David W. Congdon

@dwcongdon

Senior Editor, University Press of Kansas | Lecturer, KU | Who Is a New Christian? (Cambridge, 2024) | Bylines: Christian Century, Sojourners, Presby Outlook, Revealer

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David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· 19d

If you need a palate cleanser, here are some photos I took during the last two weeks while on vacation in Oregon.

Lookout near Oswald West State Park in Oregon

One of the Ten Falls at Silver Falls State Park

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· 19d

My AAR talk from last fall on the postliberal ecclesiology of Project 2025 is now out in the journal Ecumenical Trends. The article is an extension/sequel to my Journal of Religion article from last year. If you want a copy, leave a comment or send me a message.

First page of the article "Resident Arsonists: The Postliberal Ecclesiology of Project 2025" by DAVID W. CONGDON.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· 26d

The bio on the back is very generous—calling me one of the theologians who has studied Bultmann the most deeply and saying that my first book "reshaped the landscape of English-language Bultmann studies." My sincere thanks to Kim Ji-ho for this translation!

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· 26d

I was excited to learn my guide to Rudolf Bultmann's theology was published in Korean—something I found out on Facebook this week when someone in Korea tagged me in their post. mall.godpeople.com?G=9791189092...

Cover image for the Korean translation of my introductory book on Rudolf Bultmann

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· 27d

Went to Powell’s City of Books and found one of my old books on the shelf. Never gets old seeing my work on the shelf of my favorite bookstore.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 12

Here is the paragraph that discusses my work. The article is not as bad as I feared—though it ends predictably with the usual conservative claim that progressive churches are pushing people away.

Then there are the Biblical arguments. Within this theological framework, “mononormativity” is seen as exclusionary, hierarchical and judgmental, whereas polyamory reflects the radical acceptance and divine grace embodied by Jesus. “The very nature of Jesus’s ministry suggests the abolition of exclusive norms,” theologian David Congdon wrote last year. Hence the early Christian community’s decision to share all possessions in a communal spirit. “If one’s material goods ought not belong exclusively to one person,” Congdon wrote, “how much less should a fellow human being be viewed as exclusively belonging to another?”

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 2

From the official White House account. Not at all subtle.

White House X account posted an image of "Let Us Have Peace" by American artist Jean Leon Gerome Ferris with the words “whose broad stripes & bright stars through the perilous fight.”

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 2

Redeemed Zoomer—AKA Richard Ackerman—ironically making a good case for becoming Catholic.

Redeemed Zoomer @redeemed_zoomer
X.com
"If you wanna stay and fix the church and not leave it, why not just join Rome?"
BECAUSE, in the PCUSA, you can reject their recent liberal councils without getting excommunicated.
In Rome, you CANT DO THAT. They just excommunicated the dissenters from Vatican II

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 2

Matthew Vines is part of a larger story. In April Ben Appel published a similar op-ed in WSJ. Last November he published Cis White Gay, about how he left the "Cult of Queer" at Columbia University. The same month McCrea published a book on how the addition of T and Q to LGB was hubris.

I’m Gay, but That Doesn’t Make Me ‘Queer’
My sexuality doesn’t require me to reject all that is ‘normal’ and ‘legitimate.’
By Ben Appel
April 2, 2026 2:59 pm ET

Cover image of Cis White Gay by Ben Appel

Cover image of The End of the Gay Rights Revolution by Ronan McCrea

Opinion
Guest Essay
I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.
June 30, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET
by Matthew Vines

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 2

First Things is falling all over themselves trying to be the most anti–birthright citizenship mouthpiece. They’ve read the tea leaves for the conservative movement and decided to go all in on this.

Is Trump v.
Barbara the New
Roe?
RACHEL BOVARD
The Supreme Court's decision against Trump's birthright citizenship ban is a disaster for the nation, writes Rachel Bovard. The conservative movement must work to undo it.

Birthright
Citizenship Is
Living on
Borrowed Time
R. R. RENO
Editor R. R. Reno writes that today's world is not one where the broad application of the Fourteenth Amendment is viable. Tuesday's Supreme Court decision upholding birthright citizenship only puts off the explosive issue of mass migration.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jul 1

By the way, all @univpressofkansas.bsky.social books are currently 40% off through July 19 using discount code 24UPKSUMMER26.

UPK ad banner showing that all books are 40% off through July 19 using discount code 24UPKSUMMER26.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jun 30

I am, once again, recommending that everyone read AMERICAN BY BIRTH by @cnacken1.bsky.social and @jnovkov.bsky.social. Essential reading for these times. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700634217/

Cover image for American by Birth by Nackenoff and Novkov, published by University Press of Kansas

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jun 28

As Michael O’Fallon points out, hard to have much of a debate when all these guys basically agree.

