Theology, Ethics, and a Church in Conflict: A Conversation with Amy Carr and Christine Helmer

Currents in Religion

Welcome to our Fall 2023 season!

In this episode, Zen speaks with Amy Carr and Christine Helmer about their brand new Baylor University Press book Ordinary Faith in Polarized Times: Justification and the Pursuit of Justice.

Amy Carr is Professor of Religious Studies at Western Illinois University.

Christine Helmer is Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University.

Want to get a free copy of the book?

Enter our giveaway by visiting us on X/Twitter and following the directions on our pinned post (https://twitter.com/cirbaylor). The winner will be announced October 27th!

Here's some of the book's blurb:

Christians in the United States and around the world are politically polarized today, unable to speak to one another across deep divisions regarding urgent social issues. Ordinary Faith in Polarized Times: Justification and the Pursuit of Justice addresses this dire reality by offering a theological framework for Christian justice-seeking. Amy Carr and Christine Helmer draw on Paul’s theology to center the idea of justification by faith in Christ as the primary ground of Christian belonging and community.

This approach yields a theology of ordinary faith that resists the temptation to equate Christian identity with the performance of a heroic "here I stand" posture against moral and political positions felt to be inimical to a properly Christian life...

Carr and Helmer articulate ways that justification by faith grounds Christian practices of affective listening and storytelling, even on the most contentious ethical questions today, with the hope that mutual conversation in and through the Beloved Community can get Christians who disagree oriented towards each other again for the good of the world.