Jamie Pitts
I teach theology and history at AMBS, with an emphasis on global Anabaptist traditions past and present. My current research interests include theological method, pneumatology, baptism, gender/sexuality, and postcolonial mission.
I am also the director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies (www.ambs.edu/IMS) and the editor of Anabaptist Witness, a journal of Anabaptist missiology (www.anabaptistwitness.org).
I graduated from New College, Edinburgh, in 2011 after writing a thesis under David Fergusson on J. H. Yoder (see book section). At New College I was also involved with the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.
I am also the director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies (www.ambs.edu/IMS) and the editor of Anabaptist Witness, a journal of Anabaptist missiology (www.anabaptistwitness.org).
I graduated from New College, Edinburgh, in 2011 after writing a thesis under David Fergusson on J. H. Yoder (see book section). At New College I was also involved with the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.
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Books by Jamie Pitts
1997. Although there is much disagreement, a broad consensus is forming that his
theology was, on the one hand, focused on the social and political meaning of the
New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ and, on the other hand, sociologically
reductive, hermeneutically tendentious, and ecclesiologically ambiguous. This thesis
proposes a revision of Yoder’s theology that maintains its broadly sociological
emphasis but corrects for its apparent problems. In specific, adjustments are made to
his social theory to open it to spiritual reality, to hone its analytical approach, and to
clarify its political import. To do so his preferred framework for social criticism, the
theology of the principalities and powers, is examined in the context of his wider
work and its critics, and then synthesized with concepts from Pierre Bourdieu’s
influential reflexive sociology.
Yoder maintains that the powers, understood as social structures, are part of God’s
good creation, fallen, and now being redeemed through their subjection to the risen
Lord Christ. Bourdieu’s fundamental sociological concepts--habitus, capital, and
field--enable an interpretation of the powers as dynamically constituted by their
relations to the triune God and to personal dispositions. His treatment of social
reproduction and freedom furthermore facilitate a construal of choice as a divinely
gifted, sociologically mediated freedom for obedience to God. The sinful restriction
of this freedom is read in light of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, which
recognizes the ambiguity of violence without thereby identifying any form of killing
as nonviolent. Violence and other phenomena can be investigated by a reflexive,
dialogical, and empirically rigorous comparison with the life of Christ. The church’s
spiritual participation in the redemption of the violent powers is conceptualized in
Bourdieusian terms as a critical legitimation of other political and cultural fields
made possible through autonomy from those fields. Christian social distinctiveness
moreover has universal meaning because it is oriented towards the worship of God
and so radically welcoming of others; and this sociological universality is distinctive
because it is the result of a particular history of social struggles with and for God.
These revisions to Yoder’s theology of the principalities and powers produce a
sociological theology that is material and spiritual, critical and dialogical,
and particular and universal. By incorporating these revisions, Yoder’s work can
continue to support those who seek peace in a world riven by violence.""
REVIEWS
Samuel Escobar in Latin American Journal of Theology: http://bit.ly/2HTNFaW
David Cramer in Conrad Grebel Review: https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/sites/ca.grebel/files/uploads/files/br1.pdf
Anthony Siegrist in Mennonite Quarterly Review: https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/75/2015/06/7Book-Reviews09032016final.pdf
Lloyd Pietersen in Anabaptism Today: https://anabaptismtoday.co.uk/index.php/home/article/view/136
Papers by Jamie Pitts
In Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Christian Ethics: Normative Dimensions (Palgrave Macmillan), edited by Bharat Ranganathan and Derek Woodard-Lehman, 17–43.
Published in The Mennonite Quarterly Review 89, no. 1 (January 2015): 153–70
Reviews by Jamie Pitts
1997. Although there is much disagreement, a broad consensus is forming that his
theology was, on the one hand, focused on the social and political meaning of the
New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ and, on the other hand, sociologically
reductive, hermeneutically tendentious, and ecclesiologically ambiguous. This thesis
proposes a revision of Yoder’s theology that maintains its broadly sociological
emphasis but corrects for its apparent problems. In specific, adjustments are made to
his social theory to open it to spiritual reality, to hone its analytical approach, and to
clarify its political import. To do so his preferred framework for social criticism, the
theology of the principalities and powers, is examined in the context of his wider
work and its critics, and then synthesized with concepts from Pierre Bourdieu’s
influential reflexive sociology.
