How Theological is Political Theology? The Case of Twentieth-Century American Protestantism

ABSTRACT

How theological is political theology? Twentieth century American Protestantism illustrates that the answer depends on more than the extent to which a political theology is theological. For example, Walter Rauschenbusch and subsequent emancipatory political theologians understand theology's political significance very differently than John Howard Yoder and other political theologians influenced by the Radical Reformation. Nevertheless, both groups conceive the Christian gospel as a politics and so concur that Christian theology is essentially political. By contrast, Reinhold Niebuhr interpreted the gospel as disclosure of God's mercy and therefore denied that Christian theology is primarily a politics--for society or the church. Hence, although all three of these political theologies are thoroughly theological, they are not political in the same manner or for the same reasons. Accordingly, in addition to quantitative considerations, ascertaining theology's place in political theology involves discerning how a political theology is theological and why a theology is political.     

‘An Angel Directs the Storm’: The Religious Politics of American Neoconservatism

Abstract

In his inaugural speech, President George W. Bush suggested that the mission of America to spread freedom and democracy in the world is a divinely authored mission. The intention first announced in Bush's inaugural to globalize an American Christian vision of freedom and democracy, and of free market capitalism, reflects the theological underpinnings of the neo-conservativism of the Bush administration. In this article I trace the remarkable continuities between the neo-conservative political theology of Bush and his acolytes and more mainstream Niebuhrian approaches to democracy and the ‘manifest destiny’ of America. I then subject the emergence of an American imperium, and the political theology associated with it, to a critique in dialogue with early Christian critics of Roman Empire, and with the Christian pacifist tradition as recently retrieved by North American theological ethicists John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.     

The Christian Socialist Movement in Scotland C. 1850–1930

Abstract

This essay reads Politics and Passion as a philosophical complement to theological projects that see no innate conflict between Christianity and liberalism and considers the significance of Waltzer's "more egalitarian liberalism" from the perspective of one who believes there to be compelling theological, ethical and political grounds for "making common cause" with liberalism. Liberal human rights discourse provides the lens through which this case is argued. This essay endorses the revisions proposed in Politics and Passion and suggests that developments in human rights discourse since the early twentieth century allows one to regard this discourse as a still unfinished version of Waltzer's more egalitarian liberalism. I argue that it is precisely because of the pressures identified by Waltzer that a thicker, more contextually varied conceptualization of rights has been generated. Moreover, when human rights language is understood as a discourse of egalitarian rather than emancipatory liberalism, then the claims that it is irredeemably secular, individualistic and voluntaristic, and that its adoption will result in the marginalization of Christian narrative traditions, are no longer tenable.     

From Where Does the Red Tory Speak? Phillip Blond,Theology and Public Discourse

Abstract

This article examines the role of theology in the public discourse of Phillip Blond. For one whose professional and academic training has been in Christian theology, Blond appears surprisingly reluctant to declare the theological roots of his political convictions. It is possible that this is an entirely pragmatic strategy, concerned not to alienate a largely secular audience, although this may be self-defeating if critics suspect some kind of sleight of hand. Yet it also fails to identify the sources of the traditions and practices which will actually inform a renewed political and cultural economy of virtue. Blond's diffidence towards declaring his theological stance contrasts with other traditions such as public theology, which argues that coherent and convincing Christian speech in public must always be prepared to put itself to the test of public scrutiny. Such transparency and accountability implies a respect for, but not necessarily a capitulation to, the insights of secular reason.     

‘Global Capitalism’ vs ‘End of Socialism’: Crux Theologica? Engaging Liberation Theology and Theological Postliberalism

Abstract

This article offers a critical assessment of two political theologies: liberation theology and theological postliberalism, as represented by the writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez and John Milbank. Paying particular attention to the concepts of society and Church, a partial defence of liberation theology is offered in tandem with a critical affirmation of some aspects of postliberal political theology. The discussion is then contextualized historically in relation to the ‘victory’ of global capitalism and the ‘end’ of socialism. I conclude that the renewal of political theology in the twenty-first century will aim to overcome the ironic crux theologica of this article's title.     

Liberation Theology and "Democratic Futures" (By way of Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher)

Abstract

To engage the question of democratic futures, this essay considers Christian liberation theologies. It pursues an interpretative, constructive, and political agenda. Interpretatively, it identifies parallels between the methods and claims of liberation theologians and two classical theologians: Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth. Constructively, it suggests ways in which liberationist thought might improve theology in its Schleiermacherian and Barthian modes. Politically, it proposes that liberation theology— a mode of reflection both continuous with and constructively critical of classical theological outlooks— be viewed as a vanguard discourse that could dynamize the project of radical democracy     

Connolly's Mysterious Trinity Machine: A Panentheistic Reading

Abstract

Drawing Connolly's work into a conversation with Christian theology of a feminist and process persuasion, this article explores and builds upon the way in which Connolly offers a third way between the theistic certainties of George Bush's "Christian America" and the crass secularism of those who are and were appalled by the latter's religious fundamentalism. Discerning a secret Trinitarian structure in Connolly's immanent naturalism, though not the Father, Son and Ghost, the article explores the potentials for developing a counter-apocalyptic strategy for political theology that can counter fundamentalist drives and lay the basis for releasing new energies of earthly becoming.     

