While giving tribute to Fuchs’s noteworthy efforts at reimagining our understanding of moral norms by appreciating the emergent process of human evolution through the appropriation of a dynamic/future-oriented theological anthropology, this analysis will seek to press the limits of his robust framework whilst inquiring what an ethic of vulnerability might look like in an age of terrestrial/ecological crisis.
The lived practices of Afro-Bolivian farmers invite not only a philosophical reinterpretation of vulnerability but also a rethinking of Catholic social thought. Their adaptive and relational forms of life disclose a theological reconfiguration of Catholic political theology.
If someone is in an abusive relationship, are we to forgive them? If someone is actively hunting us down to harm us or even kill us, are we to let bygones be bygones? If this theological-ethical conundrum gives you pause, you are not alone.
For African Political Theology to be Christian, African, and praxis-oriented, its concern must be Africans; Africans in a universal and “Afropolitan” sense, that is, all of those Africans gifted with God’s image, and as such, God’s children.
Hope can persist even when things seem impossible. This affinity with the miraculous, rupturing the force of prevailing law, gives hope its extra-rational power.
The essays gathered here seek to critically assess the content and form of Catholic Social Teaching and envision what a catholic political theological engagement might look like beyond an emboldening by magisterial teachings, instead seeking movements, mystics, and people on the margins to exemplify what “catholic” could contribute to larger conversations on political theology.