Michael O'Fallon - Sovereign... °
@SovMichael
X.com
RESOLVED: America Needs a Caesar Moved by Curtis Yarvin and Alex Petkas
Opposed by Matthew Peterson and Jeremy Carl - who have entertained Caesaropapism, Francoism, and various Integralists in the past.
All sides would support the Schmittian "unbound executive" so I am not sure what the purpose of the debate would serve outside of sublation and bringing all sides of the revolutionaries together.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jun 28

Love to see @bradleyonishi.bsky.social getting all this free publicity.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jun 14

Once again I have to recommend Ross Benes’s very insightful book.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· Jun 8

Just learned that the @presoutlook.bsky.social's guide to the PC(USA)'s General Assembly cites my article on Christian nationalism. pres-outlook.org/product/pres...

Confronting Christian nationalism:
A faithful responsibility
In 2024, the Domestic Engagement Committee overwhelmingly approved a study on White Christian
nationalism, recognizing it as a distortion of Christian faith that elevates nation, race, and cultural power
alongside – or above – the Gospel.
According to Americans United, an organization that defends the separation of church and state, “White
Christian Nationalism is the dangerous belief that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation founded
for its white Christian inhabitants and that our laws and policies must reflect this. Christian Nationalists deny
the separation of church and state promised by our Constitution, and they oppose equality for people of color,
women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.”
The Domestic Engagement Committee’s study, which will be presented for approval at GA227, defines
Christian nationalism as “a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian identity with U.S. civic life and
national identity. It asserts that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should continue to be
governed according to what its proponents see as Christian values or biblical principles.”
• The GA Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations is adding liturgical and educational
resources, affirming that confronting Christian nationalism is a spiritual as well as intellectual task.
• Local congregations are drawing from the Book of Confessions to challenge any fusion of Christian faith
with national or cultural identity.
• Voices from local congregations underscore that this challenging work is already happening on the ground.
Churches utilizing the Book of Confessions are discovering that their own tradition provides language to
challenge any fusion of Christian faith with a single national or cultural identity. As theologians like David
W. Congdon argue, the danger lies less in obvious heresy and more in familiar orthodox language that is
bent towa…

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 30

Five years ago @univpressofkansas.bsky.social published a book on this very topic, though at the time it was about strengthening the administrative state. The notion that it would need to be protected from the other branches wasn’t (yet) on our minds. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700632077/

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 26

Someone has finally put into words why I so disliked Pluribus. It’s a relentlessly antisocialist, antiutopian, centrist message. This piece by @annaleen.bsky.social is a great read. flaminghydra.com/issue-572/?a...

But in the end, Pluribus leaves us with a palliative centrist message.
To defeat the Others, we must stop short of building anything better than what one wealthy white lady in Albuquerque has right now. We can no more imagine a way to survive under capitalism than we can imagine a world without it.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 22

New book from @rutgersupress.bsky.social advocating for better language around vasectomies to increase reproductive justice. A perfect antidote to the terrible @christianitytoday.com article that includes some of the worst rhetoric about vasectomies I've ever seen.

Stop Saying Snip!
The Rhetoric of Vasectomy
by Jenna Vinson
Paperback
$32.95 S
Hardback
$120.00 SS
eBook (ePub)
$32.95 S
Quantity
1
Publication details
Price: $32.95 S
ISBN: 9781978843585
Published: Apr 14, 2026
Add to Cart
Publication details
Release Date: 14th April 2026
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Imprint: Rutgers University Press
Pages: 222
Illustrations: 7 B-W images
Subjects: Cultural Studies, Film, Media Studies, and Communications, Gender Studies, Health and Medicine, Sociology
Description
Contents
Authors
In the US, the most common contraceptive methods rely on women’s time, labor, and vulnerability to risk. Comparatively few people rely on vasectomies as a means of preventing pregnancies. Something is happening rhetorically—through meaning-making symbols and the material practices they manifest—that sustains a collective disinterest in vasectomies. Jenna Vinson draws from her feminist rhetorical study of thirty-seven television and film representations, health insurance policies, and interviews with seventeen people who have experienced vasectomy, surfacing barriers to vasectomy uptake, including problematic tropes and practices that keep vasectomy unappealing, out of mind, and inaccessible. Stop Saying Snip! also illustrates tactics and circumstances that lead people to get a vasectomy, sharing real vasectomy stories and showing that women often play an important (and until now unheeded or pathologized) role in this communication process. This book intervenes in the misogynistic cultural expectation that it is women’s responsibility to endure the pain, labor, and risks of managing fertility by identifying the rhetorics that make men’s reproductive bodies seem unnatural sites for pregnancy prevention work. Fostering a persuasive vision of vasectomy is an urgent project that contributes to the movement toward reproductive justice.

