In Political Theology the "Modern Way": The Case of Jacques Almain (d. 1515), Shaun Retallick provides the first monograph on this late medieval philosopher-theologian and conciliarist, and his thought. He demonstrates that Almain's political theology, of which ecclesiology is a sub-discipline, is strongly impacted by the Via moderna. At the heart of his political theology is the individual and his or her will. Yet, the individual is rarely viewed in isolation from others; there is (...) a strong emphasis on community and on the religious and secular bodies through which it is realized. But these bodies, including the Church, are understood in collectivist rather than corporatist terms, which tends to a quite radical form of conciliarism. (shrink)

Political theology is a flourishing field of research, examining the various ways in which modern political ideas, institutions, and practices have been and continue to be shaped by theology. However, conceptualizations of political theology are often implicit and diverge widely. This article traces the origins and development of the multiple meanings of the concept to reorient contemporary research and debates on the topic. It argues that Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology provided the first (...) modern determination of political theology and shaped the field fundamentally. It also shows that this central work actually contained three discrete conceptions of political theology, which it reconstructs alongside their complex and contradictory interrelations and implications for subsequent research on political theology. The article differentiates these three conceptions of political theology and develops an analysis of their interrelations that can and should be used to reorient and advance contemporary research on political theology. (shrink)

Written in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial ...

Given its use of religious concepts and language, it is tempting to class Fichte’s rarely discussed Staatslehre as a political theology. I argue that the Staatslehre can be classed as a political theology because of the way in which it can be understood in terms of the concepts of immanence and transcendence. The concept of immanence applies to Fichte’s account of history in particular. Fichte himself allows for a moment of transcendence at the very beginning of (...) history. I argue that the concept of transcendence is also implicit in the Staatslehre in relation to some problems faced by Fichte’s own account of the role of the Zwingherr in the historical development and actualization of right and moral freedom, despite his attempt to avoid introducing theologically based explanations of political concepts at this stage of his Staatslehre. (shrink)

The article analyses the common notion that the consumer society is a reflection of those principles in the market that also provide the ideas of democracy and liberal constitutionalism with legitimacy in the political realm. The inalienable right to self-development and self-determination makes the individual the starting and ending point of life, rendering all spheres of market and society a ‘republic of choice’. But if consumer society shares the essentials of liberal constitutionalism and the rational, processual nature of democratic (...) representation, then its ontology needs to be investigated for the same reason and in the same manner as legal and political philosophy dissects the legitimacy and validity of the parliamentary institutions of modern democracy. Just as in the political philosophy of the constitutional structure of the democratic state, the question of who is sovereign is key to understanding the ontology of consumer society. But rather than simply placing sovereignty into the hands of the independent, self-determined consumer, the earliest ontologists of the consumer society took recourse to medieval political theology and presented the consumer market as a new corpus mysticum. Thus, it is medieval political theology, not modern liberal thought, which provided for an ontologization of the consumer. This, in turn, directly pertains to the questions of the legitimacy of consumer society per se, of consumer decisions in particular and of their sources of legitimacy. (shrink)

In Political Theology on Edge, the discourse of political theology is seen as situated on an edge—that is, on the edge of a world that is grappling with global warming, a brutal form of neoliberal capitalism, protests against racism and police brutality, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This edge is also a form of eschatology that forces us to imagine new ways of being religious and political in our cohabitation of a fragile and shared planet. Each (...) of the essays in this volume attends to how climate change and our ecological crises intersect and interact with more traditional themes of political theology. While the tradition of political theology is often associated with philosophical responses to the work of Carl Schmitt—and the critical attempts to disengage religion from his rightwing politics—the contributors to this volume are informed by Schmitt but not limited to his perspectives. They engage and transform political theology from the standpoint of climate change, the politics of race, and non-Christian political theologies including Islam and Sikhism. Important themes include the Anthropocene, ecology, capitalism, sovereignty, Black Lives Matter, affect theory, continental philosophy, destruction, and suicide. This book features world renowned scholars and emerging voices that together open up the tradition of political theology to new ideas and new ways of thinking. Contributors: Gil Anidjar, Balbinder Singh Bhogal, J. Kameron Carter, William E. Connolly, Kelly Brown Douglas, Seth Gaiters, Lisa Gasson-Gardner, Winfred Goodwin, Lawrence Hillis, Mehmet Karabela, Michael Northcott, Austin Roberts, Noëlle Vahanian, Larry L. Welborn. (shrink)

