Wider and Deeper Analysis

Is there a conversation around political theology (as concept, field, method, or however you understand it) from the past twenty years that continues to fascinate you?

Although my own approach to continues to take inspiration from the theological programme of Johann Baptist Metz, the “intervention” of the postcolonial throws down a challenge resonant and critical for the present moment. Postcolonial (and planetary) critiques uncover the necessity for wider and deeper analysis: “debunking, unmasking, and disentangling the ideologies, theologies, and systems of value operative in a particular society;” analyzing the asymmetrical power relations that determine cultural, social (i.e., political, economic, technological) “presuppositions and by evaluating the legitimizing myths that sanction the enforcement of such values” for the wellbeing and flourishing of all life on planet earth.

What conversations working with the concept of political theology do you find most fruitful today? Where do you hope to see discussions of political theology in 20 years?

While political theology must possess planetary (global) concerns, it must work locally and collaborate across locales to further understanding, decision, and action to meet those concerns. Among the many recent egregious assaults on human persons, consider the irruptions of anti-Semitism (especially in the United States and France); continuing racist assaults on black men, women, and children; the degradation of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants; the deceitful culling of DNA from visible minoritized people (China): These offenses against life––life for all–– continually must be confronted, must be contextualized and clarified in relation to their historical emergence and continuing impact.