Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology and Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies at the Divinity School and the Graduate Program of Religion at Vanderbilt University. He is also the Founding Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School (www.religionandjustice.org).
Previously he was the Wendland-Cook Endowed Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He received an M.Div. from the TheologischeHochschule Reutlingen, Germany, a Th.M. from Duke Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in religion and ethics from Duke University.
For over three decades Rieger has worked to bring together the study of theology and religion and the movements for liberation and justice that mark our age. His work addresses the relation of theology and public life, reflecting on the use and misuse of power in religion, culture, politics, and economics. He works closely with popular movements and theologies all over the world. His constructive work in theology draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary traditions, with attention to manifestations of the divine in the pressures of everyday life of people, planet, and religion.
Author and editor of 27 books and over 210 academic articles, his monographs include Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity (2022), Jesus vs. Caesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God (2018), No Religion but Social Religion: Liberating Wesleyan Theology (2018), Unified We are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities (with Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger, 2016), Faith on the Road: A Short Theology of Travel and Justice (2015), Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude (with Kwok Pui-lan, 2012), Grace under Pressure: Negotiating the Heart of the Methodist Traditions (2011), Globalization and Theology(2010), No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, and the Future (2009), Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (2007), and God and the Excluded: Visions and Blindspots in Contemporary Theology (2001). His works have been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Croatian, German, Malayalam, Korean, and Chinese.
Rieger is editor and co-editor of the three academic book series: “New Approaches to Religion and Power” (Palgrave Macmillan Publishers); “Religion in the Modern World,” with Professor Kwok Pui-lan(Bloomsbury); and “Intersectional Challenges in the Capitalocene,” with Dr. Aaron Stauffer (Baylor University Press).
Rieger has lectured throughout the United States as well as internationally, including presentations in 34 countries, among themArgentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Russia, China, Korea, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Israel, and Palestine.
He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and a member of the American Academy of Religion, the European Academy of Religion, and the American Theological Society.
Website: www.joergrieger.com