This highly original interpretation of Paul by the Jewish philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes was presented in a number of lectures held in Heidelberg toward the end of his life, and was regarded by him as his “spiritual testament.” Taubes engages with classic Paul commentators, including Karl Barth, but also situates the Pauline text in the context of Freud, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, and Rosenzweig. In his distinctive argument for the apocalyptic-revolutionary potential of Romans, Taubes also takes issue with the (...) “political theology” advanced by the conservative Catholic jurist Carl Schmitt. Taubes’s reading has been crucial for a number of interpretations of political theology and of Paul—including those of Jan Assmann and Giorgio Agamben—and it belongs to a wave of fresh considerations of Paul’s legacy. Finally, Taubes’s far-ranging lectures provide important insights into the singular experiences and views of this unconventional Jewish intellectual living in post-Holocaust Germany. (shrink)

The paper addresses the largely unknown debate on the relationship between politics and theology between Schmitt and Blumenberg. This exchange gains new significance at a time in which the topic of secularization and religion is back at the center of focus. Both Blumenberg and Schmitt agree in their endeavor to make sense of the event of modernity, but fundamentally disagree about its relationship to the transcendent. Schmitt defends his notorious definition of the political as rooted in a friend-enemy (...) distinction that can only be understood from the vantage point of political theology. Blumenberg, it is shown, has good reasons to be convinced that modernity is capable of asserting itself without creating the absolute antagonisms that are the essential features of a political theology or relying on appeals to a transcendent dimension. (shrink)

The analogies between religious and secular juridical arguments interest political theorists because they suggest a hidden link between religion and politics. However, merely describing analogies does not show that the link is significant. Why are there such analogies? The question matters because answering is a prerequisite for determining whether there can be a neutral political background to religion. This paper argues that there are such analogies because arguments in theology and arguments in the juridical theory of the (...) state share a common structure. This structure is such that the meaning of some concepts in the theory of the state, like political order and sovereignty, cannot be fully understood without reference to theological concepts. This thesis – political theology – has become associated with Carl Schmitt, but the argument in this paper differs importantly from his. Unlike Schmitt, this paper claims that in the contemporary state political theology can be superseded. (shrink)

By resorting to the spiritual autobiography of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, an important religious and cultural personality of the 20th century, the author tries to emphasise the aspects of political theology that defined her way of acting and thinking and to show how she understood the relationship between religion and politics. Topics like poverty, love, giving, peace, sacrifice or responsibility are presented as keywords in the understanding of a complex vision with interdisciplinary relevance, while the two levels of (...) poverty, namely the material one, often accompanied by physical pain, maladies and other types of suffering, and the spiritual one, that is not necessarily related to the lack of basic material needs and can be found even in developed countries like the United States of America or Japan, are seen through the lenses of political theology. The author shows that, by finding practical bridges between spirituality and politics and by using as sources of inspiration not only Christian thinkers, but also thinkers from other religions, like Ghandi, the Albanese militant accomplished her vocation and also offered important and perennial principles which can help in the understanding of the contemporary world and in finding solutions to some of its crises. Although her message is a sort of combination between theology and social life, the political accents, sometimes theoretical, at other times practical, are important and can be used today for the development of a sustainable discourse for both the theological and the political sphere. CONTRIBUTION: The article brings into attention a spiritual autobiography that was not valorised properly by the contemporary research and in the same time offers an inter-disciplinary approach with ecumenical value. (shrink)

