Book: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology

Just published: David Fitch, "The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology" (Cascade Books, February 2011):

http://wipfandstock.com/store/The_End_of_Evangelicalism_Discerning_a_New_Faithfulness_for_Mission_Towards_an_Evangelical_Political_Theology

Publisher's description: "In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North America. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism's belief and practice has formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture? Diagnosing its political cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become 'empty.' Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God's ongoing work in the world as founded in the incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the current day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America."

Endorsements: "In compelling fashion, Fitch digs deep to examine how key U.S. evangelical beliefs actually function as an ideology rather than gospel. He calls us from a Christianity that acts as 'ideology' to one that authentically incarnates Jesus' life and mission. What a book! This one will knock you back on your heels." (Howard A. Snyder, Tyndale Seminary)

"David Fitch explores three key issues that symbolize the evangelical conundrum – the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation – by reframing them through missional theology. This is a timely and crucial read for those concerned about the evangelical movement." (Craig Van Gelder, Luther Seminary)

David Fitch is Betty R. Lindner Associate Professor of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary.

Book: Crediting God: Sovereignty and Religion in the Age of Global Capitalism

Just published: "Crediting God: Sovereignty and Religion in the Age of Global Capitalism", edited by Miguel Vatter (Fordham University Press, January 2011):

www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?session=c8f2c9361460603c95eaf1ceb9e7b20c&id=9780823233205

Publisher's description: "Tocqueville suggested that 'the people reign in the American political world like God over the universe.' This intuition anticipates the crisis in the secularization paradigm that has brought theology back as a fundamental part of sociological and political analysis. It has become more difficult to believe that humanity's progress necessarily leads to atheism, or that it is possible to translate all that is good about religion into reasonable terms acceptable in principle by all, believers as well as nonbelievers. And yet, the spread of Enlightenment values, of an independent public sphere, and of alternative 'projects of modernity' continues unabated and is by no means the antithesis of the renewed vigor of religious beliefs. The essays in this book shed interdisciplinary and multicultural light on a hypothesis that helps to account for such an unexpected convergence of enlightenment and religion in our times: Religion has reentered the public sphere because it puts into question the relation between God and the concept of political sovereignty.

"In the first part, 'Religion and Polity-Building,' new perspectives are brought to bear on the tension-ridden connection between theophany and state-building from the perspective of world religions. Globalized, neo-liberal capitalism has been another crucial factor in loosening the bond between God and the state, as the essays in the second part, 'The End of the Saeculum and Global Capitalism,' show. The essays in the third part, 'Questioning Sovereignty: Law and Justice,' are dedicated to a critique of the premises of political theology, starting from the possibility of a prior, perhaps deeper relation between democracy and theocracy. The book concludes with three innovative essays dedicated to examining Tocqueville in order to think the 'Religion of Democracy' beyond the idea of civil religion."

Contributors: Friedrich Balke, Hauke Brunkhorst, José Casanova, William E. Connolly, Fred Dallmayr, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Georges Dreyfus, Abdou Filali-Ansari, Eddie Glaude, Ranjoo Seodu Herr, Lucien Jaume, Regina Schwartz, Shmuel Trigano, Miguel Vatter, Samuel Weber

Endorsements: "Crediting God is a welcome, multidisciplinary contribution to current debates about sovereignty, political theology, and secularism. Ranging across a variety of religious traditions – including Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity – the engaging essays that Miguel Vatter brings together in this volume challenge and deepen our understanding of the political significance of religious fundamentalisms." (Robert Gooding-Williams, University of Chicago)

"This volume, competently edited and introduced by Miguel Vatter, is one of the most rigorous and complete presentations of the complex relation between theology and politics around today. Historical references and theoretical questions, issues of dogma and political analyses, intersect around one and the same nucleus of sense which sheds new light on the dynamics and the conflicts of the globalized world." (Roberto Esposito, Italian Institute of Human Sciences)

"Crediting God offers new frameworks – beyond privatization or secularization or fundamentalism – for political theorists to approach the religious dimensions of public life. The essays foster fresh intellectual alliances, rediscover political classics, and encourage new readers for scholarship in various disciplines. The whole collection feels inviting and generous." (Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Grinnell College)

Miguel Vatter is Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile.

