The opening of the psalter: A study in Jewish Theology

A number of Jewish and Christian sources from Antiquity into the Middle Ages testify to a tradition which counts Psalms 1 and 2 as one unit or views them as belonging closely together. A few modern scholars have emphasized elements (of language and content) that connect Psalms 1 and 2, but the scholarly majority has understood these two psalms as having very different backgrounds. This article does not address the historical question of whether Psalms 1 and 2 are originally independent units. Rather, an attempt is made to bring out the thematic relationship between the texts, and to interpret Psalms 1 and 2 as forming a redactional introduction to the Psalter. The theological implications and the subtle interplay between different levels of time in both texts are explored, and a tentative dating within the Maccabean period is suggested. Psalms 1 and 2 may be understood as representing the zeal for the Mosaic tora and the eschatological Messianic expectations as two themes of major importance for understanding the Psalter.     

Theology and Democratic Futures

Abstract

The essays in this special issue of Political Theology engage in a vigorous and wide-ranging conversation between theology and theologically inspired forms of critical thought and the possible futures of democracy as an idea(l) and as a political practice. This collection seeks to provide some key coordinates for thinking through the linkages and disjunctures between the theological and the political in formulating new conceptual frameworks that obtain a critical purchase for understanding the multiple meanings of democracy in the (post)modern world. By posing the question, "What is the fate of theology in a post-theological moment?" this introductory essay focuses our attention on the contemporary configurations of intellectual and political power that animates so much of our discourse on the interrelationships between theology and politics and proceeds to provide a brief rehearsal of the essays included in this special issue.     

试论纳粹大屠杀及其对犹太民族和文明的影响

本文所说的纳粹大屠杀(Holocaust)特指希特勒法西斯对犹太人的杀戮。由于宗教、政治、经济、文化、社会等各方面的种种复杂原因及其互相交错,反犹思潮和行动早在公元前就已产生,在中世纪的欧洲更形成了系统的理论和有组织的行动。到了近代,一波接一波的反犹恶浪又在俄国和东欧肆逆,使犹太人“不仅遭到一个无权的民族所遭受的一般的经济和政治压迫,而且还遭到剥夺他们起码的公民权的压迫”。然而,与纳粹大屠杀相比,所有此前的反犹活动都显得相形见绌。     

Theology in Post-Democracy

Abstract

This essay confronts the problem of how theology is to respond to conditions of post-democracy in the United States. Building off the distinction between "politics" and "the political" in the work of Sheldon Wolin, this article asserts that his notion of "fugitive" democracy provides a useful tool to calibrate democratic engagement. The argument here identifies evangelicalism as the most historically relevant theological worldview for American politics. The analysis identifies three strands of evangelicalism: conservative, progressive and emergent. By tracing the theological foundations of each type of evangelicalism, this essay evaluates the capacity of each to speak to conditions of the fugitive in post-democracy     

Radical Political Theology

Abstract

This essay investigates the claim, advanced by a number of contributors to Theology and the Political, that the potential for political transformation requires an analogical ontology. I argue that this is not the case, and that an ontology of immanence, as found primarily in the work of Gilles Deleuze, provides an alternative and superior paradigm for political transformation. This argument is advanced by examining the manner in which immanence enables a novel approach to creation. Such immanent creation is distinct in that it departs from analogy's dependence on the transcendent as well as from capitalism's dependence on communication.     

Jewish Metropolitan Homelands

This article establishes three criteria for the identification of an ethnic homeland. First, the ethnic group in question must recognize that a particular area has a special significance for itself; it must feel "at home" in such an area. Second, the American public in general must recognize that a particular area holds special significance for a particular group. Third, the imprint of the ethnic group in question should be visible on the landscape. The article then argues that three metropolitan areas in the United States are ethnic Jewish homelands: the New York metropolitan area, with the Lower East Side as its historical heart; South Florida, with Miami Beach as its historical heart; and southern California, with Boyle Heights as its historical heart. In each of the three cases, the historical heart is no longer the principal area of Jewish settlement in the metropolitan area.     

Theology and the Origins of Conflict

Abstract

War has its origins in the clash of socially-constructed identities, interests, and norms of behavior of states and armed nonstate actors. This essay examines the economic, political, and cultural factors that contributed to the construction of such identities, interests, and norms during the Shining Path insurgency and the Peruvian government’s response in the years from 1980 to 2000. Drawing on the three levels of liberation outlined by Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, the essay then describes how theology enriches without replacing socio-political and cultural explanations of the Peruvian conflict. The practices that formed both the Shining Path and the government’s response to it can be described as social sin, whereas the Catholic Church in Peru’s commitment to truth and the creation of community solidarity became practices that, by imitating the self-giving love of Christ, helped overcome violence and build peace.