The term ‘Political Theology’ was not coined in the twentieth century. I am not absolutely sure about who was the first to introduce the term. As we shall shortly see, Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) used the term as part of the title to one of the chapters of his 1792/3 Lebensgeschichte, and it is the primary aim of my chapter to explain his understanding of the term. The idea that views about the divine (‘theology’) – true or false (...) – could have an important role in establishing (or undermining) political order and authority, or even in the promotion of the ideal state, goes back to Maimonides, al-Farabi, and ultimately, Plato. We are likely to hear echoes of these writers in the current chapter. Still, in addressing the background of Maimon’s discussion of political theology, I will focus on the one text which exerted the most significant influence on Maimon’s discussion of the issue: Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise (1670). In order to explain Maimon’s understanding of political theology, we will proceed in the following order. In the first part of the chapter we will have our first encounter with the term and the role of secrets in religious matters. The second part will study Maimon’s definitions of, and distinctions among, various forms of religion. In the third and final part we will explore Maimon’s views about “the greatest of all the mysteries of the Jewish religion” and about the nature of that religion. (shrink)

There is a constant tension that exists within each individual. This is the struggle between the hidden ideologies and fixed ideas which enslave the individual and the need to rid themselves of them. It is through these that implicit religion forms. We require, in order to counteract this, a new theology, a secular theology – one which emphasizes the individual. In order to bring about a new theology, it is necessary to reconsider the philosophies of Adam Weishaupt, (...) Louis Althusser, and Max Stirner and bring them into the modern discussion of implicit religion. This paper aims to bring together these understudied philosophers as well as contemporary leaders in political theology in order to reimagine the potential of the individual to rid themselves from fixed ideas and to realize their potential. (shrink)

This article interrogates the interface between the older Pentecostal movement and politics in Zimbabwe. The country continues to face political violence and a breakdown in rule of law. The Zimbabwean populace is asking whether the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement is ready and able to exercise its prophetic role in promoting real peace and democracy. Many Zimbabweans are asking this question, because the track record shows that whilst most mainline churches have been consistent in becoming the voice of the voiceless, some (...) Zimbabwean Pentecostal churches seem to have been sitting on the fence for too long by adopting a middle of the road stance, thereby avoiding a head-on confrontation with the corrupt Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front government. In this article, I argue that for many decades the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement has taken what one might refer to ironically as a ‘smart approach to politics’–in which the image of the ZANU–PF government is sanitised by espousing what I call a ‘spiritualised political theology.’ I use this critique, whilst remaining cognisant of the fact that the primary motivation of the movement on which I focus in this article, was evangelism, not politics. Thus, for the purpose of this research, the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa of Apostle Ezekiel Guti was sampled to investigate its prophetic voice in a polarised political environment. This article examines the history of Apostle Guti’s political subterfuge based on the reflections of his pastoral letters referred to as the ‘Ten-days prayer letters’ issued since 1975 up to the time of writing this article. It is important at this early stage to outline that these letters were not political statements or meant to address politics only but theological letters addressing different social ills including politics. Thus, reading this letter one shall see that Apostle’s political subterfuge demonstrated a continuous oscillation of a theological position on how the church should relate to politics. Furthermore, I undertake a brief examination of other few millennial Zimbabwean Pentecostal churches to see if this political subterfuge transcended elsewhere thereby propagating a spiritualised political theology.Contribution: What is key to note is the fact that the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement remained insignificant with regard to democratization agenda even after the removal of President Mugabe. The above claim is evidenced by the Zimbabwean Pentecostal church founders’ continuous political subterfuge authenticated by a propagation of a spiritualized political theology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Political Theology of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott, and: Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration by Gretel Van WierenKevin J. O’BrienA Political Theology of Climate Change Michael S. Northcott grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2013. 335 pp. $30.00Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration Gretel Van Wieren washington, dc: georgetown university press, 2013. 208 pp. $29.95These two excellent (...) books, A Political Theology of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott and Restored to Earth by Gretel Van Wieren, offer distinct directions for Christian environmental ethics: Northcott develops a rigorous analysis of climate change as a failure of enlightenment rationality and politics, while Van Wieren argues that those who care about the earth can connect with it through the practice of ecological restoration. Northcott theologically defines a complex global problem; Van Wieren theologically engages a community-based solution. Each book advances Christian environmental ethics in important ways; considered together, they have much to teach about the content and methods of the field.Northcott’s A Political Theology of Climate Change argues that climate change is a “cosmopolitical crisis” and that Christians should embrace a more ecological and theological politics in response. Theologians and ethicists have long argued that environmental degradation has cosmological roots: The belief that human beings are separate from nature makes global-scale degradation and pollution acceptable. Northcott adds a nuanced political analysis, noting that modern politics is based on a denial “that the weather is political, or that politics influences the climate” (46). Enlightenment thinkers who laid the groundwork for contemporary political structures insisted that storms and floods were not divine responses to human behavior, so modern nation-states are premised on an ideological separation from nature. Climate change reveals the failure of such thinking, so the facts of climate change pose an inherently political challenge.Thus, failures to act on climate change are political failures. Mainstream politics cannot consider that economic growth is unsustainable because it is premised on ignorance about nature. Nations cannot collaborate to solve the problem because they have no common moral agreement “about the ends and goals of human life” (245). Any response to climate change that simply extends [End Page 198] the enlightenment project—by ascribing “rights” to the natural world, or by trusting existing secular political structures—is doomed to failure. Instead, climate change calls for a different cosmology and a different politics.Northcott argues that both can be found in the Christian tradition. Natural law thinking respects the relationship between human beings and external moral standards “set into the structure of the cosmos,” demanding careful accounting for the atmospheric consequences of human action (246). Virtue ethics teaches the ideal of politics as a “community of friendship and love,” nurturing practices of participation in the good life, lived with less consumption and less destructive energy (200).Northcott hopes that small-scale communities inspired by Christian cosmology and Christian politics will transition away from destructive practices and thereby demonstrate a new way of life to the world. His book concludes by reasserting that because climate change is a political problem, it is fundamentally a theological problem, calling human communities to “re-create the historic and customary connections between nature and culture, land and life, love for neighbour and nature which are central to the Jewish and Christian messianism of empire-challenging love” (316).In contrast to Northcott’s focus on political and philosophical failures, Gretel Van Wieren’s Restored to Earth seeks a “more positive, solution-oriented” approach to Christian ethics (viii). The book is about reconnecting humans with the natural world through ecological restoration, “the science and art of repairing ecosystems that have been damaged by human activities” (2), and it argues that restoration models moral life by creating physical, intellectual, emotional, communal, and spiritual connections with the natural world.Van Wieren begins with an interdisciplinary definition of ecological restoration and argues that views on the practice depend upon varied definitions of nature. She then moves to a nuanced account of restoration ecology as a spiritual practice (chapter 3) of community formation (chapter 4). Evocatively recounting a controlled prairie burn in Illinois on Maundy Thursday, Van Wieren... (shrink)

