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.     

Retrospective Speculative Philosophy: Looking for Traces of Zizek's Communist Collective in Emerging Christian Praxis

Abstract

In the closing chapter of Living in the End Times, Slavoj Zizek endeavours to "look for traces of the new communist collective in already existing social or even artistic movements." This article explores what Zizek might see if he were to turn his cultural-critical gaze towards emerging Christianity, which is presented as an artistic and social, as well as religious (or irreligious), "movement." His work is increasingly used by emerging church practitioner Peter Rollins to retrospectively explain his own thought and practice. This article examines some of the ways in which Zizek's atheological speculative philosophy and John D. Caputo's theology of the event are impacting contemporary Christian praxis.     

Bringing Gender into the Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine

Abstract

While William Connolly convincingly analyzes the pervasive anger and drive for revenge inhabiting much evangelical Christian writing, he overlooks the possibility that the emotional economies of evangelical women might differ from those of men. Several studies of right-wing Christian women suggest that grief, specifically grief over a loss related to children, is more formative of their political views than is rage. In contrast to the nostalgia expressed by Connolly's cowboy capitalists for an alleged pure market, these women long for a fictional time in America when the fetus was safe. Conservative religious women's grief and desire to protect vulnerable persons could resonate with progressive political projects of generosity and forbearance toward difference.     

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.     

The European Union—a Reflection: The Theological Challenge

Abstract

The advisor on religious affairs of the European Commission's President recently suggested the need for a European political theology. He was acknowledging Christianity's past impact on European culture. He was also intimating that a creative Christian contribution to the making of Europe's future might partly depend upon some systematic theologically informed reflection upon the nature of the challenges which the continent currently confronts. This paper does not purport to supply such a theology which, by the nature of things, must be the fruit of a long-term collaborative exercise. It does, however, seek to provide a few pointers that might become the subject of further discussion. Following clues provided by Vatican II we may seek to discern some of those "signs of the times" which might disclose the issues at stake and which, in the light of general Christian understandings, may ultimately provide some guides for subsequent action.     

To Travel in One Place: Openings for a New Asceticism in the Theology of Stanley Hauerwas

Abstract

The article argues that there is an ascetic character implicit in Stanley Hauerwas's thinking and that a more explicit engagement with the Christian ascetical tradition could clarify some lines of thought in it, in particular the relationship between moral formation and witness. The way Hauerwas treats e.g. the virtues and practices that are used to pursue them, the role of spiritual authority and the difference between Church and world show clear similarities to the thought of early Christian ascetics, such as Evagrios of Pontos, Isaac of Nineveh and John Cassian. By showing how Hauerwas by addressing some key theological, ethical and political developments in modern theology opens up the possibility to overcome modern misunderstandings of asceticisms, the author argues for the relevance of asceticism as a political concept in today's world.     

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.     

James Naughtie,The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency

Abstract

The terms "justice" and "necessity" are often employed in discussions of war. The just war tradition seeks to delineate when wars are and are not just; other theologians who do not find this approach helpful may nevertheless resort to the logic of necessity. Although unjust, some wars may still be deemed necessary. Barth employs both the language and logic of justice and necessity in his approach to war. The purpose of this paper is to address Barth's exposition of war in relation to his approach to divine justice and the necessity of Christian affliction. It does not attempt to make any large claims about the just war tradition or other approaches to war. Rather, it is intended to be an immanent critique of Barth from Barth's own theology, showing that, although consistent with his view of church and state, Barth's theology of war is inconsistent with his view of both God's character as just and the external necessity of affliction to Christian witness.     

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.     

The Conservatism of Radical Theology

Abstract

This article is principally intended to argue something that is counter-intuitive, namely that despite the socialist values of a number of radical liberal Christian and post-Christian writers the philosophical outlook and language of this phase of religious thought focuses upon some key ideas which find important parallels in Conservative philosophy. This is not in any way to imply that these ideas do not find parallels in other political philosophies, it is merely to highlight a set of relationships which appear to go unnoticed in debates on politics and theology. Subsequent to this principle argument I hope that it will become clear that there is more to the interaction between Conservative and Christian thought than the promotion of right-wing social authoritarianism—the raison d'être of most Conservative organizations and thinkers promoting ‘Christian’ values.     

‘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.     

Illusions of a Future: Ishiguro,Liberalism, Political Theology

ABSTRACT

This article explores the fate of political theology in Kazuo Ishiguro's speculative fiction Never Let Me Go (2005) and, by implication, in contemporary fiction more broadly. To pursue a reading of Christianity that extends from Hegel through Lacan to ?i?ek, the article argues that political theology’s future may perversely lie in a materialism emptied of all transcendental guarantees: political theology is the historically privileged master fantasy or illusion which reveals the fantastic or illusory status of our entire relation to the real in (neo-)liberal modernity. In conclusion, the article argues that Ishiguro’s fiction may thus be read less as a melancholic dystopian study in total ideological capture or surrender than as the representation of a state of immanent freedom beyond the power relations of (neo-)liberal subjectivity.     

