on the concept of class right now), is it really the term “class” I want to save? Must I dismantle all the lifelong self-deceptions and superstitions before even beginning to get to work? Talking about class still sounds like discussing another struggle, adding to the other struggles concerning gender, racism, and ecology. It still falsely sounds like a competition. So, is there a way to convey the notion of materialist analysis, the study of the mode of production, the awareness of the relation of exploitation, and the non-competitive notion of the diversity of exploitation?

Admittedly, my concern is that a shortcut might miss out on something essential, but I’m not giving up hope. I think that’s the strategic question we continually face and need to discuss: How do we find a way to talk about class in this dense forest of misunderstandings?

—

Charlotte Jacobs is a Protestant theologian from Germany, doctoral candidate at the University of Jena, and scholarship holder at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. In her dissertation, she examines the relevance of class analysis for contemporary Protestant theology and ethics.

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This episode was recorded on January 27, 2024 and released on February 4, 2024.

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Fred also introduced me to liberation theology in the United States, including the “Black theology” of Jim Cone, who later became my friend. We published Cone’s book Black Theology and Black Power, which came out in 1969, in German in Germany. Fred wrote an important foreword.

Fred was the first to speak of “liberation theology.” He wrote about liberation theology in the Gospel of John long before Gustavo Gutiérrez’s famous book in 1971. He would eventually have a strong connection to Lima, Peru. He and Kristin even learned the Quechua language.

In 1967, the English translation of my book Theology of Hope was published. All the major newspapers reported on it. The students said to me, “You’ve made it.” I had obviously struck a chord with the American way of life. Fred and Dean Bob Cushman organized a nationwide symposium in early April 1968. Everyone who was anyone came, from Harvey Cox to Langdon Gilkey. I was arguing with Van Harvey about the untranslatable German word “Geschichte” [it means history as well as story] when Harvey Cox stormed into the hall and shouted, “Martin Luther King has been shot.” In Memphis, on April 4, 1968, the black civil rights leader and prophet of the “American dream” had been shot by a white man. The conference was closed down, the participants went home, the Black ghettos burned, Durham was under curfew. This was the turning point for Duke University.

Approximately 400 students, men and women, spontaneously came together for a vigil of mourning and sat for six days and nights, in wind and rain, on the quadrangle of the university and grieved for Martin Luther King. Finally, Black students from the neighboring college came and walked through the rows and joined in with the white students, and we all sang: “We shall overcome…”

Fred’s “American Dream” was realized: “All men are created equal.” With Fred’s help, I saw the true face of America.

Jürgen Moltmann (1926–2024) was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. Since the publication of his timely Theology of Hope in 1967, he had been a voice that theologians, pastors, priests, lay Christians, and even bishops not only listened to but sought out for guidance. His books are many, and many of them have become classics, not just Theology of Hope, but also The Crucified God (1974), The Trinity and the Kingdom (1981), God in Creation (1985), The Way of Jesus Christ (1990), The Spirit of Life (1992), The Coming of God (1996), and Experiences in Theology (1999). Even in his advanced age, Jürgen kept writing his customary two pages a day – a daunting pace he always recommended to his students. The seven decades of Moltmann’s publications mark nothing short of a theological era.

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Here are three takes on this problem:

1. The belief that democracy is mostly a matter of voting for representatives promoted by political parties restricts political agency to the absolute minimum. This plays into the hands of the dominant interests, which have developed sophisticated ways to sway political elections in their interests and to keep people out of politics.

2. The belief that democracy is exclusively a matter of politics, even if it goes beyond voting and includes policy work, covers up the important role that economic democracy—and its absence—plays. Political democracy is significantly limited if economic democracy remains out of reach for two-thirds of U.S. Americans who have little or no power at work and if most of the 99 percent who have to work for a living have less and less power over their work.

3. The belief that our current economic system favors democracy is also skewed in the interests of the dominant powers. The political principle of “one person one vote” stands in stark contrast with the corporate principle of “one dollar one vote,” according to which shareholder meetings are conducted. The question that was often put to socialism must now be put to capitalism, namely in what sense it is and is not conducive to democracy.

Reflecting these three troubling observations about democracy in the United States invites fresh perspectives that change how we address the aftermath of the 2024 election and the profound anxieties and frustrations voiced by so many. Putting political and economic democracy together provides a strong antidote to the pervasive high jacking of democracy by the dominant interests. This is not merely a matter of checking the role of big money in politics, which has proven to be impossible in the realm of politics alone, this is about grounding political democracy more deeply and thereby providing real alternatives.