This paper considers the epistemological value of the concept of political theology in thanatopolitics. The concept can be useful if one wants to interpret political usage of death. In addition to blurred boundaries between politics and theology, there is a more general and deeper socially integrative affinity between the two. In addition, there have been various politicizations of salvation in the past and in the present. Every political theology accentuates obedience as an immanent condition (...) of salvation, although interpretation of death in political theology has a different function than in secular ideologies. In the centre of politically theological ideas one can find crosscutting of the divisions between public friend and public enemy from political world with similar divisions from religious world. Finally, beside the theological influence on politics, this paper considers some analogies between theology and the secular judiciary. (shrink)

This book argues that the modern separation of humanity from nature can be traced to the displacement of the triune God. Locating the source of our current ecological crisis in this separation, Peter Scott argues that it can only be healed within theology, through a revival of a Trinitarian doctrine of creation interacting with political philosophies of ecology. Drawing insights from deep ecology, ecofeminism, and social and socialist ecologies, Scott proposes a common realm of God, nature and humanity. (...) Both Trinitarian and political, the theology of this common realm is worked out by reference to Christ and Spirit. Christ's resurrection is presented as the liberation and renewal of ecological relations in nature and society, the movement of the Holy Spirit is understood as the renewal of fellowship between humanity and nature through ecological democracy, and the Eucharist is proposed as the principal political resource Christianity offers for an ecological age. (shrink)

