There is more to the ‘fruit’ image than a mere word play, for a basket of summer fruit is itself a potent symbol with political-theological connotations. This text about the vision of ‘a basket of summer fruit’ is a vision of contestation for the cause of justice.
The trickster, an ancient and nearly universal character, offers a new and better-fitting political theology for the twenty-first century than the Abrahamic god.
Political theology amidst and against human caging must carry out continued rigorous analysis of the practices that support this system. It must continue to critique the social power wielded against liberation by American Christians historically, and contemporarily as well by non-Christian religionists and seculars who have accepted the terms implicit in the contract with whiteness.
Paul J. Griffiths contends that the hands of every American taxpayer now drip with blood because the U.S. is supporting Ukraine’s war of self defense. American hands might be covered in the blood of innocents from Afghanistan to Somalia to Yemen, but there has been no transgression in Ukraine. In fact, from the perspective of Christian just war reasoning, it can be argued that the U.S. and Europe have not done enough.
For me, “political theology” thus names the study of the ways that imagination is embedded in sentient, desiring bodies, instantiated in vernacular forms of life and ordinary (ritualized) practices, and conjured in mytho-poetic metaphors, images or representations that are formalized by literary genres and assembled into scriptures.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has become a protracted war between Ukraine and Russia, with elements of a new Cold War where Ukraine’s western Allies are fighting Russia by proxy through the supply of weapons and other aid through the NATO alliance. The just war standard of “reasonable chance of success” is not part of the original theory devised by Saint Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas, but a later innovation made by Francisco Suárez to prevent wars from deteriorating into a long cycle of revenge by parties at war.
In the midst of a complicated and troubled world it may seem impossible to make a difference, and yet, the wish of a little Israelite girl says otherwise. The spirit of the young Israelite girl and her larger cadre of enslave servants to Naaman live on today in the resourceful actions and tireless work of so many influential youth in our world, those whose passion and will for change persist.
This essay reclaims the value and role of faith in Shulman’s political theology and shows why it is important for wrestling with our contemporary political realities.
Language and meaning originate not from a fullness trying to communicate itself but from a lack that strives after enjoyment.
If we consider our own domestic troubles in the U.S., we will soon recognize that Americans, from both the right and the left, are tired of the age of American imperialism. This may be the one common ground issue that most of us have.
The Israeli writer A. B. Yehoshua died on June 14. We invited scholars of Jewish studies, literature, and politics to reflect on Yehoshua’s significance and legacy.