Entangled Fidelities: Towards a Relational Christian Realism for the Public Sphere

Abstract

This article articulates a new concept within public and political theology, namely relational Christian realism, which it encapsulates within the notion of Entangled Fidelities. It proposes that the interlocking of a series of highly problematic areas of current human experience, reflected, for example, in the ongoing economic and environmental crises, require a reformulation of the Christian realism tradition. In this reformulation, aspects of this tradition are brought into close and critical dialogue with key voices from philosophy, sociology, and theology: namely, H Richard Niebuhr, Bruno Latour, and Manuel Castells. The dynamics and methodologies associated with relational Christian realism are further explicated with reference to a number of case studies. The article concludes by suggesting that this new (and as yet speculative) conceptual term needs fuller explication and development with regard to empirical research in a number of cross-over fields in which faith-based and no faith-based social actors are engaged in a new politics of postsecular rapprochement.     

From Dionysus to the Anti-Christ

Abstract

This essay is a reconstruction of Rene Girard's Christian apology in “I saw the Devil fall like Lightening.” It develops Nietzsche's antithesis between Christ and Dionysius which Girard identifies as the antithesis of modernity as such. Against Girard's own alliance with Carl Schmitt the essay adopts the Trinitarian point of view suggested by the author, in order to show that it is Erik Peterson's “Trinitarian” critique of Carl Schmitt's political theology of sovereignty which could fulfill the “true” aim of the author in fact much better.     

Cultural Materiality and Spiritual Alienation

Abstract

This article takes its point of departure in Phillip Blond’s Christian criticism of secular materialisms and the failure of modern thought to appreciate the true materiality of creation. He challenges secular thought and returns to a combination of Greek and Christian Trinitarian thought, in order to reach for a new ground for political theology. Blond’s Christian ontological claims are contested, but an aspect of them is brought into the context of cultural creation and related to questions of the spiritual dimension of cultural arte-facts in a secular setting. Against the background of Friedrich Nietzsche’s struggle with the difficulty of singling out a pure secular culture from the old and (in his view) stifling religious heritage in society and culture, this article suggests that a radical notion of human intentional (but finite) creation, analogous to Blond’s idea of God’s infinite creative intention, may be helpful for a construction of a materialistic critical theory about contingent spiritual obstacles to political change.     

"How" Does the Bible Mean? The Bible and Dalit Liberation in India

Abstract

This essay analyses the role of the Bible in Dalit liberation in a context where Dalit theology, despite being increasingly recognized as an academic theology, hasn't been effective practically in either sustaining the Dalits in their struggles for liberation or in challenging the perpetuation of caste discrimination within the Indian churches. In the light of the Dalits' own reception of the Bible as a potential source of Dalit liberation the essay critically revisits some of the defining biblical paradigms articulated by Dalit theologians, using as its epistemological tool the tensions between "epic" and "emic" forms of theological conceptualizations, in order to identify the reasons for the lacunae between Dalit theology and its practical viability for Dalit liberation. In the light of this analysis the essay explores and offers the synoptic healing stories as a viable biblical paradigm which can animate the Dalit struggles for liberation and thus enhance the practical efficacy of Dalit liberation.     

Religion and Violence: A Challenge to the Unity of the Churches

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between religion and violence—both in the role religion has played in overcoming violence and in sometimes being at the heart of violence. Recent Indian history of religiously fuelled violence is the case study in this article. Additionally, the history of Christianity is dotted with violence—imperialism and colonialism have been justified by some historians. This should be the basis for a challenge to the imperial and implicitly ‘Christian’ designs that accompany the present war against Iraq.

The Bible and Christian theology contain violent images. There is ambiguity in defining violence, because sometimes it is difficult to name the more subtle forms of violence. The authority of the Church is questioned as it has sometimes been silent about the violence within its own life.

The Churches need to engage in intra-Christian dialogue so as to mutually focus on the ministry of reconciliation and healing. The Churches need also to engage in inter-religious dialogue, recognizing a common spirituality of non-violence present in all religions.     

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.     

Obeying,Believing and Rebelling

Abstract

This article offers a decisive alternative to a growing consensus within public theology that political liberalism represents the pro-Pelagian, atomistic and un-ecclesial face of modernity. Through a careful reappraisal of the sceptical theology of Michel de Montaigne I claim that contemporary Christian advocates of liberalism can develop a deeply Augustinian counter-account which has the ability to reconcile notions of individual autonomy and conscience with a strong sense of ecclesial authority. At the centre of this innovative settlement, I point to the value of Montaigne’s theological anthropology, which, in its sensitivity to human fragility and sin, offers a rich validation of pluralistic and tolerant societies by contesting absolutist claims to both knowledge and power. In framing political liberalism in these explicitly theological terms, such an account comes into sharp confrontation with the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, which has defined the liberal tradition as intrinsically anathema to an authentically Christian understanding of politics. In contrast, this article claims that political liberalism, far from being automatically antagonistic to Christian theological commitments, can be justified by them.     

Richard Fishacre's Sentences Commentary,the Oxford Studium,and Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

For three years Oxford was the only Dominican foundation in England and so it was the place for novitiate formation, for a priory studium, and for further and higher studies in theology. When Robert Bacon, a regent master in theology, entered the Order, 1229–30, a chair of theology became attached to the Oxford School. Richard Fishacre (c. 1200–1248), who was apparently destined for the priesthood in Exeter, was the first Englishman educated in the Dominican Order to incept in theology at Oxford, under his friend and teacher, Robert Bacon, in about 1240. Some time approximately between 1241 and 1245 Fishacre produced his Sentences Commentary. The present article focuses on Fishacre, the production in the Oxford studium of his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences and the way in which it subsequently came to the attention of no less a figure than Thomas Aquinas.