Book: Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn's Theological-Political Thought

Just published: Michah Gottlieb, "Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn's Theological-Political Thought" (Oxford University Press, February 2011):

www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Judaism/?view=usa&ci=9780195398946

Publisher's description: "The recent renewal of the faith-reason debate has focused attention on earlier episodes in its history. One of its memorable highlights occurred during the Enlightenment, with the outbreak of the 'Pantheism Controversy' between the eighteenth century Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the Christian Counter-Enlightenment thinker Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. While Mendelssohn argued that reason confirmed belief in a providential God and in an immortal soul, Jacobi claimed that its consistent application led ineluctably to atheism and fatalism. At present, there are two leading interpretations of Moses Mendelssohn's thought. One casts him as a Jewish traditionalist who draws on German philosophy to support his premodern Jewish beliefs, while the other portrays him as a secret Deist who seeks to encourage his fellow Jews to integrate into German society and so disingenuously defends Judaism to avoid arousing their opposition.

"By exploring the Pantheism Controversy and Mendelssohn's relation to his two greatest Jewish philosophical predecessors, the medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides and the seventeenth century heretic Baruch Spinoza, Michah Gottlieb presents a new reading of Mendelssohn arguing that he defends Jewish religious concepts sincerely, but gives them a humanistic interpretation appropriate to life in a free, diverse modern society. Gottlieb argues that the faith-reason debate is best understood not primarily as an argument about metaphysical questions, such as whether or not God exists, but rather as a contest between two competing conceptions of human dignity and freedom. Mendelssohn, Gottlieb contends, gives expression to a humanistic religious perspective worthy of renewed consideration today."

Endorsements: "Clearly written, rigorously researched and well-argued, Faith and Freedom admirably and convincingly demonstrates how debates about the modern history of epistemology and metaphysics need to pay closer attention to arguments about the shape of modern ethical and political life. By so doing, Gottlieb both secures the importance of Mendelssohn's place in the history of philosophy and contributes significantly to current conversation about the relation of religion and politics, the status and meaning of cosmopolitanism, and the politics of identity." (Leora Batnitzky, Princeton)

"Faith and Freedom is a superb study of Mendelssohn's profound Hebrew faith and his unswerving commitment to the freedom promised by the German Enlightenment. [...] Mendelssohn emerges as an original and significant theo-political philosopher." (Warren Zev Harvey, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Michah Gottlieb is Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.

Book: An Intercultural Theory of Interpretation and Religion in the Public Sphere

Just published: Paul S. Chung, "The Cave and the Butterfly: An Intercultural Theory of Interpretation and Religion in the Public Sphere" (Wipf & Stock, January 2011):

http://wipfandstock.com/store/The_Cave_and_the_Butterfly_An_Intercultural_Theory_of_Interpretation_and_Religion_in_the_Public_Sphere

Publisher's description: "This study offers an intercultural theory of interpretation and religion. It does so by bringing Western and East Asian traditions into dialogue regarding the nature of interpretation. The result of this innovative study is a theory of interpretation which integrates the socially embodied dimension of human life with the study of hermeneutics and religion in post-foundational and cross-cultural perspective. Toward this end, Paul Chung offers a constructive theology of divine speech-acts in a manner more amenable to the social-public sphere than other proposals. In all of this he deeply considers intercultural horizon of interpretation between West and East [sic] and its implications for a theology of interpretation. The result is a truly theological theory of interpretation that takes seriously the issues of intercultural studies and their intersection with Christian doctrine."

Endorsements: "Public Theology has become an extraordinarily challenging task that few can attain today. Paul Chung, who already has demonstrated sensitive and comprehensive readings of theology and philosophy through a Barthian/Bonhoefferian proficiency contributes a compelling approach in this volume. The public of theology is no longer mono-centric but multi-centric and Chung masterfully links the Western and Asian polarities. The coherency of his account does the reader great dialogical benefit. This volume is indeed a real achievement of East/West theology as it masterfully maintains the centrality of revelation through Jesus Christ. Public culture is rife with conflict and as such is reflective of its all-too-human condition as the massa perditionis. Chung shows how this condition of the human can be redemptively transformed through taking the Word of God with utmost hermeneutical seriousness." (Kurt Anders Richardson, McMaster University)

"This book transcends hermeneutics in any conventional sense. In response to the crisis of modern technological existence and the contradictions of global capitalism, Chung guides the reader on an intercultural quest for authentic and responsible humanity. The wisdom of the East reorients us to our place in the natural world, and the truth of the incarnate Word sends us into the public sphere to encounter God in the face of the least (Minjung). We are invited to open ourselves to the way of embodied emancipatory praxis." (Craig L. Nessan, Wartburg Theological Seminary)

"Paul Chung [...] joins contemporaries of antiquity: Plato (the Greek from the Western world and his metaphor of the cave) and Laozi (the Chinese from the Eastern world and his metaphor of the butterfly), and interprets them through the eyes of each other." (H. Martin Rumscheidt, Atlantic School of Theology)

Paul S. Chung is Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity at Luther Seminary.