Here are three suggestions for a brighter future of democracy:

1. If democracy is extended to the economic realm, political democracy cannot be manipulated as easily, as power is distributed more widely and shared more broadly. False solidarities can be exposed, making room for better solidarities. This addresses the problem of what I have called “unite and conquer,” uniting white people against nonwhite people or U.S. citizens against immigrants in order to make them believe (mistakenly) that all white people and all U.S. citizens are winning when in reality it is mostly the billionaire class that profits.

2. Just like political democracy is severely weakened when there are substantial areas of life where democracy is absent, political democracy is strengthened when agency is expanded into other areas of people’s lives, including work, where so much of our lives takes place. As history shows, the U.S. American project of democracy needed extending at various turns, including the vote of non-aristocratic men, minorities and women. Now a further extension of democracy into economic relationships seems necessary to save democracy itself.

3. Engaging in alternative economic relationships can strengthen political democracy. This includes cooperative enterprises, worker cooperatives, worker self-directed enterprises, and other efforts to strengthen the voice of working people at work. If people gain voice and agency at work, where they are spending the bulk of their waking hours, they can gain voice and agency in matters of politics as well, just as they can gain voice and agency in all other areas of life, including religion. Economic democracy may indeed be the only effective remedy of what might be called “capitalocracy,” the rule of capital in politics and other areas of life.

A final thought for people of faith: It may come as a surprise, but strengthening political democracy by building economic democracy can also strengthen religious democracy. And while not all religious traditions may value democracy equally, it should be clear that the absence of economic democracy and the concomitant rule of money has done tremendous damage to faith communities throughout the ages. This problem is only getting worse as inequality keeps growing. It should not come as a surprise that when the whims of the wealthiest donors are calling the shots rather than communities accountable to the divine, religion is perverted and eventually loses its spirit.

One example for how things can be done differently are the Solidarity Circles of the Wendland-Cook Program at Vanderbilt, which promote the interaction of economic, political, and religious democracy, in collaboration with the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and other projects. In the current political impasse, such efforts will prove to be more relevant than ever, as they take us beyond narrow understandings of politics, including the current fixation on party politics, with the potential of reshaping life for people and the planet as a whole.

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This piece is part of a series following the 2024 United States Election. Originally published in November 2024 on religionandjustice.org.

Originally released on January 4, 2024. Republished for our Substack audiences.

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I had the privilege of preaching at Professor Herzog’s funeral at the Pilgrim United Church of Christ, where he and Kristin had been active for over 30 years. Dr. Herzog’s life and faith were rooted in the church of Jesus Christ, and, in particular, a local church. I had had the joy of walking with Frederick Herzog on three different continents where I had learned under him, and where we had worked together: at the University of Bonn in Germany, with the Methodist Church in Peru, and in the Duke and Durham communities. On three continents Herzog had done his part to shape and prosper the immortality of God’s justice.

Frederick Herzog convinced me to remain in pastoral ministry. I had done some teaching at Duke, and, when I had finished my Ph.D. at Duke, I was invited to join the faculty of several academic institutions. On a flight back from one of these institutions, Herzog’s voice would not leave me alone, saying, “Stay in the pastoral ministry, that is where you are needed.” Soon after the plane landed, I called the leadership of the institution, who offered me a job, and told them I would not be accepting the position. I never had regrets. Frederick Herzog knew the most important place for Christopraxis to bear life and fruit was in the local parish. And for almost fifty years now the local church has been the primary place where I have been able to “apply” the Christopraxis which Herzog taught me and showed me. For his life, encouragement, and guidance I give God thanks.

In Bonn, Germany, in 1979, while we were “spatziering” together along the Rhine River, Herzog said to me, “I know it looks attractive to be in the academy, both at Duke and here at Bonn, but don’t allow them to incarcerate you! Please stay in the local church.” Why the local church? The local church, not the academy, is where “the rubber meets the road.” Herzog loved those idioms!

The church is the place where theory or plan is tested and implemented. As I have found over forty years of pastoral ministry, the church is the place where people of faith confront the hard places of life: marriage, separation, divorce; sickness, anointing and prayers of healing; issues of dying and death; life’s places of brokenness; the grace of listening and being embraced; the waters of baptism and baptism reaffirmation; the power of the Eucharist; inclusion and exclusion; both the brokenness and gifts of the community “outside” the walls of the church; all the “nuts and bolts” of the generations of life lived within community. While the institution of the church often functions as an “ivory tower”(as does the academy), the local church community (babies, children, youth, adults and the elderly) bring the realities of human life up close. As a local church pastor the experience of these realities and the presence of the living Christ have given expression to Christopraxis, in ways the academy usually only talks or writes about.

