The Eclipse of Eschatology: Conversing with Taubes's Messianism and the Common Body

Abstract

In this article Jacob Taubes's idea of eschatology is examined. Taubes's own understanding of eschatology has profound implications on the very expression of political theology and political practice. If politics— as a practice— assumes that time has a terminal point, than it will invariably change this practice and encumber and even neutralize political action of a common-body that gives voice to the oppressed. This article agrees with Taubes in that eschatology must announce an end to itself, which is at once a birth of a postmodern possibility of the principle of immanence in which a common-body announces its infinite possibility. The end of eschatology is the end of transcendence and the beginning of a struggle for liberating the infinite possibility of a common-body of labor.     

Intersections between philosophy and art: expressions of immanence in the seventeenth century — Spinoza and Vermeer*

ABSTRACT

Spinoza's philosophy of immanence represents a turning point that radically changed our conception of human agency and its relation to infinity. Hans Blumenberg rightly called the principle of immanence “a general hypothesis of the epoch”, a principle that applies to philosophy no less than to the sciences and arts in the seventeenth century. This article looks at Dutch paintings by drawing parallels between Spinoza's philosophy and Vermeer's work. Spinoza and Vermeer both deny a dualistic conception of the world and a hierarchical structure between inner and outer spheres. With the example of Vermeer's painting the Milkmaid, this article shows how an analysis of light and colour, time and space, reveal a vision of immanent infinity, with the human agent at its centre.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

I begin with an attempt to discern the contours of the "debate" contained in the edited volume Theology and the Political: The New Debate. While the Radical Orthodox contributors are eager to critique those outside the fold, only two authors seem to talk back to them: Kenneth Surin and Mary-Jane Rubenstein. I agree with Surin's rejection of ontological hierarchy and Rubenstein's recommendation of Nancy's notion of "being-with," and I use their arguments to critique Radical Orthodoxy's ontology and their simplistic approach to "secular" authors, respectively. Insofar as one must discuss ontology in relation to theology and the political, I propose that we must actually develop a new ontology rather than simply reassert some version of the Thomistic synthesis. Finally, I fault the relative lack of reference to actual political practice, and above all the complete absence of Latin American liberation theology, in a volume ostensibly discussing "theology and the political."     

The messiah epithet in the Hebrew Bible

Rather than a reference ''to a present, political and religious leader who is appointed by God, applied predominantly to a king, but also to a priest and occasionally a prophet'' as proposed in 1985 by the first Princeton Symposium of Judaism and Christian origins, the term 'MSH' in the Hebrew Bible is an epithet or title which functions within a literary and mythic but not an historical context. The role of the messiah as played in the Hebrew Bible is not uniquely Jewish, but functions within the symbol system of ancient Near Eastern royal ideology and functions within a theology of divine transcendence and immanence. The coherence of the mythic role of the messiah is identified in relation to concepts of messianic time, as in the functions of expiating and mediating transcendence, of maintaining creation through war against the powers of chaos and the establishment of eternal peace. David's role as messiah in the Psalter is described in his role as ideal representative of piety, and as ruler over destiny bringing the good news expressed in various forms of ''the poor man's song.'' Finally, the role of the messiah myth is integrated with utopian concepts of a new Israel.     

THE (DIS)CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE POLITICAL

The political is not given. Understood as the space in which collectives think about how they should live together, the political has existed only since the seventeenth century—according to the thesis of Elías José Palti's Archaeology of the Political. Since then, a central problem of the political, namely how transcendence can be founded on immanence, has been posed in a completely new way. Palti follows this development from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, illustrated by a few individual examples. His reading of the problem is a possible one. But aren't the political questions arising from the combination of transcendence and immanence much older? Can the political really be reduced to the period so often referred to as “modernity”? In contrast to Palti, I would like to emphasize more strongly the continuities in the field of the political—continuities that can be attached to a void, to the search for a foundation that cannot be justified. But even if one may and should argue about the thesis of the book, it proves to be above all a stimulating study and an important contribution to the understanding of the political.     

Transcendence and Apocalyptic: A Reply to Barber

Abstract

This essay takes up Dan Barber's challenge to think Christian theology non-analogically. It does so by re-affirming and re-conceiving transcendence according to a kind of apocalyptic exigence. Apocalyptic transcendence, it is argued, occurs according to a mode of action that is irreducible either to the univocal production of pure immanence, or to the analogical mediation of transcendence within immanence. Rather, apocalyptic transcendence is operative as a mode of action by which immanence is suspended and the territorial conceptions of this-worldly sovereignty are denied. Through engagement with the work of John Howard Yoder, it is argued that apocalyptic thus gives way to doxology as that mode of engaged and embodied action that alone exceeds the presumed need for effective ontological production.     