Book: Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin

Just published: Graham Adams, "Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin" (Ashgate, October 2010):

www.ashgatepublishing.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9967&edition_id=12703

Publisher's description: "How should we relate to 'others' – those within a particular tradition, those of different traditions, and those who are oppressed? In the light of these anxieties, and building on the work of Andrew Shanks, this book offers a vision of Christ as 'the Shaken One', rooted in community with others. Shaped through dialogue with the theologies of John Hick and Lesslie Newbigin, Adams urges Christian communities to attend more deeply to the demands of ecumenical, dialogical and political theologies, to embody an ever greater 'solidarity of others' – a quality of community better demonstrating Christlike 'other-regard'."

Endorsement: "Adams reviews the Christological thinking of two well-known figureheads of the debate on theological pluralism (John Hick) and Christian exclusivism (Lesslie Newbigin) with empathy, but not without criticism. In their ambition to universalize their particular visions of Jesus/Christ, both show in fact some sectarian tendencies. Very different, however, from the partisanship that characterizes both camps of the discussion, Adams enters into a theological conversation with both of them – a conversation, interestingly, that Hick and Newbigin themselves, though being active at the same time and in the same city, never had. The outcome is a Christology which is serious about decolonizing universalist concepts such as 'truth' and 'humanity', having open membranes towards the otherness around it and, inevitably, is resistant to the temptation of closure. Like all good theology, Adams' theological proposal does not lead us to God but to ourselves and to those around us." (Werner Ustorf, University of Birmingham)

Graham Adams is a minister with Lees Street Congregational Church, Manchester, and Training Development and Advocacy Enabler with the Congregational Federation. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds.

Book: The City of Translation: Poetry and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century Colombia

José María Rodríguez García, "The City of Translation: Poetry and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century Colombia" (Palgrave Macmillan, August 2010):

http://us.macmillan.com/thecityoftranslation

Publisher's description: "The two principal questions that The City of Translation sets out to answer are: how did poetry, philology, catechesis, and literary translation legitimate a coterie of right-wing literati's [sic] rise to power in Colombia? And how did these men proceed to dismantle a long-standing liberal-democratic state without derogating basic constitutional freedoms? To answer those questions, José María Rodríguez García investigates the emergence, development, and decline of what he calls 'the reactionary city of translation' – a variation on, and a correction to, Ángel Rama's understanding of the nineteenth-century 'lettered city' as a primarily liberal and modernizing project. The City of Translation makes the tropes of 'translatio' the conceptual nucleus of a comprehensive analysis that cuts across academic disciplines, ranging from political philosophy and the history of concepts to the relationship of literature to religious doctrine and the law."

The last chapter of the book is titled "Conclusion: On Lettered Cities, Political Theologies, and the Writing of Lyric".

Endorsements: "Few books deserve to be described as necessary. This one does. Rodríguez García brings remarkable rigor and insight to his examination of the nineteenth-century debates that defined the first decades of the Colombian republic. Particularly significant are his penetrating reconstructions of conservative thought, a much neglected area since 'progressive' historians often seem more interested in finding antecedents for their own ideas rather than taking seriously the arguments of Catholic imbued anti-liberalism. He also brings remarkable insight to the ways that notions of proper grammatical usage and belle-lettriste literature were early marshaled to support conservative, hierarchical notions of society and government. In sum, this is an excellent book and a major contribution to nineteenth-century studies." (Nicolas Shumway, Rice University)

"The City of Translation elucidates the complex strategies of the reactionary Colombian political elite to usher in new legislation under the guise of a homogenizing national project. The author's keen insights on the pivotal role of lyrical production, translation (in theory and practice), and the mediating agency of the translator/lyricist in political objectives constitute an outstanding contribution to Latin American intellectual history, one that will compel us to expand our understanding of the term 'foundational fictions.'" (Carlos J. Alonso, Columbia University)

Spanish-born José María Rodríguez García is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Duke University.