Recent debates in liberal political theory have sought to come to terms with the post-secular condition, characterised by deep religious pluralism, the resurgence of right-wing populism, as well as new social movements for economic, ecological and racial justice. These forces represent competing claims on the public space and create challenges for the liberal model of state neutrality. To better grasp this problem, I argue for a more comprehensive engagement between liberalism and political theology, by which I understand (...) a mode of theorising that reveals the theological basis of modern secular political concepts. In considering two contrasting approaches to political or public theology – Carl Schmitt’s and Jürgen Moltmann’s – I argue that liberal political theory can and should open itself to a diversity of social movements and ecological struggles that pluralise the political space in ways that unsettle the boundary between the secular and religious. (shrink)

In this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology. In a text innovative in both form and substance, he describes an American political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining our faith in the popular sovereign. Kahn works out his view through an engagement with Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, _Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty_. He forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new (...) version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. As in Schmitt's work, sovereignty remains central, yet Kahn shows how popular sovereignty creates an ethos of sacrifice in the modern state. Turning to law, Kahn demonstrates how the line between exception and judicial decision is not as sharp as Schmitt led us to believe. He reminds readers that American political life begins with the revolutionary willingness to sacrifice and that both sacrifice and law continue to ground the American political imagination. Kahn offers a political theology that has at its center the practice of freedom realized in political decisions, legal judgments, and finally in philosophical inquiry itself. (shrink)

Written in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, _Political Theology_ develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial political theorists of the twentieth century. Focusing on the relationships among political leadership, the norms of the legal order, and the state of political emergency, Schmitt argues in _Political Theology_ that legal order ultimately rests upon the decisions of the sovereign. According (...) to Schmitt, only the sovereign can meet the needs of an "exceptional" time and transcend legal order so that order can then be reestablished. Convinced that the state is governed by the ever-present possibility of conflict, Schmitt theorizes that the state exists only to maintain its integrity in order to ensure order and stability. Suggesting that all concepts of modern political thought are secularized theological concepts, Schmitt concludes _Political Theology_ with a critique of liberalism and its attempt to depoliticize political thought by avoiding fundamental political decisions. (shrink)

While ‘political theology’ has attracted widespread attention for decades, it is often taken to be too fideist for orthodox Christianity and too illiberal for secular politics. But in the work of Jacques Maritain one finds a defence of a certain political theology, one whose character is key to grasping Maritain’s justification of another controversial concept: ‘Christian philosophy’. In this study I draw out Maritain’s distinction between Christian philosophy and theology, paying particular attention to the relevance (...) of their differences in the realm of practical thought. To illustrate what Maritain has in mind by these claims, I further consider his intriguing classification of the political works of Thomas Aquinas. I argue that distinguishing between rival notions of political theology clarifies the opportunities for dialogue between believing and secular citizens. (shrink)

Although Political Theology examined mainly the political dimension of the relationship between God-Father and God-Son, it is paramount to consider the political performance of the Holy Spirit in the Economy of Redemption. The Holy Spirit has been characterized as the binding cause and the principle of relationality both referring to God’s inner life and to God’s relationship with His creatures. As the personalization of relationality, the Holy Spirit performs a unique task: to bring together what is (...) apart by means of organisation. This power of the Spirit to turn a plurality into a unity is manifested in the Latin translation of oikonomía as disposition, that is, giving a special order to the multiple elements within a certain totality. Within this activity of the Spirit, Theodicy can be regarded as the way to depict God’s arrangement of the world and of history, bringing everything together towards the eschatological Kingdom of God. The paper aims at showing this fundamental activity of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, and intends to pose the question on how to think on a theology beyond theodicy, that is, how to think on a Trinitarian God beyond the categories of sovereignty and totalization. (shrink)

Saitya Brata Das rigorously examines Schelling's theologico-political works and sets his thought against his more dominant contemporary, Hegel. Das argues that Schelling inaugurates a new thinking outside of Occidental metaphysics, by a paradoxical manner of exit, which prepares for the post-metaphysical philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Franz Rosenzweig and Jacques Derrida. This new reflection, outside of the Universal world-historical politics of modernity, is achieved by re-thinking religion as eschatology. Intervening in contemporary debates on post-secularism and the return to religion, Das (...) shows that religion, in an essential sense, always opens up infinitude from the heart of finitude, to an irreducible outside of the profane order of worldly hegemonies. Religion here assumes a negative political theology of exception without sovereign power. (shrink)

