Rieger Lecture Inaugurates Wendland-Cook Professorship

Posted on Oct 03, 2009 - 10:43 PM

Rieger Lecture Inaugurates Wendland-Cook Professorship

October 8, 2009, Dallas:  The Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, celebrated the creation of the Wendland-Cook Endowed Chair in Constructive Theology with an inaugural lecture by Dr. Joerg Rieger, the first person to hold this chair. 
Entitled “Speaking Truth to Power—With a Twist: Reenvisioning the Task of Theology and the Academy,” Rieger’s lecture surveyed the key themes of his work during his preceding fifteen-year career at Perkins, and sketched the direction of his future work as Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology. 

In the first section of the lecture, entitled “Don’t Think as a Thinker, but as a Living Being: The Epistemological Task,” Rieger argued for a particular type of contextual theology, centered on the notion that “context is that which hurts.”  While contextual theologies to date are frequently misunderstood as focused on special interests (e.g., race, class, gender), Rieger contended, they are in fact closer to the common interest, because they share a deep link to the common pain of those on the underside.  He proposed a theological model in which common interest is defined, not at the top by a small group of academics, but at the bottom, at the level of those who suffer.

The second section of the lecture, “Speaking Truth to Power: A Matter of Life and Death,” turned to the problem of dynamics of power in various contexts.  Rieger argued that theology often fails to speak truth to power because it does not recognize the power dynamics that shape it.  Consequently, the truth about power “is best seen from the underside,” from the perspective of the victims, “whether they be workers, people without work, people without health care, people starving, minorities, or the many young people who are falling through the cracks of the system.”
In “Constructive Theology: Constructed and Constructing,” the third and final section of the lecture, Rieger advocated “a self-critical approach” for theology, “due to the fact that theology is located in a context of power and of power differentials.”  Such an approach, Rieger noted, can retrieve from the Christian tradition those elements which help us speak truth to power in today’s contexts.

The lecture drew a diverse crowd of around 150 attendees, including faculty members, labor activists, and civil rights leaders.  Groups represented included were the Progressive Christian Center of the South, the Dallas Area Christian Progressive Alliance, the D.L. Dykes Foundation, the Teenage Theology Group, North Texas Jobs with Justice, the Workers’ Rights Board, and the Progressive Reading Group.

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