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.
New issues from the twentieth year of our journal feature articles from editorial board member Bonnie Honig, a special issue on Pragmatism and Political Theology, book reviews and more.
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
There is a good case to be made that the American criminal justice system is itself criminal. Up until around 1980, all statistics we have suggest that the incarceration rate varied at around 100 inmates per 100,000 people. After about 1977, and especially after about 1982, the rate began to rise; in 2008 it was over 700 prisoners per 100,000, and while it seems to have begun a modest decline in the past few years, it remains over 700. In this context, “American exceptionalism” is not an overstatement; the United States is effectively the largest incarcerator in the world; the only states near us are Cuba and North Korea.