Yoder maintains that the powers, understood as social structures, are part of God’s
good creation, fallen, and now being redeemed through their subjection to the risen
Lord Christ. Bourdieu’s fundamental sociological concepts--habitus, capital, and
field--enable an interpretation of the powers as dynamically constituted by their
relations to the triune God and to personal dispositions. His treatment of social
reproduction and freedom furthermore facilitate a construal of choice as a divinely
gifted, sociologically mediated freedom for obedience to God. The sinful restriction
of this freedom is read in light of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, which
recognizes the ambiguity of violence without thereby identifying any form of killing
as nonviolent. Violence and other phenomena can be investigated by a reflexive,
dialogical, and empirically rigorous comparison with the life of Christ. The church’s
spiritual participation in the redemption of the violent powers is conceptualized in
Bourdieusian terms as a critical legitimation of other political and cultural fields
made possible through autonomy from those fields. Christian social distinctiveness
moreover has universal meaning because it is oriented towards the worship of God
and so radically welcoming of others; and this sociological universality is distinctive
because it is the result of a particular history of social struggles with and for God.
These revisions to Yoder’s theology of the principalities and powers produce a
sociological theology that is material and spiritual, critical and dialogical,
and particular and universal. By incorporating these revisions, Yoder’s work can
continue to support those who seek peace in a world riven by violence.""
REVIEWS
Samuel Escobar in Latin American Journal of Theology: http://bit.ly/2HTNFaW
David Cramer in Conrad Grebel Review: https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/sites/ca.grebel/files/uploads/files/br1.pdf
Anthony Siegrist in Mennonite Quarterly Review: https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/75/2015/06/7Book-Reviews09032016final.pdf
Lloyd Pietersen in Anabaptism Today: https://anabaptismtoday.co.uk/index.php/home/article/view/136
In Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Christian Ethics: Normative Dimensions (Palgrave Macmillan), edited by Bharat Ranganathan and Derek Woodard-Lehman, 17–43.
Published in The Mennonite Quarterly Review 89, no. 1 (January 2015): 153–70
Mission has been central to the Anabaptist movement from its beginning in the sixteenth century to its global presence today. This engagement in God’s mission to and for the world continues to be facilitated by and stretched through dialogical missiological thinking and reflection. To these ends, we hope the relaunch of the journal Anabaptist Witness, previously known as Mission Focus, will drive the continuous evolution of the field of missiology, providing a place for a global Anabaptist and Mennonite dialogue on key issues facing the church in mission.
This article explores several equivocations in the relationship between state healthcare workers and the Pehuenche population in southern Chile. In particular, it focuses on radical differences in understanding the body, personhood, sleeping and dreaming. In Alto Bío Bío, Chile, while healthcare workers diagnose their Pehuenche patients with ‘sleep disorders’ and prescribe them sleep-inducing psychotropic drugs, some Pehuenche persons fear that by preventing them from waking up, the drugs will render them unable to escape a fatal attack by evil spirits. The sleeping pills, therefore, enact understandings of the body, personhood, sleeping and dreaming that are not at all univocal. This enactment generates a controversy-inducing ‘ontological disorder’ based in an ‘uncontrolled equivocation’, as described by the anthropologist Viveiros de Castro, in which interlocutors are not speaking about the same thing, but they are not aware of this. In more general terms, the article reflects on the application of technologies premised on multicultural ideology (one nature, many cultures) in contexts where alterity is radically manifested and where the limits of the actors’ different conceptions of personhood appear in all their ontological splendour.
on this imagery to repudiate the traditional Christian doctrine of salvation on the grounds that a male savior can only save men. Alternatively, Jesus has been portrayed as the embodiment
of a feminist-friendly masculinity or as paradigmatically combining masculine and feminine traits in religious and non-religious discourses alike. The incorporation of critical gender theory into biblical studies, religious studies and theology has led to an outpouring of
scholarship on the topic, and recent writings variously interpret (representations of) Jesus as gender queer or hypermasculine or otherwise performing and presenting gender in notable
ways.
In this special issue of Religion and Gender the guest editors invite contributions that explore different facets of Jesus’ gender and/or puts the figure of Jesus into conversation with discourses about gender. Papers might, for instance, look at the presentation of Jesus as male
and/or masculine in sacred texts (e.g., the New Testament or the Qur’an), investigate the reception history of Jesus’ masculinity, compare Jesus qua masculine protagonist or “hero” with other religious figures, study the masculine character of Jesus’ identity as conceived of
within different religious traditions or world views (e.g., as savior, messiah, prophet, guru, Bodhisattva, or philosopher), or focus on interpretations and representations of Jesus “beyond masculinity,” e.g., in female or transgender ones. This list of topics is indicative, and
contributions are invited from a variety of fields, religious traditions and beyond, and theoretical and methodological approaches. We specifically welcome contributions that foreground intersectionality, examining Jesus’ gender with other categories and perspectives
such as embodiment, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and postcoloniality.