Small-Thomas Lecture: Theology with a political twist

Author and political theologian Ward Holder ’85 will present the 2016 Small-Thomas Lecture at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 30, in Hall-Perrine Room, Thomas Commons. His topic is “Capturing the Presidency and Losing One’s Soul: Elections, Christianity and Realpolitik.”

Holder will examine the manner in which particular models of the American presidency have both hindered and enabled the consideration and promotion of concerns for justice, and the ways these models have led Americans to think about Christianity and politics.

“Presidential candidates run on the strength of the dreams they cast. Their candidacies are successful when they catch the spirit of the moment, and shape a vision that causes millions of others to see it,” Holder says. “Yet this frequently leads to trouble when campaigns are over, and the work of governing begins. Americans frequently state a desire to be led by Christian or religious policies. But those policies far too frequently take up the need to preserve America as the New Israel, and leave social justice with neither a prophet to cry out in the street, nor a statesman to craft a visionary world.”  

Holder is a historical and political theologian whose current work focuses on the intersection of faith and politics and history. He is director of the honors program and professor of theology at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. A graduate of Cornell College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he did his doctoral work at Boston College.

Across his career, he has examined the era of the Reformations, the work of John Calvin, political theology, and how various faith communities ground their truth claims.  His most recent work was co-edited with Peter B. Josephson, “The American Election 2012: Contexts and Consequences” (Palgrave, 2014). He and Josephson co-authored “The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft” (Ashgate, 2012). Among other works, he has authored “John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation: Calvin’s First Commentaries” (Brill, 2006) and “Crisis and Renewal: The Era of the Reformations” (Westminster John Knox, 2009). He edited “A Companion to Paul in the Reformation” (Brill, 2009).  Holder’s essays have appeared in Christian Century, Church History, Politics and Religion, and Society.  

The lecture series, which began in 2000, is funded by Richard Small, a past chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees and a 1950 graduate, and his wife, honorary alumna and trustee Norma Thomas Small. The lecture series honors Norma’s late mother, June, and her late father, Cecil, who was Cornell’s buildings and grounds superintendent (1956-73) and consultant (1979-91).

Previous speakers include Sean Farren, a key negotiator in efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland; Edwina Gately, a Catholic laywoman who founded a safe haven for prostitutes in Chicago; U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.; the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church; feminist Islamic scholar Amina Wadud; Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers; and United Methodist pastor and award-winning interfaith dialogue, race relations, and Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice leader, The Rev. Dr. Mouzon Biggs.