Special issue of "New German Critique"

Nitzan Lebovic has edited a special issue of the journal “New German Critique” on political theology:

ngc.dukejournals.org/content/vol35/issue3_105/

The question that preoccupies the contributors to this special issue is whether it makes sense to update political theology by examining how political theology has been theorized by thinkers on the left and the right. The vicissitudes of this double life – especially marked since Michel Foucault applied Schmittian concepts to his critique of biopolitics – owe much to the simplistic link between Weimar politics and the present-day cynical abuse of power by democratic regimes. As secularism once again faces off against theology, the state against religion, and economic power is equated with divine right, the time has certainly come to re-examine the discourse of political theology and its recent apocalyptic scenarios.

Contact: Nitzan Lebovic, nlebovic@fastmail.fm

Political theology "to the right of God"

Those speaking (reading) German may be interested in an article on the links between the Christian right (in Europe) and political right-wing extremism that appeared in this week's edition of the (notoriously anti-Christian) German magazine “Spiegel”:

www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,607625,00.html

The argument, in the words of the Vicar General of the Society of St. Pius X, goes that conservatism today has to be political theology (“politische Theologie”) in order to break the dominance of the left and liberalism, thereby casting the cultural hegemony of Islam and the Islamic takeover of urban areas in Western Europe as the enemy that has to be fought off. A conservative counter-revolution, he argues, is impossible without the rediscovery of religion as a public matter, which has to be spiritually based on the Catholic church.

For more on conservatism and political theology, see this 2007 contribution to the political extreme-right publication "Junge Freiheit":

www.jf-archiv.de/archiv07/200723060158.htm

Which essay refers to a little-known political theologian, Nicolás Gómez Dávila:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicol%C3%A1s_G%C3%B3mez_D%C3%A1vila

The central outlet of the proponents of such a political theology, according to the "Spiegel", is a website (“Catholic news”):

www.kreuz.net

There to be found is, for example, a scathing criticism of the "new political theology" of J.B. Metz:

www.kreuz.net/article.7630.html