Samuel Taylor Coleridge on ideas actualized in history

ABSTRACT

Situating Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s thought on historically actualized ideas with reference to a range of classical thinkers, this article examines his intriguing philosophical theory about how ideas become progressively actualized in history. This cultural growth can be understood as contemplation-in-action, although it occurs through mainly fumbling – or else overenthusiastic – human agents. I distinguish Coleridgean first-order, transcendent ideas (such as God, infinity, the good, the soul) from second-order, historical ones (such as church, state, the constitution). It has been argued that Coleridge’s theory of ideas develops from Bacon’s inductive method for discovering laws of nature through experiment and natural law through common law. I further claim that Coleridge upholds the reality of “Forms” in science, and of rights in ethics and politics; that his later political thought is inherently more progressive than is generally admitted; and that his account differs from Schelling’s and Hegel’s respective theories by maintaining the transcendence of ideas above the immanence of their evolving historical actualizations. Coleridge’s philosophy is therefore, whether political or metaphysical, ultimately an ontological defence of the transcendence of ideas above the immanence of their progressive but imperfect actualization.     

El Roto: A political cartoonist in late capitalist Spain

ABSTRACT

Under the pseudonym of El Roto, Andrés Rábago draws editorial cartoons for El País newspaper on an almost daily basis. Unlike other cartoonists, his political satire rarely depicts real politicians or celebrities but instead focuses on social types. This technique helps him to distance himself from current events as presented by the media and signal the more general causes of political conflicts. This article explores cartoons from recent years in which El Roto represents and interprets manifestations of the economy in everyday life. I show that his editorial cartoons aim to unmask the ideological narratives that attempt to naturalize capitalism as the only possible economic system. His “ideology critique” can thus be described as a political intervention to interrupt the creation and shaping of systems of representation that legitimize this economic and cultural hegemony. This article offers a content analysis of some of El Roto's most relevant cartoons, identifying the most recurrent themes and techniques used in order to consider his position as a cartoonist in Spanish politics.     

Free Christian Speech: Plundering Foucault

Abstract

This article explores the meaning of free speech through an analysis of Michael Foucault's lectures on parrhesia in order to show how questions of freedom are bound up with questions of truth. The activity of speaking freely is a function of truth-telling rather than merely subject to regulative principles that underwrite claims of sovereignty. The Christian proclamation of the gospel extends Foucault's insights into a theological register and supplies a foil for considering some of the shortcomings of his constructive proposal. By surveying parrhesia in the New Testament, together with some attendant political implications, this article attempts to explain the political transformation enacted by those who bear witness to the gospel without sovereign benefits. The freedom of such speech, it is asserted, is irrespective of these benefits.     

In the Shade of the Oaks of Mamre: Hospitality as a Framework for Political Engagement between Christians and Muslims

Abstract

This essay is the initial sketch of a theological framework for political dialogue based on traditions of hospitality. This essay is intended to further a normative commitment to pluralism by creating a space for Christians and Muslims to engage in political dialogue on issues of governance. Using the story of Abraham and the three strangers, the essay analyzes hospitality as a possible model for interreligious political dialogue. The essay follows the narrative of the story recounted in Genesis 18 and Surah 51 of the Qur'an focusing on Abraham's greeting of the strangers as expressing a "duty of hospitality"; the "sharing of a meal" as an act of mutual vulnerability; and the gift of Isaac as exemplary of hospitality's possibility for grace and transformation. The goal is to show that a shared theological tradition could be the basis for political dialogue.     

Two AHA Sessions: The Revolutionary Mr. Kuhn and the Evolutionary Mr. Bertalanffy

Abstract

Quantitative methods of content analysis have become established in most subfields of political science, but remain relatively unutilized in studies of political theory, despite the exclusive focus of that subfield on textual sources. This article develops a variation of content analysis—termed usage analysis—and employs it to resolve a standing debate in scholarship on Cicero's political theory regarding the synonymy of the major Latin terms for the state (civitas and res publica). The resulting distinction between these concepts then informs an exposition of Cicero's ideal state not as the Roman Republic itself or the mixed constitution alone, but as a universal, everlasting political society supported by justice, a mixed constitution, and active citizenship.     

Analysing Path Dependence to Understand Divergence: Investigating Hybrid Neo-liberal Urban Transformation Processes in Turkey

Abstract

This paper explores some deeply embedded differences between urban development processes. These are revealed in a Turkish case study by systematically analysing exogenous contingent events and trajectories. The study tests the concept of path dependence as a framework for analysing urban transformation. It examines the hybrid neo-liberal urban transformation along the Levent–Maslak axis, the extension of Istanbul's CBD (central business district). Commercial property development along the Levent–Maslak axis started in the late 1960s and, since the 1990s, the axis has become the financial heart of the city (even of the country).     

Poesis and Immediacy: A Reply to Davis

Abstract

It is argued here that the Christian doctrines of Trinity and creation make imperative the notion of "mediation" as God's mode of existing in himself and toward us, as well as our mode of existence in God's grace. This is the case in Saint Thomas's account of grace, and it is also the basic configuration of Sergei Bulgakov's sophiology. Josh Davis's understanding of grace, by opting for immediacy as our mode of dependence on God, ultimately fails to give a full account of human cooperation, and in so doing establishes a competitive relation between human and divine agency.     