Book: The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation

Just published: Adam Kotsko, "The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation" (Continuum, October 2010):

www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157985

Publisher's description: "Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new perspectives on 'atonement theory,' the traditional name for reflections on the meaning of Christ's work. These new theologies view Christ as a political figure and mobilize social theory to understand the contemporary context and Christ's meaning for that context. Politics of Redemption demonstrates that pre-modern theologians also understood Christ's role in a fundamentally social way. The argument proceeds by analysing the most important and original contributors to the tradition of atonement theory (Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, and Abelard). The investigation reveals that they all work within a shared social-relational logic based on the solidarity of all human beings and the irreducible relatedness of humanity and the rest of creation. Having brought this social-relational logic to the surface, the work concludes by sketching out a fresh atonement theory as a way of showing that our understanding of Christ's work and of its relevance for our life together is enriched by foregrounding the question of how creation, and particularly the human social sphere, is structured."

Endorsement: "An indispensable contribution to the thorny theory of atonement. Hip to the feminist critique, inflected by the postmodern return to political theology, and steeped in the depths and potentialities of the doctrinal tradition, Kotsko's relational ontology for the doctrine of redemption offers a lucid and erudite resource for a wide spectrum of Christian theology." (Catherine Keller, Drew University)

Adam Kotsko is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College.

Book: Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic

Jacques Lezra, "Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic" (Fordham University Press, September 2010):

www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823232369

Publisher's description: "Wild Materialism speaks to three related questions in contemporary political philosophy. How, if different social interests and demands are constitutively antagonistic, can social unity emerge out of heterogeneity? Does such unity require corresponding universals, and, if so, what are they, where are they found, or how are they built? Finally, how must the concept of democracy be revised in response to economic globalization, state and nonstate terrorism, and religious, ethnic, or national fundamentalism? Polemically rehabilitating the term terror, Lezra argues that it can and should operate as a social universal. Perched perilously somewhere between the private and the public domains, terror is an experience of unboundable, objectless anxiety. It is something other than an interest held by different classes of people; it is not properly a concept (like equality or security) of the sort universal claims traditionally rest on. Yet terror's conceptual deficiency, Lezra argues, paradoxically provides the only adequate, secular way to articulate ethical with political judgments. Social terror, he dramatically proposes, is the foundation on which critiques of terrorist fundamentalisms must be constructed.

"Opening a groundbreaking methodological dialogue between Freud's work and Althusser's late understanding of aleatory materialism, Lezra shows how an ethic of terror, and in the political sphere a radically democratic republic, can be built on what he calls 'wild materialism.' Wild Materialism combines the close reading of cultural texts with detailed treatment of works in the radical-democratic and radical-republican traditions. The originality of its closely argued theses is matched and complemented by the breadth of its focus – encompassing the debates over the 'ticking bomb' scenario; the circumstances surrounding ETA's assassination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid in 1973; the films of Gillo Pontecorvo; Sade's republican writing; Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right; and the roots of contemporary radical republicanism in early modern political theology (Bodin, Shakespeare, Parsons, Siliceo)." (some italics originally bold)

Endorsement: "An urgently contemporary study of the relation between 'terror' as a state of expectancy in relation to an event to come, and 'terrorism' as the deadly deployment of force in situations of radical exploitation and oppression." (Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine)

Jacques Lezra is Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish and Portuguese at New York University.

Book: Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology

Just published: John Milbank, Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis, "Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology" (Brazos Press, November 2010):

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=ADFAD5A4E6444C54BA7481B53085B80B

Publisher's description: "Are there moments in Christian history when non-Christians in some ways understand Christianity better than Christians? The church fathers and mothers often did especially acute theology because they could remember well what it meant to inhabit non-Christian philosophies and religions. The Hindu Gandhi saw and acted on something in Christ's witness that many confessing Christians overlooked. Today some leading secular thinkers have turned to a surprising source: the apostle Paul. The rediscovery of Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking recent developments in philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church. Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul's new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Zizek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock."

