…I see my list on political theology functioning like Wittgenstein’s ladder metaphor in his Tractatus. Once graduate students read and grasp these important texts, they should “throw away the ladder”, so to speak, and deconstruct all they have learned about political theology to illuminate contemporary problems on their own. Once they reach the top, they can throw away the ladder.
…Political Theology is the sedimented yet changing and multifarious ways in which Christianity divides itself and (which is to say also: from) the world.
The field has often shown a Eurocentric bias…As such, the field has left out important reflections on political theology during the anticolonial and postcolonial struggles in the Global South.
Invoking “natural law” in debates over human rights does not necessarily lead to privileging religious rights over others, denying people’s rights to express their sexual or gender identity, or refusing to acknowledge economic and social rights.
If one speaks of Political Theology as a “field” with its own “canon” one must surely be preparing to deconstruct it.
Register now for the Political Theology Network’s conference, October 17-19, 2019, in New York City.
Without a sustained focus on material inequalities and repressive state power, the conversation on Islamophobia too easily slips into a mealy-mouthed appeal to diversity and tolerance.
This special issue on “Human Dignity, Religion, and Rights in Contemporary China” features debates over religion and politics in China today. Political theology in China raises many questions that western readers will find familiar, but the Chinese context often requires different answers, so that gaining familiarity with the Chinese discussion can broaden our view of the available options at the intersection of religion and politics.
For Islamophobia as a concept to further come of age our critiques must incorporate more de-centering, more dis-orientation of the west.
Praise psalms may fail to raise our political antennae, but when we stop to consider what praise entails, we discover that praise makes the most daring political claims of all.
The purpose of the conference is to examine the dynamic relationship between politics, as the art of building the structures of shared life, and theology, as the articulation of our interrelatedness in God.
Isaiah’s call to prophesy judgment against Israel challenges us to remember God’s sovereignty over all political systems, even those that are disastrous in our eyes. Could God’s judgment be the decisive turning point toward healing?