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.     

Ideology and the ‘Liberation of Theology’: The Role of Critique in Juan Luis Segundo and Slavoj Žižek

The turn to religion within critical theory has brought the critique of ideology back into theological view. This essay examines the relation of theology to ideology in the liberation theology of Juan Luis Segundo. Segundo's key contribution is his use of the concept of ideology as an efficacious force in theological work in service to poor communities. I argue that the critical and political force of Segundo's theology is dulled by this neutral use of ideology critique. This may be ameliorated by consulting Slavoj ?i?ek's negative use of Christianity as ideology critique. Without endorsing ?i?ek over Segundo, I propose that ?i?ek's critical use of political theology can help liberation theology reengage the role of negativity and critique in the immanent relation of theory and praxis.     

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.     

Benedicto Kiwanuka and Catholic Democracy in Uganda

In this article, I introduce Benedicto Kiwanuka (1922–72), Uganda’s first prime minister and most prominent modern Catholic politician, and explore how his religious and political sensibilities — especially his vision of democracy — intersected with Catholic thought and historical experience in Buganda and Uganda. Far from turning him into a “Catholic tribalist” looking to empower Catholics vis à vis other religious groups, Kiwanuka’s Catholic identity was a core component of his political commitment to non-sectarian democracy, the common good, and pan-ethnic nation-building. He saw in Catholicism the possibility of envisioning political solidarity during a moment of social rupture, and he and his Democratic Party used Catholic and biblical discourse and theology to help undergird a broader political commitment to liberal democratic nationalism during Uganda’s transition to independence (1958–62). At the same time, Kiwanuka’s prophetic commitment to principle — an uncompromising dogmatism often expressed in religious and theological language — also helped cost him the opportunity to lead Uganda into and beyond independence.     

Editorial: The Sympathetic Agnostic: Britain's Next Prime Minister

Abstract

This essay engages the "politics of vision" as a potential template for choosing future presidents. The rhetoric of "vision" is drawn from theological precepts that are grounded in prophetic and transformational discourses. The current politics of popularity, and the reality show atmosphere that surrounds presidential elections, have not held the nation in good stead. We labor under the myth of our own goodness and believe that it doesn't matter who runs the nation, since the balance of power between the branches of government, and a free activist press will protect us from our own bad choices. Recent history proves that we must pay more attention to the criteria by which individuals are selected, because twenty-first-century high stakes political strategies can neutralize even the best laid plans of the nation's founders. To analyze the criteria for selecting future presidents, I turn to the work of writer/activist James Baldwin, theologian/activist William Stringfellow, and ethicist/politician Barbara Jordan. They conclude that vision does not require a crystal ball, just prophetic discourse and moral responsibility. The next President of the United States should be a spiritually mature truth-teller, whose vision for America is congruent with the hopes and dreams of a weary electorate.     

Responses to Professors Elizabeth Bounds,Michael G. Cartwright and Laurie Zoloth in their comments on Testing the National Covenant

This paper discusses and critiques the structure of debt at work in Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement and the way in which it resonates with other economic and non-economic mechanisms that neoliberalism uses to create indebted subjects. The first part of this paper uses the work of Maurizio Lazzarato to understand how neoliberalism works to create indebted subjects. The second part of the paper discusses how debt structures Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement how the latter resonates with the general sense of indebtedness operative in neoliberalism. The third part of this paper discusses how recent appropriations of the satisfaction theory as an alternative to neoliberalism fail, based on the reading provided in the second part. The conclusion explores alternative theological proposals for thinking beyond the logic of debt.     

Being Wrong and Being Right: A Response to Larry Rasmussen and Robin Lovin

Abstract

Larry Rasmussen and Robin Lovin have offered compelling perspectives on Reinhold Niebuhr's legacy, asking whether he was wrong or right on the economy, and whether Stanley Hauerwas's analysis of Niebuhr's work is wrong or right. In this reply, Scott Paeth argues that Niebuhr was a complex theological thinker and social critic, and is best understood as a "pragmatic idealist" who was willing to change strategies in response to changing circumstances. He was also quintessentially a public theologian who, contrary to the arguments of Stanley Hauerwas, was a vociferous critic of his social context rather than an assimilated spokesperson for it. Finally, Paeth offers some suggestions about what Reinhold Niebuhr's legacy might mean in light of the American election of 2004.     

The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.     

“But Do the Lord Care?”

Abstract

The slain rapper Tupac Shakur contributes indispensably to two contemporary theologies centered around the crucified people, the theological aesthetics of liberation presented by Roberto Goizueta and the theology of the lynching tree articulated by James Cone. Placing the pioneering work of Goizueta and Cone in conversation with existing scholarship on the theological importance of Shakur’s music, I argue that Tupac crafts a theological aesthetics of liberation aimed at illuminating the injustice and Christological implications of the hypersegregated ghetto and the black mass prison     

An interpretation of Finnish religious nationalism: the four topoi of theological depoliticisation

ABSTRACT. The topic of this article is the relation between ‘politicality’ and theology in the discourse of Finnish religious nationalism during the Winter War of 1939–40 and the Continuation War of 1941–44. I shall draw on the ideas of Kari Palonen and Anthony D. Smith in attempting to thematise theological depoliticisation as an intrinsic element of religious nationalism. Also, I will elaborate its political significance in the Finnish context, where the role of traditional religion in the general development of nationalist thought has been particularly important. The specific focus is on how prominent representatives of the Finnish clergy related to war and nationalist claims in general. My interpretation is that their arguments were drawn from what I call the topoi of theological depoliticisation, which, at the same time, rendered the discourse extremely political.     