Endorsement: "What is at stake is nothing less than our escape from the ubiquity of multitudinous fundamentalisms, bourgeois liberalism, and the late capitalism that has captured the West today. For those navigating theology and the political, this collection of essays is timely, riveting, and well worth our focus and attention." (David Fitch, Northern Seminary)

A year ago, Davis announced this book on his blog as being "on St. Paul, the Liturgy, and Political Theology".

John Milbank is Professor in Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham.

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Creston Davis is Assistant Professor of Religion at Rollins College.

Book: The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa

Just published: Emmanuel Katongole, "The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa" (Eerdmans, December 2010).

Publisher's description: "Modern Africa, scarred by its founding narratives of colonial oppression and nation-state politics, has been especially vulnerable to chaos, war, and corruption. Its people – mired within a seemingly endless cycle of violence, plunder, and poverty – have seen their resources exploited and their lives wantonly sacrificed time and again to the greed and ambition of oppressive regimes. In The Sacrifice of Africa Emmanuel Katongole confronts this painful legacy and shows how it continues to warp the imaginative landscape of African politics and society. He demonstrates the real potential of Christianity to interrupt and transform entrenched political imaginations and create a different story for Africa – a story of self-sacrificing love that values human dignity and 'dares to invent' a new and better future for all Africans. Compelling accounts of three African Christian leaders and their work – Bishop Paride Taban in Sudan, Angelina Atyam in Uganda, and Maggy Barankitse in Burundi – cap off Katongole's inspiring vision of hope for Africa."

www.eerdmans.com/shop/product.asp?p_key=9780802862686

Endorsements: "Drawn from the wells of Emmanuel Katongole's faith and faith on the ground, The Sacrifice of Africa is a work of singular importance and power. Its insights and implications are prophetic and compelling. One of the most visionary theologians of our day, Katongole helps the whole church see itself in a new way. This is the theology we need – and indeed must have." (Mark R. Gornik, City Seminary of New York)

"Sometimes churches are the only viable, if inadequate, social institutions left to shoulder the burden of society. [...] The demands of the moment require the sacrifice of the churches on behalf of Africa's long-suffering peoples. This book is a valuable installment in that cause." (Lamin Sanneh, Yale)

Ugandan-born Emmanuel Katongole is Associate Professor of Theology and World Christianity at Duke University and a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala.

Book: Robert Bellarmine and Thomas Hobbes: Political theologies in comparison (in Italian)

For those able to read Italian: Enrica Fabbri, "Roberto Bellarmino e Thomas Hobbes: Teologie politiche a confronto" (Robert Bellarmine and Thomas Hobbes: Political theologies in comparison; my translation; Aracne editrice, 2009):

http://store.aracneeditrice.com/it/libro_new.php?id=2810

Publisher's description: "In the wake of the renewed urgency of the issue of the relationship between religion and politics and, more specifically, the themes of political theology, the book explores some aspects of the thought of Thomas Hobbes, on the one hand offering a possibly more analytical reconstruction of the presence of Robert Bellarmine in his texts, on the other problematizing the relationship between the theologico-political views of the English philosopher and those of the Presbyterians. The basic intention is to account for the continued interest in theology shown by Hobbes and to highlight the specifically political reasons for this attention, in order to propose a reading of Hobbesian thought that, while it cannot disregard Carl Schmitt's interpretation, aims to show its problematic, especially on the side of the question of neutralization of religious conflicts." (my very rough translation, helped by Google Translate)

Enrica Fabbri holds a research doctorate in Political Studies from the University of Turin and is continuing her research in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florence.

Book: The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State

Just published: Bernard Bourdin, "The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State: The Controversy between James I of England and Cardinal Bellarmine" (trans. Susan Pickford; Catholic University of America Press, November 2010):

http://cuapress.cua.edu/books/viewbook.cfm?Book=BOTP

Publisher's description: "Contemporary understanding of the modern state is so bound up with the development of liberal democracy that it may appear anachronistic to identify the origins of the modern state in a theological-political configuration of events. Yet in European history, the sovereignty of the people arose from the divine delegation of royal sovereignty to the temporal and spiritual orders – a theory that the Holy See could not countenance. The controversy that erupted between James I of England and Cardinal Bellarmine following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 is a striking illustration of this political and ecclesiological dispute over who ultimately holds absolute sovereignty by divine right – the king or the pope? In this work, Bernard Bourdin clearly sets forth the political thought and theology of James I as an early intellectual foundation for the modern state. He offers a comprehensive examination of James's intense dispute with Bellarmine, a controversy that sent shock waves throughout Europe and had a lasting impact on the rise of the modern state."