The thesis of political theology holds that all justificatory theories of the state rely on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts and accepted political conventions. For this reason, the thesis challenges liberal theories that justify the state on the basis of individual autonomy and popular will. The thesis is controversial because many theorists believe that metaphysical assumptions introduce decisionism – the view that a state depends on the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler – to the (...) theory of the state. But, does political theology entail decisionism? This article argues that decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology because an omnipotent deciding sovereign is only one of many possible metaphysical assumptions in theology. It illustrates this claim with examples from the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus and process philosophy. This conclusion challenges two different entrenched views: first, that the modern state is a continuation of theistic beliefs; and second, that metaphysical discussions have no place in contemporary normative political theory. (shrink)

In the 1960s, the strict opposition between the religious and the secular began to break down, blurring the distinction between political philosophy and political theology. This collapse contributed to the decline of modern liberalism, which supported a neutral, value-free space for capitalism. It also deeply unsettled political, religious, and philosophical realms, forced to confront the conceptual stakes of a return to religion. Gamely intervening in a contest that defies simple resolutions, Clayton Crockett conceives of the postmodern (...) convergence of the secular and the religious as a basis for emancipatory political thought. Engaging themes of sovereignty, democracy, potentiality, law, and event from a religious and political point of view, Crockett articulates a theological vision that responds to our contemporary world and its theo-political realities. Specifically, he claims we should think about God and the state in terms of potentiality rather than sovereign power. Deploying new concepts, such as Slavoj Žižek's idea of parallax and Catherine Malabou's notion of plasticity, his argument engages with debates over the nature and status of religion, ideology, and messianism. Tangling with the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Spinoza, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, and Catherine Keller, Crockett concludes with a reconsideration of democracy as a form of political thought and religious practice, underscoring its ties to modern liberal capitalism while also envisioning a more authentic democracy unconstrained by those ties. (shrink)

In the last years, a theological turn had a pervasive influence in the reception of Carl Schmitt’s writings. According to this view, his thought has a strong, substantial religious foundation. With regards to understanding not only Schmitt’s position but also his current influence in authoritarian countries, this essay argues that this interpretation is misleading and proposes a different and comprehensive analysis of Schmitt’s concept of political theology that replaces it in a political-legal framework. Against the theological reading, (...) it argues that Schmitt’s concept of “political theology” refers to his own conception of legal theory as an attempt to relegitimize authority in a secular context. As “political theology,” this legal theory is designed to overcome normativism and parliamentarism by “substantializing” the legal form. Using Schmitt’s post-1933 works as an example, the essay shows that, as theology translates faith into a written doctrine, legal theory must, according to Schmitt, substantialize the legal form by translating the political idea into jurisprudence. Hence, this article concludes that Schmitt’s theory might be described as “political theology” but only in a formal, ideological sense. It is part of an authoritarian theory that is not religious but uses theology to revive an appearance of absolute legitimacy. (shrink)

Approaches to Nietzsche’s political philosophy abound. In this article, however, we explore the possibility of identifying not only a political philosophy, but also a political-theological reading in Nietzsche’s texts. In fact, such a political-theological reading already has something of a genealogy. In the 1960s, “radical theology” appropriated the Nietzschean topic of the death of God, which engendered a transferred radical political theology consisting in radical democracy. The first part of this article explores twentieth-century (...) political theologies surrounding the death of God. We ask herein if this is the only possible political-theological reading of Nietzsche’s texts. The second part argues that, in fact, we can ascribe to Nietzsche a “theological” intention that is transferable to his political theory in a way that differs from the attempts of radical political theology and other political theologies surrounding the death of God. We conclude that, in any case, Nietzsche’s political theology aims to counterbalance St. Paul’s nihilism more than to constitute a determined political view. (shrink)

