Sunder John Boopalan

Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies

Program(s): Biblical and Theological Studies

Phone: 204.487.3300 x626

Office: F323

John was born in Pondicherry, a former French colony and costal city, and spent his early years in India. After six years in the United Arab Emirates, he joined his larger family in Bangalore (now Bengaluru) city in Karnataka, India. He spent a decade in the United States where he also taught as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Episcopal Divinity School.

As an interdisciplinary writer and researcher, John's expertise is in the areas of political theologies and ethics, with personal emphases in the areas of Dalit Christianity (click here to hear an oral history of his background) and redress of structural or systemic wrongs. John's classes, like his written work, approach theological themes through interdisciplinary analyses with insights from multiple disciplines, including cultural theory and ethnography. John encourages students to be inquisitive about subtexts behind presenting issues and cultivate a deep curiosity regarding the role of social, cultural, and religious conditions that influence human desire and action.

John combines research and teaching with public theological thinking with various audiences, academic and popular. One example of such engagement includes his role as Christ Seminar Fellow (Westar Institute), a publicly engaged scholarship enterprise with leading scholars in the field to explore ‘Christologies of the People.’ Or, listen to his CBC interview on the "rapture." Or, perhaps you are interested in what he has to say about the Psalms in the Psalms for the Spirit podcast.

Learning, teaching, and writing, for John, are more than intellectual pursuits, and part of a larger calling to be part of an embodied transformation of self and world. Having lived in the midst of various sorts of differences, John recognizes the challenges they present and, more importantly, believes in the promises they offer for bringing people together.

John's first book establishes some preconditions for hospitality, driven by the realization that human persons continue to live under the shadow of a past that has left communities polarized by hostile identity-based differences. His current book project revisits baptism as an intersectional identity-forming practice that can move Christians towards hospitality. John is also working on a children's book based on the biblical story of Ruth and is always interested to hear from churches to consider together how to bring biblical plots and stories alive for children.

John speaks four Indian languages. He loves cooking and believes in the wonder working power of God, food, and laughter. John is an ordained minister in the Progressive Baptist tradition and was involved in pastoral ministry for over three years before joining CMU.

Education

PhD Religion and Society, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2016; ThM (Systematic Theology) Princeton Theological Seminary, 2011; BD (MDiv equivalent ) United Theological College, 2009; BSc St. Joseph’s College, 2004

Work in Detail

Teaching

Sample Courses

Scripture as Dialogue
Loss and Love
Laugh at the Devil: Laughter, Resistance, and Solidarity
Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in the Pauline Letters
Reading the Bible as a Witness to Liberation
Religious Traditions of the World
Eat, Love, Reflect
Positive Masculinities
Faiths Seeking Justice

Research

Peer Reviewed Books

2017 Memory, Grief, and Agency: A Political Theological Account of Wrongs and Rites. New Approaches to Religion and Power. Palgrave Macmillan.

Select Peer Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

2025 "'Rooted in the Soil': Defining Dalitness as an Ethic and Worldview," Cultural Studies, October 26, 2025, 1–24. Co-authored with Shaista Patel. Available via open-access.

2024 "Ethnography and Crucified Bodies: A Liberationist-Incarnational Approach." Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics, edited by Christian Batalden Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen, T&T Clark, 2024. 95–110. Co-authored with Indigenous Mizo theologian, RC Jongte.

2024 "Reckoning with Violent Transpacific Legacies: The Impact of Racism and Casteism." In Transpacific Political Theology: Perspectives, Paradigms, Proposals, ed., Kwok Pui-lan. Baylor University Press. 21-36.

2023 "Religion and the Production of Affect in Caste-Based Societies." In Global Visions of Violence, eds. Jason Bruner and David Kirkpatrick. Rutgers University Press. 142-158.

2022 "Embodying Transnational Christian-Muslim Solidarities and India and Canada." In World Christianity and Interfaith Relations, ed. Richard Fox Young. World Christianity and Public Religion Series. Augsburg-Fortress. 203-212.

2021 "Heterogeneity's Midwifery Role in Identity Transformation." In World Christianity, Urbanization, and Identity, eds. Raimundo Barreto, Moses Biney, and Kenneth Ngwa. World Christianity and Public Religion Series. Fortress Press.

2021 "Understanding Hindu-Christian Relations Through the Lens of Caste." In Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations. Edited by Chad Bauman and Michelle Voss Roberts. Routledge.

2020 "Saving the World through Ethnography." In Journal of World Christianity 10/1: 9-22.

Web-Based Publications

See essays at the online compendium Political Theology Network

2021 "Injustices of Ableism and Ageism During the Pandemic: A Call for Intergenerational Solidarity." In Vision 22/1 (2021): 52-59. https://press.palni.org/ojs/index.php/vision.

2017 "Role of Men in Gender Justice." In Consensus: A Canadian Journal of Public Theology, 38/2: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol38/iss2/8.

Select Book Reviews

2024 A Political Theology of Vulnerability. By Stålsett, Sturla J. Brill, 2023. In Reading Religion.

2020 Spirituality, Community, and Race Consciousness in Adult Higher Education: Breaking the Cycle of Racialization. By Westbrook, Timothy Paul. Routledge, 2017. In Reflective Teaching.

2018 How Youth Ministry Can Change Theological Education -- If We Let It. Edited by Kenda Creasy Dean and Christy Lang Hearlson. William B. Eerdmans, 2016. In Reflective Teaching.

2018 Teaching with Tenderness: Toward an Embodied Practice. By Thompson, Becky. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017. In Reflective Teaching.

2015 Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India. By Chad M. Bauman. Oxford University Press, 2015. In Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 37/2: 284-286.

2015 Black Prophetic Fire. By Cornel West and Christa Buschendorf. Beacon Press, 2014. In The Arts in Religious & Theological Studies 26/2: 41-42.