Psalm 85 speaks of the meeting of justice and peace in a kiss in God’s new order. While we often futilely pursue such a goal through our politics, in Scripture we see its fulfilment through the cross.
To swipe Oscar Hammerstein’s famous lyric, histories of twentieth-century American religious history – whether academically or popularly-oriented – can’t figure out how to solve a problem like Rousas John Rushdoony, the progenitor and elder statesmen of Christian Reconstructionism.
My post, “Two American Dreams and One Economic Reality,” looked at the debate about American values initiated by President Obama’s now famous quote: “You didn’t build that.” I argued that the radical individualism embodied by the Republican outrage against this phrase is consistent with neither Christian faith nor economic reality. I am proud of that essay. I think it provided a clear sense of why my Christian faith leads me to support the Democratic Party. But, some of my friends and colleagues pushed back against it pretty hard. They were concerned that my rhetoric of grace and gratitude, my vision of God’s economy, did not quite fit their experience of President Obama or the Democratic Party over the past four years. The disillusionment of these faithful Christians and good Americans is understandable, but my fear is that the fact that Barack Obama is not the Messiah may threaten his very limited but very real accomplishments in both international and domestic affairs….
This week’s lectionary reminds us that power comes and goes. Today the church is tempted to resent its lack of influence, but Mark’s story of Jesus and the words of Paul remind us that even spiritual power has its limits….
From Colombia to South Africa, from a decolonial stance to trauma theory, these scholars have offered polysemous approaches to the political as well as the theological.
Kings and rulers often justify themselves through their pedigrees. Jeremiah’s political hope, however, does not rest on elite politics. It rests on a policy of righteousness for all.
Ranajit Guha had helped establish the Subaltern Studies school, and thus moulded the birth of postcolonial studies and non-Eurocentric global history. Guha was both a critical chronicler of the longue durée theological foundations of state and capital, as well as a bard of the ancient heritage of revolt against these structures of oppression.
The Center for Political Theology will be hosting a book launch for The Politics of Ritual on March 16, 2023 at 4:30pm in Garey Hall 10A, Villanova University. Please RSVP to [email protected].
“Across all classes and strata, Bengalis live this double existence – we live like Don Quixote.”
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Charles Mills’ death. To commemorate his life and the 25th anniversary of his influential work, The Racial Contract, we invited scholars to respond to the question: How has The Racial Contract helped you think in new ways about the connections between religion, theology, and politics? Here are their reflections on Mills’ legacy in their own work and beyond.
Rather than establishing structural analogies or historical filiations between “religion” and “politics” (terms he opens to question), Talal Asad urges attention to shifts in the grammar of concepts across different situations.
Paul Virilio, one of France’s foremost theorists of speed and technology, is a deep well for doing political theology in an apocalyptic time.