Christopher A. Haw, PhD
Assistant Professor of Theology/Religious Studies
Besides having cultivated the arts of carpentry, fathering, and husband-ing, I earned my PhD in Theology and Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, my M.A. from Villanova University, and B.A. from Eastern University. While my scholarly interests concern (partly) how human evolution, violence, scapegoating, Christianity, politics, and culture work--or don't--I have also written two books. Jesus for President (2008) was on the creative nonviolence of Christian discipleship and From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart (2012) was on my journey of joining the Catholic Church while living and working for a decade amidst the rust belt apocalypse of Camden, NJ.
Teaching
Undergraduate
- T/RS 122 (Theo II)
- T/RS 231 (God and the Good Society)
- (upcoming) 20th Century Peacemakers.
- Courses taught elsewhere: War, Peace, and Revolution; Jesus: History and Myth; Contemporary Christian Spirituality; Humanities Introduction: Great Comedies; Intro to Christianity.
Research
Research Interests
- Political Theology
- Religion and Politics
- Human Evolution, Violence, and Scapegoating
- Social Theory
- "Human Evolution and the Single Victim Mechanism: Locating Girard's Hominization Hypothesis Through Literature Survey" Contagion 24 (2017): 191-234 . https://muse.jhu.edu/article/667524
- From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2012).
- with Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
- “Banned Questions About Jesus, with Chris Haw,” in Christian Piatt (ed), Banned Questions About the Bible (Atlanta, GA: Chalice Press, 2012)
- "End Prayers,” in Okoru, Enuma, Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2010).
- " Vatica n Nuclear Disarmament,” The Observer (paper and online), Nov 23, 2017 http://ndsmcobserver.com/2017/12/vatican-nuclear-disarmament/
- "A Ritual of Sincerity: A Response to ‘Worship at Willow Creek’,” America Magazine , Feb 6 th , 2014 http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/ritual-sincerity-response-worship-willow-creek
- Monotheism, Pluralism, and Apophatic Intolerance, Brown University Graduate Conference, March 16-17, 2018.
- Panelist w/ Professor of Political Science, Dr. Michael Desch, “The Pope and the Bomb,” Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Dec 5th, 2017.
- Girard at the Intersection of Analogy and Dialectic, The American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, Nov 19, 2017.
- “Rust Belt Apocalypse and the Eucharist,” The Annual Cardinal Newman Lecture, Loyola University Chicago, March 23rd, 2017.
- Respondent to Andrew McKenna’s “René Girard, Moral Injury, and Literary Knowledge,” at Loyola University’s Catholic Minds, Catholic Matters Lecture Series, Tues Nov 15th, 2016.
- “Beyond Vattimo’s Christian Atheism and Girard’s Christianity-as-Religion-Destroyer: Toward the Axial Age and a Broader Theoclasm.” Joint Conference Between the University of Chicago Divinity School and University of Notre Dame Theology Departments, Theology, Ethics, and the Death of God, at the University of Chicago, October 2016
- “Human evolution and the single victim mechanism: Locating Girard’s Hominization Hypothesis through Literature Survey.” The One By Whom Scandal Comes: Critically Engaging the Girardian Corpus, Colloquium on Violence and Religion, St. Louis University, July 2015.