On Ambivalence and (Anti-)Normativity (or,Theology as a Way of Life?)

ABSTRACT

This essay argues that queer theory’s ongoing reflection about its own disciplinary identity yields insights that could benefit contemporary political theology. Exploring how internal discussions and debates on the queerness of queer theory can serve as an instructive analogy for similar conversations about the “theologicalness” of political theology, this essay proposes two potential insights that can be gleaned. First, political theology should continue to draw on and do theology, but it should not worry about venturing outside the bounds of what is presumed to be the theological. Theological reflection develops from, and also engenders, communicative and critical expressions, which are deeply important theological modes of political theology, central to its identity even as they appear at times to broaden or stray from it. Second, political theology should look more to politics, broadly understood as the various ways of ordering human life and the utilization and manifestation of power in that structuring, for the theology it offers. In these ways and more, this essay concludes, political theology, like queer theory, is both theory and praxis, a body of knowledge and way of life.     

God’s Sovereign Word

Abstract

Much political theory is funded by a purportedly “theological” notion of sovereignty. This essay re-reads and thereby deconstructs such a view. The argument presented herein is that certain political theorists—notably Schmitt, Bodin, and Hobbes—uncritically appropriate a “theological” notion of sovereignty as an analogy for political sovereignty. Engaging the work of Karl Barth, this essay undercuts such analogizing tendencies, contending that the “theological” superstructure on which so-called political theology is constructed is not theological but anthropological. Barth’s reconfiguration of theology, grounded not on natural law or reason, but on God’s self-revelation of Godself in Jesus Christ, offers a very different terminus a quem for political theology.     

Editorial: Social Spirituality: Monastic Cell or Hectic Street?

Abstract

What makes theology political? Is it the social location of the author, the sources drawn upon, or the content of the argument? Each of these three possibilities is theologically significant, but a little reflection proves none of them decisive in claiming the adjective ‘political’ for a theology. The ‘material production’ of theological works cannot, by itself, render one theology political and another apolitical; for all theological works share a similar ‘social location’ given the similar socio-economic reality of publishing. Whether or not theology is political, or adequately political, cannot finally be determined by material production, the authors' social location or the content of the argument per se. Such forms of apodictic reasoning cannot distinguish apolitical from political theology. It can only be a function of practical reasoning. It alone can advance the current stalemate among persons that theology should be characterized as ‘church’, ‘confessional’, ‘sectarian’, ‘liberatory’, ‘political’ or ‘public’. I argue that the best we can do to adjudicate these differences is to engage in, as Charles Taylor has so aptly put it, practical ad hominem arguments.     

Circling the Square: Moving between Practical Politics and Eschatological Performance

Abstract

The article explores some dilemmas of current Western liberal democratic politics. It proposes that a necessary tension be held between practical politics and radical critique. It reviews the Christian prophetic tradition as a contribution towards doing that and argues for ‘eschatological performance’ as an appropriate way of re-reading this tradition in a contemporary pluralistic context. The article suggests that, to be useful politically, ‘prophetic imagination’ must retain its theological identity and questioning. It critiques the realist/non-realist philosophical framework for doing this, and suggests how responsibly prophetic political theology can be both fluid and critically realist in its outlook.     

Normative Political Theology as Intensified Critique

ABSTRACT

Some theorists are suspicious of normative political theology because they believe it undermines critical rationality. In my view, these theorists neglect theological traditions that resist dogmatism through intensified critique. Because authoritarian dogma is not unique to religion, theology offers sophisticated techniques that may be useful for those who are not themselves religious. A normative theology that intensifies critique represents a valuable resource for political reflection, and not only for the faithful.     

A Response to the Conference

Abstract

The question discussed in this article is whether Christian theology should influence contemporary political debates. The topic is discussed through two practical case studies: (1) technological advances in genetic engineering and (2) the just war tradition and the use of force. In the first discussion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's unfinished Ethics is employed to demonstrate the importance of substantial theological categories to resist a reductionist technological utilitarian discourse about the body. Intrinsic human dignity is essentially God-given. In the second, Aquinas and Augustine add theological complexity and substance to secular discussions of war and peace. Human caring is more than the protection of the sovereign state. A peace that is only the absence of war can disguise many harmful situations. In conclusion, theological discussion brings nuance, richness and depth to secular political debates so long as theologians go beyond simplistic contributions such as ‘God demands’ or ‘The Bible forbids’.     