Christians Need Clearer Thinking About Sterilization
Matthew Lee Anderson

The wide and easy acceptance of vasectomies shows the weakness of our moral and biblical reasoning.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 21

Anyone else getting The Stand vibes from this story?

NYT article:

Three people died and more than a dozen emergency officials were hospitalized after suspected exposure to an unknown substance at a home in a small town near Albuquerque on Wednesday, the New Mexico State Police said.
nytimes.com
3 Die After Suspected Exposure to Unknown Substance in New Mexico

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 19

It's one thing to just plug up your ears and ignore it. It's another thing to think biblical studies hasn't progressed since, at best, the 1990s.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 15

I have a new article out on the relation between critical biblical studies and the recent Christologies of Bruce McCormack and Paul DeHart. Let me know if you can't access it and would like a copy. My thanks to @collincornell.bsky.social, Clay Mock, and others. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Historian and the Theologian:
On the Role of New Testament Studies in the Christologies of McCormack and DeHart

David W. Congdon

Abstract
Two recent works of Christology attempt to bridge the gap between systematic theology and biblical studies by
engaging historical research about the Bible in a constructive way: Bruce L. McCormack’s The Humility of the Eternal
Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon and Paul J. DeHart’s Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology. McCormack seeks to repair Chalcedon by drawing on what he takes to be the correct reading of Paul’s Christ
Hymn in Philippians. Drawing on recent scholarship from Paula Fredriksen, Paul Holloway, and Matthew Novenson,
this article shows that another reading is possible, one that conflicts with McCormack’s reparative project. McCormack’s effort to avoid speculation fails, since his argument depends on presupposing certain metaphysical claims
about the Bible. DeHart’s work offers a different model of engaging biblical studies, one that avoids speculation in McCormack’s sense but engages in reconstructive historical speculation as a constructive thought experiment. DeHart’s
project relies, however, on a Catholic ecclesiology, in which the incarnation is an ongoing process of cultural and cultic
imagination. The conclusion proposes an alternative approach that builds on McCormack’s actualistic ontology and
DeHart’s embrace of critical historical research without assuming the validity of the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition.

Key words: Chalcedon, Nicene tradition, Paul within Judaism, divine identity Christology, angelomorphic Christology, great angel tradition, theological ontology, Bruce L. McCormack, Paul J. DeHart, Paula Fredriksen

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 13

My new book, Poly Theology: In Praise of Unnatural Love, now has a cover! Publication scheduled for March/April 2027. open.substack.com/pub/polytheo...

Cover image for Poly Theology by David Congdon

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 11

Of course a country run by an organized crime ring would harbor politicians engaged in organized crime.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 7

I’m eagerly looking forward to Patterson’s book Why Postliberalism Failed, but I’m especially enjoying the frenzied and deeply ironic reactions by postliberals like Pilkington. “You can't just declare ‘X has failed’ and it happens.” You don’t say?!

Philip Pilkington @ @philippilk•1h
1 am still getting plenty of offers to translate my book - lots of intetest. These guys are complete crackpots. You can't just declare "X has failed" and it happens. This is like tribal people doing a rain-dance or something. Weirdly primitive behaviour. Funny though.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 4

Is anyone out there eager to read a climbing memoir from Rusty Reno?? Is this his bid to become a Christian masculinity influencer?

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 4

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 3

Pastors producing AI-generated books on theology and spirituality is so embarrassing. This needs to stop.

Mark Maddix
1d -%
...
Here is a new book that was Al-generated that l
edited. The book is part of the "Essential Theological Series" developed by Tom Phillips of the Digital Theological Library.
It is a basic introduction to spiritual formation that includes four aspects: our relationship with God, with others, with self, and creation.

Cover image of AI generated book, Practicing Faith and Faithfulness. “Under the supervision of Mark Maddix”

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 3

I have to issue a correction. The Fall 2025 issue of Telos contains a genealogy of postliberalism that begins with the theologians. I used this in my class.

David W. Congdon@dwcongdon· May 2

I just don't see it. I agree he's against nationalism (that's what I just said), but Hauerwas is an outspoken opponent of pluralism and democracy. He makes that very plain every chance he gets. This is just one passage among many.