The thesis of political theology holds that all justificatory theories of the state rely on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts and accepted political conventions. For this reason, the thesis challenges liberal theories that justify the state on the basis of individual autonomy and popular will. The thesis is controversial because many theorists believe that metaphysical assumptions introduce decisionism – the view that a state depends on the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler – to the (...) theory of the state. But, does political theology entail decisionism? This article argues that decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology because an omnipotent deciding sovereign is only one of many possible metaphysical assumptions in theology. It illustrates this claim with examples from the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus and process philosophy. This conclusion challenges two different entrenched views: first, that the modern state is a continuation of theistic beliefs; and second, that metaphysical discussions have no place in contemporary normative political theory. (shrink)

Hindi commercial cinema appears distinctive in its assemblage of earthly law and divine justice or political theology. Historically, Hindi cinema’s mothers have embodied a postcolonial melancholia of the (in)adequacy of law to justice. This blog piece seeks to explain a shift in the relationship between law and justice in recent Hindi films through a rumination on the disappearing melancholic mother.

Reviving the ancient political wisdom of St. Augustine in combination with insights drawn from contemporary political theorist John Rawls, Joseph Rivera grapples with the polarizing nature of religion in the public square. Political theology, as a discipline, tends to argue that communitarianism remains the only viable political option for religious practitioners in a complex, pluralist society. Unsurprisingly, we are increasingly accustomed to think the religious voice is anti-secular and illiberal. On the contrary, Christian theology (...) and political liberalism, Rivera argues, are not incompatible. Political Theology and Pluralism challenges the longstanding antithesis between theology and political liberalism by asking his readers to focus not on difference, but on our common humanity. Outlining real strategies for public dialogue in a liberal state, Rivera offers the opportunity to discover what it means to practice civic friendship in pluralist context. (shrink)

This edited collection addresses the complexity of Islamic political thought and resolves some deep misconceptions surrounding crucial concepts such as din wa-dawla relationships and shari’a law.

Political theology as a normative discourse has been controversial not only for secular political philosophers who are especially suspicious of messianic claims but also for Jewish and Christian thinkers who differ widely on its meaning. These essays mount an argument for a "messianic political theology" rooted in an interpretation of biblical (especially Pauline), Augustinian, and radical reformation readings of messianism as a thoroughly political and theological vision that gives rise to what the author calls (...) "diaspora ethics." In conversation also with Platonic, Jewish, and Continental thinkers, Kroeker argues for an exilic practice of political ethics in which the secular is built up theologically "from below" in the form of public service that flows from messianic political worship. Such a "weak messianic power" practiced by the messianic body inhabits an apocalyptic political economy in which the mystery of love and the mystery of evil are agonistically unveiled together in the power of the cross--not as an instrument of domination but in the form of the servant. This is not simply a matter of "pacifism" but of a messianic posture rooted in the renunciation of possessive desire that pertains to all aspects of everyday human life in the household (oikos), the academy, and the polis. --Book cover. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt’s political theology—which refers to the translation of theological concepts into secular political and legal categories, namely sovereignty and the state of exception—is defined against a background of “metaphysical” constellations where, according to Schmitt, bourgeois individualism and the nihilism of technology have come to dominate the modern age. My argument is that our contemporary age is dominated by a new “metaphysical” constellation—the Anthropocene. This condition—to which the ecological crisis is inextricably related—demands an entirely different kind of (...) political theology to Schmitt’s sovereign-centric and anthropocentric version. As an alternative, I propose a political theology of planetary entanglement and care based on approaches from eco-political theology (Moltmann, Latour, Keller) and animal studies (Deleuze, Agamben, and Ciamatti). (shrink)

This essay explores the use of the concept of the messianic by Giorgio Agamben and Theodor Adorno. Throughout his work, Agamben consistently presents his reading of the messianic as an alternative to what he considers to be the ‘pessimistic’ negative dialectics of Adorno, which he argues ‘is an absolutely non-messianic form of thought’. For Agamben, the messianic brings dialectics to a ‘standstill’. This essay analyzes this deployment of the ‘messianic’ in his thought, and contrasts it with the perspective of Adorno. (...) Agamben’s interpretation of Walter Benjamin is challenged with reference to a debate between Adorno and Benjamin over theology, dialectics, and politics. (shrink)

This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far (...) from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The ‘legal miracle’—in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law—was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order. (shrink)