Aiming for a Just Society

Abstract

I think it is time that theologians, as well as the Church at large, speak up and speak to the social injustice we are faced with because of the economical collapse in Iceland in autumn 2008. If we think theology (i.e. the discourse about God) does not happen in a vacuum, if we think it is affected by, and is also affecting its context, then theology must have a part to play in the political discourse. If we think everything related to our human condition is affecting our understanding and our talk about God, then all theology has to be political in the most inclusive sense of the word. In this article the intention is to test major theological terms against the situation we are faced with in our society, which is recovering from an economic collapse. Thus the question: to what extent are key theological terms useful when we need to address the outgrowth of social injustice and self-inflicted economical catastrophe?     

The Unevenness of Political Theology

ABSTRACT

Those who agree that Carl Schmitt was correct to prefer to political theology to liberalism nonetheless need to develop an account of how an authority structure can sustain itself without imposing an ideology on those over whom it rules. This article suggests that one possibility forward is found in the mystical political theology of Jacob Taubes's 1955 essay “On The Symbolic Order of Modern Democracy,” since that essay posits a political body in which sovereignty is distributed, without forcing that distribution in an arbitrary manner.     

Plurality and Globalization: The Challenge of Economics to Social Theology

Abstract

The phenomenon of the global market economy, drawing as it does on ‘liberal’ concepts of plurality and the transcending of tradition, offers a serious challenge to social theology. Neither liberal nor communitarian (confessional) approaches are able to give adequate accounts of two fundamental economic problematics: scarcity and interrelatedness. Liberal approaches have tended to subordinate theological insights to secular narratives in ways which obscure distinctive contributions from the Christian tradition. Confessional approaches have not handled finitude or translatability between communities and traditions with sufficient subtlety. This article argues that an adequate social theology on the economy will bridge liberal and communitarian approaches in ways which are cognisant of the particularity of traditions yet open to encounter between them, and, drawing on MacIntyre, Shanks and Selby, among others, sketches the outlines of such a dialogic traditionalism.     

Hobbes as Political Theologian

Abstract

Although an orphaned subject among scholars of religion, the theology of Thomas Hobbes is now among the most contested issues in Hobbes studies and the study of early liberal political theory. This essay maps the state of the question and offers a theological appraisal of it. In so doing it attempts to critique a leading reading of Hobbes’s Leviathan by highlighting its attack on civil religion and endorsement of a biblical political theology. The relationship between Hobbes’s political and theological views in Leviathan also receives sustained attention.     

Repetition in the work of a Samoan Christian theologian: Or,what does it mean to speak of the Perfect Pig of God?

ABSTRACT

The Samoan Christian theologian Ama'amalele Tofaeono draws on diverse intellectual sources to articulate an ecological theology both distinctively Samoan and self-consciously Oceanic. I examine Tofaeono’s writings through the lens of recent work in linguistic anthropology on repetition and replication. By paying close attention to the ways texts and their original contexts, authorship, and intentions can be brought forward into new contexts, such anthropological work offers a useful perspective on Tofaeono’s theological arguments about creation and salvation. Tofaeono frames creation and salvation as actions that are necessarily ongoing—matters of repetition rather than rupture, a kind of continuity that depends not on fundamental durability but on repeated reengagement. An appreciation of Tofaeono’s articulation of time and repetition can in turn illuminate the anthropological study of social transformation and help develop productive interdisciplinary dialogue between anthropology and theology.     

Berlinian Pluralism and Abrahamic Monotheism

This article examines the longstanding suspicion that value-pluralism is intrinsically incompatible with monotheistic commitment, an objection that threatens to undermine the resurgence of pluralist ideas in different denominational strands of contemporary Christian political theology. Since value-pluralism is often taken to be closely wedded to the logic of political liberalism, the charge of incompatibility carries a special force. For, taken together, the two claims imply that monotheistic commitment sits uneasily alongside political liberalism. Having set out the version of value-pluralism expounded in the thought of its most influential contemporary advocate, the article raises three objections to the doctrine. It then examines ways to refine it before concluding that there is no reason to suppose that, so refined, it is intrinsically incompatible with monotheistic commitment.     

"You turn if you want to": The Questions a Pragmatic Political Theology Might Ask of Speculative Realism

Abstract

The question pursued in this article is what might a pragmatic (in the Rortyan sense) political theology ask speculative realists to contribute to its analyses and discussions. The article begins by discussing the potential reservations political theologians might have in employing Richard Rorty as a dialogue partner. It then considers the insights from Rorty that political theologians might value, namely a respect for Western democracy and pluralism, the desire to reform capitalism, and a deeper understanding of the relationship between Christianity and liberalism. These insights are discussed in dialogue with the radical orthodoxy of John Milbank. It is argued that Milbank and Rorty share post-foundational philosophical assumptions but arrive at different political conclusions with regard to democracy and capitalism. The paper makes the case for a pragmatic valuing of democracy and capitalism and a recognition of their Christian heritage.