Bernard Bourdin is Professor of Theology at the University of Metz, France.

Book: Dalit Theology in the Twenty-First Century

"Dalit Theology in the Twenty-First Century: Discordant Voices, Discerning Pathways", edited by Sathianathan Clarke, Deenabandhu Manchala, and Philip Vinod Peacock (Oxford University Press, March 2010):

www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Theology/?view=usa&ci=9780198066910

Publisher's description: "This work marks the beginning of a new Dalit self-understanding and a new appreciation for the changed landscape of the twenty-first century where the agency of Dalits in the area of theology has exploded the monopoly of caste interpretations in a significant manner. This volume addresses how despite its proud entry into the post-colonial, politically democratic twenty-first century world, India continues to straddle the structural inequalities and functional hierarchies based on its age-old caste system. It also looks at various Dalit, women, tribal, and other subaltern movements that struggle against insidious forms of caste-, class-, ethnicity- and religion-based violence and violation. A unique combination of Dalit theology with Dalit feminism and feminist theology, this book brings together the key directions and interests that Dalit Theology has taken in the new century."

Sathianathan Clarke is Professor of Theology, Culture and Mission and Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC, USA.

Deenabandhu Manchala is Programme Executive for Just and Inclusive Communities in the Unity, Mission, Evangelism and Spirituality programme at the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.

Philip Vinod Peacock is Associate Professor at Bishop's College, Calcutta, India.

Book: Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love

Grant N. Havers, "Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love" (University of Missouri Press, November 2009):

http://press.umsystem.edu/fall2009/havers.htm

From the publisher's description: "Abraham Lincoln extolled the merit of 'loving thy neighbor as thyself,' especially as a critique of the hypocrisy of slavery, but a discussion of Christian love is noticeably absent from today's debates about religion and democracy. In this provocative book, Grant Havers argues that charity is a central tenet of what Lincoln once called America's 'political religion.' He explores the implications of making Christian love the highest moral standard for American democracy, showing how Lincoln's legacy demands that a true democracy be charitable toward all – and that only a people who lived according to such ideals could succeed in building democracy as Lincoln understood it. [...] This carefully argued work defends Lincoln's understanding of charity as essential to democracy while emphasizing the difficulty of fusing this ethic with the desire to spread democracy to people who do not share America's Christian heritage. In considering the prospect of America's leaders rediscovering a moral foreign policy based on charity rather than the costly idolization of democracy, Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love makes a timely contribution to the wider debate over both the meaning of religion in American politics and the mission of America in the world – and opens a new window on Lincoln's lasting legacy."

Excerpts: "Despite my discussion of political philosophy in the pages to follow, I am inclined to classify this work as political theology. Most secular academics tend to separate the two fields: political philosophy studies the human understanding of politics, while political theology reflects God's revelation. My contention is that, at least since Lincoln, this separation has never been successful in American political thought, although there have been many procrustean attempts to impose an artificial separation. The fact is that religion and politics have always been mutually dependent in American history [...]. Whereas [the founding fathers] Jay, Hamilton, and Madison are describing the meaning and process of government in profoundly secular terms (they rarely mention Christianity), Lincoln's speeches resonate with theological themes. Whereas The Federalist presents a new 'science of politics,' Lincoln offers a political theology. [...] Lincoln expected charity alone to be the primary foundation of a new political theology."

Grant N. Havers is Professor of Philosophy and Political Studies at Trinity Western University, Canada.

Book: Islam as Political Religion: The Future of an Imperial Faith

Just published: Shabbir Akhtar, "Islam as Political Religion: The Future of an Imperial Faith" (Routledge, October 2010):

www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415781473/

Publisher's description: "This comprehensive survey of contemporary Islam provides a philosophical and theological approach to the issues faced by Muslims and the question of global secularisation. Engaging with critics of modern Islam, Shabbir Akhtar sets out an agenda of what his religion is and could be as a political entity. Exploring the views and arguments of philosophical, religious and political thinkers, the author covers a raft of issues faced by Muslims in an increasingly secular society. Chapters are devoted to the Qur'an and Islamic literature; the history of Islam; Sharia law; political Islam; Islamic ethics; and political Islam's evolving relationship with the West. Recommending changes which enable Muslims to move from their imperial past to a modest role in the power structures of today's society, Akhtar offers a detailed assessment of the limitations and possibilities of Islam in the modern world. Providing a vision for an empowered yet rational Islam that distances itself from both Islamist factions and Western secularism, this book is an essential read for students and scholars of Islamic studies, religion, philosophy and politics."

