Reset the Heart

The answer may come in a searing indictment: that in an emerging cultural-religious era in which religious identity, expression, and experience are increasingly pluralistic, yet also politicized, polarizing, and racialized, Christian faith communities--even those of progressive theological persuasions--are still held under dominant cultural captivity, and fashioned by colonizing teaching strategies of "disimagination" - such that the stories (theologies) and rituals (practices) of the faith have effectively become obstacles that anesthetize moral agency and debilitate courageous action for hope and change.

This book addresses the above practical concerns with three paradigmatic questions:

1. What does it mean to educate for faith in a world marked by violence?
2. How are Christian faith communities complicit in the teaching and learning of violence?
3. What renewed practices of faith and educational leadership yield potential for the unlearning and unmaking of violence?

An organizing thesis drives the inquiry: Thinking and teaching for violence-resisting action as Christians requires an on-purpose setting of our hearts in a world that violates and harms with impunity. Against violent "disimagination"and its conscience-numbing instruments, Christian religious communities are being challenged to regenerate radical forms of prophetic, protested faith, the skills and instincts of which must be honed deliberately. This occurs through intentional and strategic forms of public consciousness raising for the sake of participation and action - an action that moves toward and is fueled by critical, insurrectional, resurrectional, hope.