Herzog’s theology did not begin in a vacuum, nor in the halls of academia. It began in an awareness of and in relationship with those on the underside of history. For the most part you don’t meet those on the underside in the halls of the academy, and certainly not in the offices of the academy, but you meet them within the ministries of the church, on the streets outside the church, and huddled in the alley ways beside your church.

On January 30, 1993, while we were working together on a Peru/North Carolina relationship, Herzog wrote to me, “At the moment all I’m trying to do is to get a high-powered motor on the little ‘bark’ that’s left, so that it isn’t drawn down in some vortex on these treacherous shoals.” Classic Frederick Herzog! He was referring to a newly formed Peru/North Carolina relationship where a Camino Divino was coming to life, a sacred walk between church and academy, between Latinos and “Dukies,” between the poor and the rich. Dialogue and the forming of relationships between students, faculty and pastors of the Methodist Church of Peru and the seminary in Peru, and, those of Duke Divinity School and the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church focused on how we experienced and addressed similar justice issues in different cultures; racism, sexism, classism, “intellectual-ism,” and all the other “isms” which divide and denigrate.

The civil rights movement in the United States, in which Herzog was so strongly involved, along with the various movements in Peru, which Gustavo Gutiierez addressed, melded together in the Peru/North Carolina relationships which were formed over these years. Our exchanges between North and South created a living relationship of justice-love, where our walking together shaped theology. So it always must be!

Mark W. Wethington did Ph.D. studies with Prof. Frederick Herzog both at Duke University, North Carolina, and at the University of Bonn, Germany. He graduated from Duke with a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies, with a minor in Christian Theology. He served for 29 years as a United Methodist local church pastor in the North Carolina Conference and then served as President of the Wesley Heritage Foundation for 15 years. The Wesley Heritage Foundation translated Wesley’s Works into Spanish, resulting in a 14 volume work entitled Obras de Wesley. He is semi-retired in North Carolina where he serves part-time as a non-denominational pastor and with his wife, Beth, oversees Solitude Farm & Retreat.

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Growing up as a queer individual below the poverty line in rural America, I witnessed firsthand the chasm between the promise of freedom and its stark reality. Raised by a single mother who toiled tirelessly, I saw the uncelebrated labor that sustains our nation. Yet, the political narratives, especially those targeting white, working-class communities, often peddle a hollow version of freedom—one that resonates like an empty echo.

I find myself, as a Catholic, perpetually bewildered by my own family, neighbors, and community members who continue to align themselves with political figures that enact policies directly opposed to their own material well-being. They experience the effects of exploitation every day—in their aching bodies, in the fear that one medical emergency could mean bankruptcy, in the silent dread of making ends meet until the next paycheck. Yet they vote, again and again, for leaders who promise freedom while stripping away social safety nets and undermining the fundamental dignity of labor itself. In doing so, these politicians hand over freedom to corporations and the ultra-rich, leaving the 99% exploited and empty-handed.

The allegiance of many to these political figures, despite their own suffering, can be understood as part of a broader cultural narrative that has hijacked the language of faith and values. They promise to defend “Christian values,” but in reality, they serve the god of Mammon—placing wealth, power, and corporate interests above the well-being of the community.

The real tragedy is that this allegiance is built on a manipulated sense of solidarity—a deceptive solidarity that relies on cultural and racial identity rather than shared economic interests. It convinces white working-class voters, in particular, that they have more in common with their white employers than with their non-white fellow workers. This false solidarity, rooted in division and scapegoating, distracts from the material foundation of their shared exploitation and erodes the possibility of building deep solidarity across lines of race, gender, and class.

This deceptive promise has become a cornerstone of far-right ideology, assuring us that hard work, patriotism, and “family values” will elevate our status, provided we remain vigilant against perceived threats: immigrants, the “woke,” queer people, BIPOC, and other fabricated adversaries. This rhetoric isn’t new; it traces back through the legacies of George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, each perpetuating the myth of the self-reliant, white working-class hero who must step on his fellow worker to get ahead instead of directing their frustrations to the top of their company, their state, or their nation.

However, the issue goes beyond the rhetoric of the far right. Both major parties have failed the working majority. The result is a political landscape where neither side genuinely serves the interests of the working class. Instead, financial freedom is handed over to corporations, fossil fuel industries, and an economic system driven by an endless race towards profit at the expense of the 99%. The fallout of this power dynamic is evident in the environmental degradation, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and the slow erosion of civil rights. Today, political figures on both sides of the aisle continue this narrative, crafting illusions of economic revival while maintaining structures that perpetuate wage stagnation, debt, identity-based divisions, and economic precarity.