Shabbir Akhtar is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University.

Book: Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy

Bonnie Honig, "Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy" (Princeton University Press, August 2009):

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9040.html

Publisher's description: "This book intervenes in contemporary debates about the threat posed to democratic life by political emergencies. Must emergency necessarily enhance and centralize top-down forms of sovereignty? Those who oppose executive branch enhancement often turn instead to law, insisting on the sovereignty of the rule of law or demanding that law rather than force be used to resolve conflicts with enemies. But are these the only options? Or are there more democratic ways to respond to invocations of emergency politics? Looking at how emergencies in the past and present have shaped the development of democracy, Bonnie Honig argues that democratic politics are always a struggle to weigh the value of necessities – food, security, and housing – against the achievement of a richer life across the full range of human aspirations. Emphasizing the connections between mere life and more life, emergence and emergency, Honig argues that emergencies call us to attend anew to a neglected paradox of democratic politics: that we need good citizens with aspirational ideals to make good politics while we need good politics to infuse citizens with idealism. Honig takes a broad approach to emergency, considering immigration politics, new rights claims, contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, and the limits of law during the Red Scare of the early twentieth century. Taking its bearings from Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, and other Jewish thinkers, this is a major contribution to modern thought about the challenges and risks of democratic orientation and action in response to emergency."

Excerpts: "In chapter 4, where I analyze the idea of 'miracle,' Schmitt's metaphor for the state of exception, I ask whether these identifications are themselves remnants of earlier debates in political theology about the status of the extraordinary – god and miracle or divine agency – in the ordinary human world. [...] Schmitt and Agamben's 'state of exception,' I think it is fair to say, has captured the imagination of contemporary political theory. In this chapter, I seek to loosen its hold on our imagination by pluralizing the particular political theology on which Schmitt's account is based and from which it draws sustenance."

Endorsements: "What a compelling idea to take Franz Rosenzweig as an original political thinker and antagonist to Carl Schmitt. In this book, Bonnie Honig shows that political theory and Judaism can be read differently, not simply to deconstruct them but in order to reshape democratic theory beyond its paradox." (Adriana Cavarero, University of Verona)

"This is an exciting book. Its fresh and bold approach to such long-studied questions of politics as founding, membership, legitimation, rights, liberation, cosmopolitanism, exception, discretion, and law invites a fundamental shift in perspective that substantially advances political science." (Jill Frank, University of South Carolina)

Bonnie Honig is Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.

Book: City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era

Just published: Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, "City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era" (Moody Publishers, October 2010):

www.moodypublishers.com/Publishers/default.asp?SectionID=86DE745783B8435ABFF5832DD9E4C78A&action=details&subid=204BCB5054FD40A6ABFC38298A8E6CE9

Publisher's description: "An era has ended. The political expression that most galvanized evangelicals during the past quarter-century, the Religious Right, is fading. What's ahead is unclear. Millions of faith-based voters still exist, and they continue to care deeply about hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage, but the shape of their future political engagement remains to be formed. Into this uncertainty, former White House insiders Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner seek to call evangelicals toward a new kind of political engagement – a kind that is better both for the church and the country, a kind that cannot be co-opted by either political party, a kind that avoids the historic mistakes of both the Religious Left and the Religious Right. Incisive, bold, and marked equally by pragmatism and idealism, Gerson and Wehner's new book has the potential to chart a new political future not just for values voters, but for the nation as a whole."

From the foreword by Timothy J. Keller (Westminster Theological Seminary): "A very large number of young evangelicals believe that their churches have become as captured by the Right as mainline churches were captured by the Left. Michael and Pete recognize this and largely agree. But they counsel that political withdrawal is not the correct response, nor should alienated evangelicals go down the mainline path. Instead, they urge careful theological reflection, and the rest of this short volume serves as a guidebook to the issues that will have to be addressed, rather than as a finished manifesto of what this new political theology must be."

