"This Is the Year": Narratives of Structural Evil

The 2016 American presidential campaign raised awareness of structural evil among segments of the population whose privilege has protected this knowledge, both making them self-conscious of their vulnerability as persons and revealing the role that the liberal narrative of progress has played in establishing and perpetuating structural evil. This moment of opportunity to shift both the political and the theological narrative demands liberal conversion: overcoming the temptations of anger, denial, and paralysis to embrace solidarity in vulnerability and power. An early liberationist narrative that embraces utopian praxis rather than utopian ideology is both more theologically honest and more effective than the liberal narrative of progress.