John the Baptist offers a way for us to rethink Advent, suggesting that the advent of the kingdom demands the advent of justice.
The social construction of the criminal other has long served as a justification for subjugation. Pope Francis has stated that the people of God can smell holiness, and perhaps there is also a greater need for the olfactory discernment of evil in our midst. Despite the risk of too literal an interpretation of this metaphor, deeper reflection is warranted of the ways in which evil must be resisted.
The new issue of Political Theology includes a guest editorial from Joshua Ralston, essays by Christopher Trigg, Michelle Wolff, and Kyle Lambelet, and a roundtable on political theology and literature
The message of John the Baptist challenges our complacency about sin, an attitude that pervades and perverts our entire life as a society.
There seems to be, then, a road not yet taken by political theologians in North America and Europe: to participate with Arab thinkers in the work of writing comparative political theologies that decolonize knowledge and seek a more just alternative to the world as it stands.
The nearness of God inspires communities to work for justice, for the Son of Man as a co-pilgrim participates in the struggles of the creation.
Agonistic practices of lively contestation constitute a practical way to love enemies and thereby to do public theology.
In a hateful political climate, it’s easy to feel defeat. However, Daniel 7 teaches us that God is present in the midst of oppression and intervenes as a liberator God. We must join in this liberation to defy feelings of defeat.
It seems that only a certain kind of public theologian, touting a certain kind of theology, is recognizable to the religiously unaffiliated as being, well, religious.
We have been led astray by those who invoke religion to undergird their own social, political, and economic power. When we find ourselves enthralled to their apparent grandeur, we, too, will find the world beginning to crumble around us.