Review: "Figuring out the appropriate relationship between politics and religion for Christians is a daunting task. Yet Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner have succeeded brilliantly. In City of Man, they spell out a political theology for 21st century Christians that rejects the narrow thinking of the Religious Right and the creeping secularism of the Religious Left. City of Man is a two-fer. It's an enormously important book on politics and on religion." (Fred Barnes, "Weekly Standard")

Michael Gerson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Faith and International Affairs of the Institute for Global Engagement. Formerly, he served as policy advisor and chief speechwriter to US President George W. Bush.

Peter Wehner is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Under George W. Bush, he served as director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives.

Book: Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

Just published: Peter J. Leithart, "Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom" (InterVarsity Press, September 2010):

www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=2722

Publisher's description: "We know that Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313; outlawed paganism and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire; manipulated the Council of Nicea in 325; exercised absolute authority over the church, co-opting it for the aims of empire[.] And if Constantine the emperor were not problem enough, we all know that Constantinianism has been very bad for the church. Or do we know these things? Peter Leithart weighs these claims and finds them wanting. And what's more, in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. For beneath the surface of this contested story there emerges a deeper narrative of the end of Roman sacrifice – a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire – and with far-reaching implications. In this probing and informative book Peter Leithart examines the real Constantine, weighs the charges against Constantinianism, and sets the terms for a new conversation about this pivotal emperor and the Christendom that emerged."

Endorsements: "This intelligent and sensitive treatment of one of the great military emperors of Rome is a trustworthy entrée into Roman history that loses none of the romance and rambunctiousness of the events of the era of the civil war, but which also explains why Constantine matters: why he was important to the ancient world, why he matters to the development of Christianity (a catalyst in its movement from small sect to world-embracing cultural force). It does not whitewash or damn on the basis of a preset ideology, but it certainly does explain why Constantine gained from the Christians the epithet 'The Great.' For setting the record straight, and for providing a sense of the complicated lay of the land, this book comes most highly recommended." (John A. McGuckin, Columbia University)

"An excellent writer with a flair for the dramatic, Peter Leithart is also one of the most incisive current thinkers on questions of theology and politics. In this book, Leithart helpfully complicates Christian history, and thereby helps theologians recover the riches of more than a millennium of Christian life too easily dismissed as 'Constantinian.' If the Holy Spirit did not simply go on holiday during that period, we must find ways to appreciate Christendom. Any worthwhile political theology today cannot fail to take Leithart's argument seriously." (William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University)

Peter J. Leithart is Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College and pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, both in Moscow, Idaho, USA.

Book: Žižek and Politics: A Critical Introduction

Matthew Sharpe and Geoff M. Boucher, "Žižek and Politics: A Critical Introduction" (Edinburgh University Press, March 2010):

www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748638048

Publisher's description: "In Zizek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Zizek, one that can be highly critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Zizek has a raft of fundamental positions that enable his theoretical positions to be put to work on practical problems. Explaining these positions with clear examples, they outline why Zizek's confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has so radically changed how we think about society. They then go on to track Zizek's own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with theoretical problems and the political climate of the War on Terror. This book is a major addition to the literature on Zizek and a crucial critical introduction to his thought." (bold removed)

The book includes sections on "Political Theology and the Subject-Object" and "Why Political Theology?".

Matthew Sharpe is a Lecturer in the School of International and Political Studies and Geoff M. Boucher is a Lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, both at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.

Book: In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology

Just published: Amos Yong, "In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology" (Eerdmans, August 2010):

www.eerdmans.com/shop/product.asp?p_key=9780802864062

Publisher's description: "In the Days of Caesar is a constructive political theology formulated in sustained dialogue with pentecostalism – one of the most vibrant religious movements at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Amos Yong here argues that the many tongues, practices, and gifts of pentecostal Christianity can offer new resources to the larger Christian community as it seeks to engage and transform social, political, and economic structures around the world. Yong seeks to correct stereotypes of pentecostalism, both political and theological, and to encourage pentecostals to craft a distinct political theology from their own pentecostalism rather than merely to adopt an external framework for theological or political self-understanding. Moreover, Yong shows how a distinctively pentecostal form of theological reflection has the potential to illuminate and enhance broader Christian belief and practice. This book's engagement with political theology from a pentecostal perspective is the first of its kind. Yong hopes here to serve as an interpreter of the many tongues of pentecostalism and the many other tongues of political theology, to help foster a mutually beneficial discourse and open up uncharted trajectories in both fields."

Amos Yong is J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology at Regent University.