Category: History

Political theology needs to talk more about the role of religion in liberal democratic spaces such that those spaces are constituted as radically pluralistic.

We are currently seeing folks pause to reflect both on what has historically counted as “political theology” and the ways in which those evaluate norms and frameworks need to shift moving forward.

How might we think about political theology in the absence of conventional scriptural, interpretive or institutional authorities together with their conceptual worlds?

“What do I owe my fellow citizens whose conscience reaches different conclusions than my own?”

It seems like an important task of political theology is to critically reflect on moments of political crisis by pulling back the veil on its latent theological content.

Queries on enfleshment, the nature of materiality and the corporeal intertwining with histories of coloniality and race relations cannot be separated from an understanding of political theology and its mobilization.

The question for us, and for the field of political theology, is how do we wish to live in the end?

Let us remember Metz’s apocalyptic witness dangerously, in our texts and in our embodied acts of solidarity.

While political theology must possess planetary (global) concerns, it must work locally and collaborate across locales to further understanding, decision, and action to meet those concerns.

Rather than understanding political theology as a single school of thought, I seek to define political theology as a more inclusive category by looking at the rich historical resources within each of the Abrahamic religions that help each tradition unpack the complex relationship between the political and theological spheres

I cannot say that I hope for more discussions of political theology in 20 years. But I do hope for the endurance of conversation, indeed, for the preservation of the art and wisdom of conversation.

The narrow formulation of the concept of Political Theology as the tracing of Protestant theological categories in contemporary political thought presents some challenge for the historically oriented biblical scholar.