2021 AAR Presidential Address: "Religion, Inequality and the Will 'to Stop'"

Rising social inequality defines much of our world today, evidenced not only by the disproportionate effects of poverty and climate change but also by the uneven impact of the global pandemic on resourced and under-resourced communities. As scholars, we understand that religion often plays the role of both hero and villain in our efforts to live justly in the world. Navigating the lived effects of global supremacies can motivate collective action or forms of existential denial that reproduce the status quo. This address asks not what religion can help us do but rather what religion might help us cease to do, "to Stop" and re-evaluate.