Does political theology offer strategies for resisting injustice? Or should political theology itself be resisted (because it is part of the problem)? Of course, the answer is yes.

First, I want to take social practices and norms as foundational. They do not come from anywhere else, not from people or institutions or God. It is practices and norms all the way down, as it were. Second, I want to present practices and norms as always in conflict. Norms are derived from practices, but they always misrepresent practices; practices are pulled towards norms.

Locating a middle requires, first, the critique of ideology, which determines the options that appear before us.‬ But the critique of ideology requires an attentiveness to tradition, and to social practices and norms. The “Continental” side talks a lot about ideology critique, but rarely does more than gesture towards those social realities‬.‬‬‬‬