Against a fatal confusion: Spinoza,climate crisis and the weave of the world

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I take up the theme of Spinoza's ars vivendi in relation to its temporality; duration as the very rhythm of life. In the face of an intensifying climate crisis, our experience of the rhythm of life in the everyday and its implications for the deep time of climate futures seem increasingly out of joint. Building on Morfino's argument of the necessary relationship between ontology and history, I explore the connections between the rhythm of life and our (Western) comprehension of the climate crisis. This framing provides insights into a fatal confusion. This confusion is fueled by the chrono-topography of the modern capitalist city, its intensification of a perceived separation of daily life from bioenergetic processes; and it is amplified in object-oriented ontology, which, in its treatment of climate as a hyperobject, both accepts and reifies a split between ontology and history. I argue, in contrast, that to think of the world as multi-relational and multi-temporal provides us with tools to assess the politics of the multitude in relation to the climate crisis, to better comprehend the complexity of the conjuncture and the schematization of divergent climate futures, and to fashion a responsive and response-able ars vivendi.     

Sovereignty,mercy, and natural law: King James VI/I and Jean Bodin

ABSTRACT

The affinities between Jean Bodin's and King James VI/I's political theories have been recognized, and the fact that James had owned Bodin's Six livres de la république has been recorded, but Bodin's specific influence on James has remained nebulous. This article examines the evidence for James's direct engagement with Bodin, by studying James's copy of the Six livres alongside James's political treatises. It provides substantial new archival evidence for Bodin's influence on James's political thought and, thereby, on Scottish and English theories of sovereignty.     

Marina Lewycka,A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Abstract

Jim Wallis's The Call to Conversion features an apocalyptic theological imagination with an ecclesiological focus. The church is entrusted with the communal mission of making visible the intrusion of the reign of God in Jesus Christ. The thesis of this essay is that The Call to Conversion is a better resource for Christian political engagement than Wallis's more recent book, God's Politics, which is characterized by a turn toward a "public church" social ethic. The accent has shifted to the formation of a larger political movement seeking social change primarily through congressional lobbying. Wallis's error is the extent to which he has pinned his hopes on the institutions of American democracy. The Call to Conversion helps us recover an account of political engagement flowing from local ecclesial witness. Sheldon Wolin, Romand Coles, and other political theorists, provide support for approaches to political engagement that begin with local struggles for justice.     

On Authority and Political Destination: Michael Polanyi and the Threshold of Postmodernism

ABSTRACT

This study challenges a prevalent view that Aquinas's political thought develops over time on the question of legitimate resistance to tyranny. Many scholars argue that Aquinas gradually restricts the scope of legitimate political resistance and morally permissible tyrannicide. On this view Aquinas defends tyrannicide in his early Commentary on the Sentences, adds strong qualifications in the Summa Theologiae, and finally repudiates tyrannicide in De Regno. This study finds the evidence for such a development lacking and seeks to rehabilitate a long and diverse Thomistic tradition of legitimate resistance including tyrannicide. Indeed, a close reading of De Regno shows that Aquinas upholds a doctrine of political resistance and defends the legitimacy of tyrannicide under certain circumstances. Moreover, Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance is wide open and underdeveloped. Later attempts to clarify and qualify Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance, therefore, are appropriate and even necessary.     

The Inglorious

Abstract

The essay argues that Sheldon Wolin's case for decoupling democracy and liberalism, which he makes in both editions of Politics and Vision (1960 and 2004), significantly depends on the historical argument Henri Cardinal de Lubac made in his book Corpus Mysticum: L'Eucharistie et l'Eglise au moyen âge (1944 and 1949). Such a claim for the importance of this dependence deepens our understanding of the significance of both Wolin and Lubac for contemporary debates about religion and democracy. To this end, the essay has two proximate goals: (1) by displaying Wolin's use of Lubac's arguments concerning the shifting use of the term corpus mysticum, we will have a better theological understanding of Wolin's complex criticisms of liberal democracy; and (2) in the midst of claims to uncertainty about the political implications of Cardinal de Lubac's thought, we will see some of the conclusions that one political theorist came to after considering a theological argument. Finally, this particular instance of a mutually critical dialogue of faith and political reason raises crucial questions for thinking about the ends of democracy.     

A Time to Speak

Abstract

This article explores the significance of resonance as a mode of social causality in response to William Connolly's book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. While applauding Connolly's identification of "affinities of spirituality" as effective in forming American politics, it suggests that the character structure of ressentiment that is encountered in right-wing Christianity and politics may be the result of instability. Examining the economic basis for growth and instability in the creation of dollars in the form of debt lacking an underlying guarantee, it suggests that this instability is felt throughout American society in everyday experiences of credit and debt.