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     

The invasion complex: the abject other and spaces of violence

This article examines how the image of the refugee has been defined through the fear of the other, and how the mechanisms of detention have transformed the conditions of belonging. I examine the contemporary geopolitical forces propelling the rise of a new authoritarianism, growing border anxieties and hostility towards refugees, and argue that these emerging shifts provoke an urgent need for a new conceptual framework to understand the dynamics of contemporary global flows and concepts of belonging. I introduce what I call the ‘invasion complex’, a new conceptual hybrid that draws upon elements of psychoanalytic theory and complex systems theory, and Giorgio Agamben's analysis of sovereignty and ‘the camp’, to explain heightened border anxieties and the legitimization of violence towards the Other. I consider the value, applications and limitations of Agamben's analysis, and contend that both the state‐centric moral debate on the refugee crisis, and Agamben's method of privileging political agency in terms of sovereign power, tend to discount the role of complexity. Drawing on the Australian political and public discourse on refugees, and the 2001 Tampa crisis, I argue that the hostile reactions can be traced to a complex interplay between old phobias and new fantasies. I conclude by urging the need to move beyond nation state centric critiques of racism, and propose the development of a new paradigm — a potential politics that recognizes the complex dynamics of global flows, and which opens the way for a discourse of hope based on the rights of the human being, rather than the citizen.     

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.     

A Reasonable Senselessness: Madness,Sovereignty and Neoliberal Reason in Horacio Castellanos Moya's Insensatez

Through a reading of Horacio Castellanos Moya's novel Senselessness and Guatemalan dictator Efrain Ríos Montt's counterinsurgency discourse, I argue in this article that madness, banished from the realm of reason with the rise of capitalism, resurfaces nowadays as a conceptual category able to disrupt the neoliberal manufacturing of bare life. I first examine how subversion was discursively constructed in Guatemala as a mental disease. I then discuss the narrator's behavior in the novel as a reasonable senselessness that by welcoming madness, understood as the moment of extreme doubt, both reveals and reacts against a shift in the locus of sovereignty ensuing from neoliberal reason's tightening grasp of the biopolitical sphere. This shift, I further argue, is increasingly placing most of the population in a relation of exception that resembles the zone of indistinction between life and death in which bare life is caught. I conclude by suggesting that Castellanos Moya's novel ultimately invites us to ponder the possibility of an other reason able to move beyond the extreme moment of certainty that the merging of state and neoliberal reason represents neoliberalism, sovereignty, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemala.     

‘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.     

Ignatian Spirituality,Political Effectiveness,and Spiritual Discernment: Dean Brackley's Account of Liberation Theology

Dean Brackley offers a helpful, yet underutilized, way to understand liberation theology, namely as a politically and more than politically effective practice of spiritual discernment: a way of life in which one contemplatively and actively distinguishes the true divine liberator from false idols of death. Like several other Jesuit Catholic liberation theologians, Brackley draws on Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises – but he does so more persuasively, thoroughly, and accessibly. While some critics question whether liberation theology is too political, as if it reduced the human relationship with God down to worldly criteria of effectiveness, and others question whether it is too theological, as if its Christian faith commitments necessarily obstructed its practical aims, Brackley provides a promising way forward by turning to spirituality. His method of spiritual discernment not only overcomes political reductionism; it also supports an effective praxis of liberation by transforming self and community through an immersive meditation on Christ.     

Between religion and nationalism in the Palestinian diaspora

This article examines Palestinian refugee articulations of the Palestinian homeland and struggle in relation to religion and nationalism. My contention is that the impact of Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine is visible within the discourse of Palestinians in Jordan. This discourse suggests a transformation of the meaning of Palestinian nationalism in which religion is taking an important albeit complex role in nationalism. Using the concept of intertwining, this article considers how Islam has been intertwined with Palestinian nationalism in ways that have privileged particular ideas about the national homeland and fight for liberation. While many suggest that Islamist politics is incompatible with nationalism, this article takes the local discourse of refugees and argues that Hamas and its supporters have yet to abandon the framework of nationalism, although certain tensions exist.     

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’.     

Mission statement: militarized discourses in women's advocacy organizations

This article contributes to the literature on the role of advocacy groups in political processes by exploring militarism within women's advocacy organizations. Specifically, I bring together theories of banal nationalism and banal militarization to inform my analysis of pervasive militarized discourse in 13 women's advocacy groups in the state of Pennsylvania, USA. Discursive analysis of organizational websites and in-depth interviews with organizational leaders reveals that the use of militarized discourse is commonplace among state-level women's advocacy groups. I ultimately argue that advocacy groups' use of militarized discourse is inherently problematic as it reinforces hegemonic privilege and detracts from progressive organizing. I also account for the role that discourse plays in the creation of place/space (and vice versa) in my discussion of how Pennsylvania's unique political culture affects advocacy for women's rights. Grounded in feminist geopolitical work, I offer some potential solutions to militarism within political advocacy: namely a re-focusing of advocates' attention on the lived experiences of their constituents.