May Day Podcast: COVID-19 and the Logic of Downturn, with Joerg Rieger

Photo Credit: Payton Høegh

To honor May Day, and workers everywhere, Joerg Rieger, Founder and Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice, sat down with Faith and Reason 360, a podcast of the D.L. Dykes Foundation.

Faith And Reason® creates a space for dialogue that challenges faith and spirituality to act for justice in our world.

Rieger talks about why oppressed people have been hit hardest with COVID-19 and why people of faith and theologians should care. Joerg’s theory of the logic of downturn in regard to the broken system in the United States asks, "What if we thought about God from this perspective from the bottom up, or the perspective of an essential worker? How are we going to get out of this?"

This situation becomes an opportunity to improve how we think about who has the power, and we’re realizing there’s a lot more power at the bottom with essential workers. If we think about God as a working person, then we give working class people more power and find hope.