In an earlier post, “PC The*logy” I introduced and linked to a piece entitled, “Feminist Studies in Religion and The*logy In-Between Nationalism and Globalization.” The article gives you some idea of what Alice Walker hath wrought with her distinction between “womanism” and “feminism,” and also gives you a sense of the politically-charged atmosphere at the prestigious divinity schools out of which Jeremiah Wright’s theology flows. Again, I’ve provided an introductory explanation of this text in a post below. Here are some excerpts from the article itself:

Patriotic nationalism is the most powerful discourse of the day, as the flags on cars and houses and the pins and bumper stickers “in support of our troops” amply document…. However, in feminist the*logy and studies in religion, nationalism as the systemic kyriarchal structure that determines all of our discourses remains mostly unmentioned and unexplored. Like maleness, whiteness, or Christianness, nationalism remains invisible and unconscious for those who inhabit the privileged kyriarchal position…. Hence, it is more than troubling that feminist discourses in religion have for the most part not yet critically problematized American capitalist nationalism as a structure of domination. We have not critically asked how such imperial “Americanness” shapes our discourses, be they womanist, mujerista, Latina, black, or white feminist. Is it sufficient to name and reflect critically on our racial, sexual, gender, and class social-religious locations while at the same time leaving out our nationalist determinedness? To begin the conversation on the political and cultural impact of Americanness and U.S. nationalism, I will reflect on my own experience…. I reflect here on Americanness and U.S. nationalism from the perspective of a “resident alien.” Because I have not been able to bring myself either to swear the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag or to claim American slavery and Native American genocide as my own history and heritage, I have not yet chosen to become a naturalized American citizen. Neither am I able to subscribe to the fervent patriotism that supports the occupation of Iraq or the interference in the governments of Haiti and other Latin American states…. The present militaristic rhetoric of the “war” against terrorism has many echoes within my German history. The transition from the Weimar Republic to the full-fledged exercise of Nazi power was in some ways quite different but still shared many characteristics that were jarringly similar to the post–9/11 situation in the United States…. Mason’s analysis of the kyriarchal rhetorical strategies of the pro-life movement in the United States convincingly shows how the New Right has radically reshaped the framework of public discourse on the body, wo/men’s rights, and family. I am often asked why I have named my feminist the*logical approach as a critical rather than a white German feminist the*logy. There is no question that my arguments are shaped by German history and politics. Yet to denote my feminist the*logical approach as German would mean to reify programmatically national experience as essential and central to my feminist discourse. Hence, I cannot adopt a feminist discourse that remains oblivious to the fact that “special nature or culture” theories are always functioning as antidemocratic “othering” discourses that can be used to legitimate nationalism and war. Instead, what seems to be called for at this moment of capitalist globalization under nationalist American hegemony is a transnational articulation and organization of feminist the*logy and studies in religion. Such a transnational approach can critically investigate the unintended imbrication of feminist studies in religion in nationalist discourses and can critically point out the contributions of kyriarchal religions to exclusivist nationalism and dangerous militarism.