Since the rise of the military coup on February 1, 2021, citizens from the rural villages and urban cities have continued to launch everyday resistance against the politics of the military coup and Buddhist nationalism.

What has motivated this uprising movement in Myanmar, particularly among young people? How has this resistance addressed Buddhist nationalism and reconciled the religious and ethnic divides in Burmese politics? Is there a unifying vision of democracy amidst the religious and ethnic diversity? How does the role of the church and the academy look like? How do Burmese Christians read Rom. 13:1-7 in the face of political dictatorship? What kind of “public theology” needs to be reimagined and performed in such concrete situations?

Seeing himself as an academic, advocate, and activist, Prof. Moe will share his firsthand experience of Buddhist nationalism, his insights into the politics of democracy movement, and his expertise in reimagining a public theology of religions, resistance, and reconciliation for three different communities—grassroots church, academy, and public society. Food will be served!

David Thang Moe (PhD) is Rice Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University. At Yale, he taches some courses on “religion, politics, and identity in Asia,” “religion, conflict, and reconciliation in Southeast Asia,” Christian-Buddhist Engagement,” and others. He has published over 70 scholarly articles, and currently working on a book project about Asian public theology of religions and reconciliation. His research topics emphasize public theology of religions, Buddhist nationalism, subaltern politics of resistance, ethnic reconciliation, and Christian-Buddhist engagement in Southeast Asia. Moreover, he is a public featured speaker about the Myanmar politics of Buddhist nationalism at some leading universities across the world, including—Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, Princeton, Boston, NYU, George Washington University, Toronto, Australian National University, Oxford, Cambridge, Hamburg, National University of Singapore, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Yonsei, and others. He also met some U.S. Senators to advocate for Myanmar’s democracy movement. He is a member of American Academy of Religion; Society of Biblical Literature; Association for Asian Studies; New York Southeast Asia Network; and Global Network for Public Theology.