At its core, what we are lacking is a power analysis—a clear, honest account of who holds power, how they wield it, and at whose expense. Without this analysis, we are left to blame ourselves for the conditions we live in: economic precarity for the working majority, escalating threats to civil rights based on gender, sex, and race, and the climate crisis that threatens our collective future. These are not failures of individual responsibility or moral shortcomings; they are the direct result of political and economic decisions that prioritize corporate profits over human dignity and environmental sustainability.

The political establishment tells us that freedom means deregulation, cutting taxes for the wealthy, and giving corporations more room to “innovate.” But when we strip away the rhetoric, what this freedom really means is the freedom of the powerful to exploit, pollute, and profit without consequence. It’s the freedom of oil and gas companies to extract wealth from the earth while expediting climate change, the freedom of industry to roll back labor laws designed to protect the 99% of us who work for a living, the freedom of pharmaceutical companies to set exorbitant prices on life-saving medications, and the freedom of tech giants to amass unfathomable amounts of data and influence. Meanwhile, the freedom of the average person—the freedom to live without fear of medical bankruptcy, the freedom to access affordable housing, the freedom to work without exploitation—is eroded year by year.

In my reading of Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin’ Alive, the historical trajectory of the white working class makes clear how the language of class solidarity was dismantled and replaced by a divisive, racialized rhetoric of individual responsibility. It’s a story of how union strength was undermined, how the promise of shared prosperity was crushed under the heel of neoliberalism. What remains now is a fragmented working class, splintered along lines of race, gender, and geography, isolated from one another in a digital echo chamber that feeds us curated outrage instead of concrete solutions.

The answer lies in reclaiming a robust power analysis and building solidarity based on shared material interests rather than ideological divides. Drawing from the work of Joerg Rieger, this kind of solidarity is rooted in a deeper understanding of where power lies and how it is maintained. It is about analyzing who profits from our exploitation and recognizing that our struggles are interconnected. Exploitation affects different groups in unique ways, and our various identities are often weaponized to divide us—part of a deliberate strategy to prevent the kind of diverse, intersectional community-building that could resist these exploitative systems. Without a clear power analysis, we end up trapped in fragmented, identity-based battles, when what we truly need is collective, intersectional action to address systemic problems together.

The Wendland-Cook Program’s commitment to research focuses on exploring the intersections of labor, faith, and justice, making the work of scholars like Joerg Rieger and Aaron Stauffer central to its mission. In his essay Inspiring (Im)possible Solidarity: Reshaping Relations of Race, Class, and Gender, Joerg Rieger draws critical distinctions between privilege and power, highlighting how systemic white supremacy functions as a tool for the economic exploitation of both white and non-white working people. Rieger points out that while racial and gender privilege provide advantages, they do not equate to power—the capacity to shape systemic outcomes, which remains concentrated among the wealthy elite. He emphasizes the importance of a deep, multiracial, and multi-gendered solidarity that challenges the deceptive, hierarchical “solidarity” rooted in racism and nationalism. By distinguishing between the privileges many working people hold and the true power they lack, Rieger calls for a radical form of solidarity that transcends mere allyship. This deep solidarity, grounded in shared material conditions and informed by a rigorous power analysis, is necessary for confronting the structures of labor exploitation and building an alternative, liberative power.

Aaron Stauffer’s Listening to the Spirit emphasizes the importance of value-based organizing that centers sacred values and relational power. This approach connects us in ways that traditional, transactional organizing often fails. Instead of merely mobilizing around political issues, value-based organizing listens deeply to the lived experiences of those most impacted and builds movements that resonate on a material and spiritual level. It is a call to reshape our organizing practices into acts of communal care, grounded in a shared vision of justice.

The way forward is not through hollow appeals to a false freedom but through the hard, messy work of organizing—of building power from below through solidarity economies, mutual aid, and a revived labor movement. It is about creating spaces where people can come together not as isolated individuals but as a collective, where we can begin to see our struggles reflected in one another’s eyes and recognize that our material and spiritual liberation is intertwined.

We must redefine what freedom means. It is not the freedom of the billionaire to hoard wealth while the masses struggle; it is the freedom of the worker to live with dignity having their work recognized and valued for its essential contribution, the freedom of the queer person to exist without fear, the freedom of the single mother to raise her children in security and love. This is not the freedom of the free market but the freedom of the beloved community, bound together in shared struggle and shared hope.