SUMMARYIn recent years, Ernst H. Kantorowicz's work The King's Two Bodies has been the object of both historical and philosophical research. Kantorowicz decided to subtitle his book ‘A Study in Medieval Political Theology’, but few scholars have actually recognised his work as research in ‘political theology’. The aim of this article, then, is to uncover the sense in which his book might be considered a work of ‘political theology’, especially in the sense coined by (...) Carl Schmitt in 1922. Such a discussion ultimately aims to contribute to the foundation of political-theology research, a subject that has been widespread among European intellectuals in the twentieth century and which continues to be a focus of interest. This article argues that Kantorowicz's book can be interpreted as a practice of—and also an enriching addition to—Schmitt's thesis on political theology, even if it does not mention Schmitt's name. Such a conclusion is only possible by accepting that there was a heated dialogue between Kantorowicz and Schmitt through Erik Peterson's work. The article further discusses its approach with other scholars that, even though they are based on similar hypotheses, make different conclusions. (shrink)

This essay returns to Jacob Taubes’s messianism in order to short-circuit a contemporary political and conceptual impasse between left- and right-wing Schmittianisms. It first seeks to expose the limits of both Schmitt’s originary political theology and post-war Italian Marxist rehabilitations of Schmitt, which, it is argued, remain caught in the same political-ontological matrix. To answer the question of what (if anything) might come after political theology, the essay turns to Jacob Taubes’s “counter-political (...) class='Hi'>theology” in order to find an alternative genealogy for modern democracy, not in Schmitt’s Christian conservative hierarchy, but in the antinomian and heretical elements within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In conclusion, the essay argues that Taubes transforms the political theological impasse and makes possible a new reading of the contemporary political false choice we face between democracy and authoritarianism, liberal pluralism and populism. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt once defined himself as a theologian of jurisprudence. This chapter argues that his concept of political theology must be understood within the context of jurisprudence and not as a thesis concerning the use of religion within politics. In its earlier configuration, Schmitt’s political theology is a multifaceted response to two juridical critiques of sovereignty: those of Hans Kelsen; and those of Otto von Gierke and the English pluralist school. In this early phase, Schmitt’s (...) class='Hi'>political theology is centered on the juridical conception of representation and on the state as fictional personality, primarily as it is found in Thomas Hobbes. Through his extensive engagement with Hobbes’s interpretation of the Trinity or persons of God, Schmitt shows howjurisprudence aids in the understanding of theology rather than the other way around. Schmitt’s later work is a defense against Erik Peterson’s critique of political theology, itself based on a juridical interpretation of Christology. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt, in a sense the initiator of Political Theology, proposed that all important political concepts are reinterpretations of or parallels to theological concepts. This insight is in this contribution described and applied to current political thought, for which it is valuable as modern democracies emerge from the secularism of modernism to a more fully self-aware post-secularism.

In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke “under a priestly seal”: Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, a Roman (...) Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition.…. (shrink)

This article argues a case against the theory of the sacred put forward by the French anthropologist René Girard. In particular, Girard seems to have obliterated one of the tenets of Christian theology, namely, the doctrine of Christ's ascension, in accord with his critical reading of Paul's letter to the Hebrews, which contains a rare emphasis on Christ's departure from the world. This article adopts a 'neo-Hobbesian' perspective in understanding the return of the sacred and fosters a 'political (...) theology of the empty tomb', where the doctrine of Christ's ascension is called upon to again play a major theological role as a workable antidote to the contemporary resurgence of the sacred. (shrink)

This highly original interpretation of Paul by the Jewish philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes was presented in a number of lectures held in Heidelberg toward the end of his life, and was regarded by him as his “spiritual testament.” ...

The Metaphysics of the Decision Recent attempts to merge democratic theory with political theology have had to face a fundamental difficulty in the approach to sovereignty. While Carl Schmitt bases sovereignty in the decision on the exception, this idea runs counter to the democratic idea that sovereignty resides with the people and therefore cannot be exercised by a single authoritative leader. This problem leads Jeffrey Robbins, for instance, to attempt to imagine political theology without sovereignty. For (...) him, such an elimination of sovereignty is necessary for democracy because the idea of a single sovereign contradicts the democratic…. (shrink)