Theology Nerds! It is time for a book blog tour with one of our very own!
In fall 2014 Callid released his book, Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer with Cascade Books and they’ve been awesome and said they’ll kick in a dozen books for you all to get your nerdy hands on. The book itself is chock full of goodness with chapters on process theopoetics (including Catherine Keller), the intersection of biblical and literary studies, Rubem Alves‘ liberation theology, and the sweet Continental philosophy of John Caputo, Richard Kearney, and Karmen MacKendrick. So many people reached out from so many perspectives that this is definitely going to be sweet. Throughout the week of 2/23/15 folks will be posting their thoughts and we’ll link them below with hopes you’ll engage them as you like.
But wait, there’s more! On Thursday March 5, the week after the blog tour, Callid and the West Coast HBC Crew will got on to a public Google Hangout and it was an open free-for-all to grill Callid (lovingly!) about his inconsistencies and theological missteps. Or, you know, say something nice or ask questions about the book and/or theopoetics in general. That Hangout is now a TNT episode here.
If you’re looking for a better sense of what this whole topic is about, check this short post Callid did about theopoetics this summer as part of the ABCs of Theology series. But mostly… read these sweet blogs!
Book Tour Blog Stops
Katelynn Carver at Spiralling Ecstatically This offers a wildly thorough engagement with the text, thinking alongside it from a lens of interdisciplinarity and asking how theopoetics might stretch to include conversations beyond theism itself.
Patrick Reyes reads the book from a post-colonial and embodied lens, making some suggestions as to how theopoetics might help make decolonizing moves.
Tuhina Rasche at This Lutheran Life brings in Yoda, reflects on the relevance of the book to her vocation as a pastor and questions the reality of “safe spaces.”
Rick Quinn — in part 1 of a 2 part post — thinks about maps and racial injustice, drawing some parallels between the book and the work of Sallie McFague. In Part 2 of the post, he lets himself be moved by the work of James Cone in reflection on “Which Lives Matter? Theopoetics, Black Rage, and White Privilege.”
Graeme Fancourt at The Reluctant Blogger takes a look at the book from a Church of England perspective wondering if the book isn’t pointing to a CoE kind of vibe.
Laura Stone at The Patchwork Pietist comes at things from an anabaptist perspective and wonders if theopoetics might be a good fit for non-violence theology.
James Hill Jr. reviews the book from “an ontologically hip-hop” perspective and reads theopoetics as a stance that “refuses to offer sacrifices before the altar of Western epistemology.”
Jon Gill / Gilead7 launches full force into a hip-hop genre’d, Mobb Deep inflected take which careens all through the book with a unique style.
Emily Richardson at Where do I Begin? steps into the fray as a self-proclaimed “newcomer” and nails it, saying “When I could no longer carry on in the academic environment because of the limitations of my body. That was when I needed to find new ways of doing theology.”
C. Wes Daniels at Gathering in Light comes at the topic as a Quaker pastor and a theologian whose work is in intercultural studies.
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza reads the book as pointing toward a “materially becoming queer relationality.”
Jeremy Fackenthal recognizes the book tries not to flatten things (and the various types of theopoetics) in spite of dissonance.
Joe Davis is a spoken word artist who also works as a trainer and art-for-activism advocate, bringing this to bear as he reflects on the book.