For faith communities seeking to align their organization with the vision of deep solidarity, the Wendland-Cook Program’s Solidarity Circles offer a practical pathway. These circles create spaces of encounter and mutual support, where people come together across differences to challenge systemic injustice and build solidarity economies in their own communities and context. By engaging in these circles, faith communities can move beyond individualistic approaches and embrace the collective, transformative work of building the common good.

This is the path forward, not through the empty rhetoric of freedom that serves only the powerful, but through a radical, collective reimagining of what true liberation can look like. And it starts with us, here and now, choosing to work together for a freedom that benefits us, rather than the 1%.

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I could tell he had read the commentaries, but he did not follow the rules of higher criticism, nor did he follow the mold of any doctrine of God I knew. He claimed the Bible was not the Word of God, but that Jesus was the Word of God. To know God, one had to tell and live the story of Jesus. That was the starting point of theology. But a second shock was in store. The revelation, the uncovering of God, happened not in the text itself but in God’s presence in the suffering of human beings and, in particular, Black human beings.

I was “woke.” Awakening, as Jesus claims, is necessary for discipleship. But it was not easy. Getting to know this teacher was a new take on my own identity. I was raised in Memphis in a working-class family. From a young age, I was haunted by the suffering of Black people, but I remained mostly isolated from the white oppression of Black people. I slowly came to know a bit about my teacher. He was raised in a Dakota Reformed community, went to Germany to study, and was caught up in the horror of World War II. It was not until he had returned to the United States to study with Paul Lehman at Princeton and to teach at the Reformed seminary in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that this highly educated theologian ended up in, of all places, Durham, North Carolina, a hotbed of Southern racism and classism. This cultural shock impacted his life and work until the end. His awakening stoked my own awakening to how the Bible deals with the suffering of Black people.

This was a new way, a new orientation, of doing theology. It made me wonder how my teacher came to this uncomfortable way of doing theology. Herzog was in the train of Barth’s transformation of modern theology. He lived in the Barth home while he was editing a volume of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Aspects of Barth’s theology are present in Herzog’s theology, but he studiously resisted being a Barthian.

Incarnation had to be thought differently. The Word of God is enfleshed in a way Israel and the church don’t want. It is despite all resistance, ever present in the Passover meal: Once we were slaves and with a mighty arm Yahweh brought us out of the house of bondage. This story is the name of God; to name God we tell a story of liberation.

But there was another crucial shaping of Herzog’s theology that is not often recognized. It is surprisingly: radical pietism. On the stairs going up to the second floor of the Herzog house were hanging pictures of the main pietist theologians and at the top was a picture of John Wesley. While he was opposed to Schleiermacher’s subjectivity, at his core Herzog had the fierceness of some of the pietistic tradition that emphasizes the personal transformation of God’s grace in the community and life with the forsaken. You had to go beyond faith and hope to the love that enables life with the oppressed. Otherwise, the Reformation could not be whole.

What can this possibly mean for the American church? Herzog labored over this question for the last twenty years of his life. In 1976, I spent six weeks in the German Democratic Republic analyzing the education institutions that belonged to my host, the Evangelische Kirche der Union (EKU). When I returned, the United Church of Christ asked me to form a working group that could enhance relationships with the EKU. The first person I asked to join the group was Frederick Herzog.

For the next twenty years I worked even more closely with Fred and learned month by month his deep love of the church, his radical criticism of the church, and his vision of what the church could be in the United States. His thoughts and his action in those years are found in his books Justice Church and God-Walk. In our work together, Fred continuously urged us to offer to the mainstream American churches something like the most important confession of the twentieth century: the Barmen Declaration in Germany 1934. There are so many parallels in the United States today to the rise of Nazism in Germany of the 1930s and 1940s that the church must see clearly the collapse of our democratic institutions and the institutions of the church. Fred was right: the church must stand up in the power of the resurrection. But it can find this power nowhere but in God’s presence in the struggle for freedom and justice in the midst of the suffering and oppressed.

In this time when we lose our breath with every report of the inhumanity of the tyranny that destroys human community and the earth, I remember Fred Herzog’s utter commitment to sound teaching in the church. I remember how Fred and Kristin trudged every Sunday to their neighborhood congregation to teach and learn from the people. I remember how they lived with suffering communities in Durham and in Latin America and, yes, in academia. Our hope in this time of retribution and hatred needs power. Where else can it be found except in communities who believe and practice God’s promised justice?

M. Douglas Meeks is Professor Emeritus of Theology and Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He is the former Dean of Wesley Theological Seminary and was for twenty-five years the Co-Chair of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. He also served as chair of the United Church of Christ-Evangelische Kirche der Union Working Group that brought together the churches of the UCC with churches in the German Democratic Republic and, after the wall came down, the whole of Germany.

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