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.
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
17 February 2011
27 December 2010
CFP: Resistance to Finance
"Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture & Politics", an annual interdisciplinary publication affiliated with the Literature Programme and edited by humanities graduate students of Duke University, is planning an issue (no. 24) on "Resistance to Finance", to be published in 2012, and has released a call for papers. They particularly invite contributors with a background in political theology.
www.duke.edu/web/polygraph/cfp24.html
Description: "What does financial capitalism demand of us in thought and in action today? Financial capital is one of the fundamental structuring forces in our world. Evidence of this is ubiquitous: the severity and extent of the most recent global financial crisis, the collapse of whole national economies (as in Greece and Iceland), the steadily progressing securitization of pensions and savings, a growing volume of derivatives trading that already dwarfs 'real' global GDP. Yet many critical accounts of corporate globalization, free trade, neoliberalism, and so on all too rarely emphasize the fact that high finance constitutes the very condition of possibility of capitalism as we know it. Other available forms of economic critique, from world-systems theory to dependency theory to theories of Empire, often do grant high finance the central role that it in reality occupies, but rarely go beyond critique to directly address the question of resistance. Too often, critique remains mired in highlighting isolated acts and agents of malfeasance rather than producing totalizing, systemic claims with real leverage.
"We now know this state of affairs to be in need of immediate rectification. We also know that action is demanded, but its contours are not yet well defined. The clout of finance capital has received ample attention in Marxist economics, neo-classical economics, and other quarters – yet the accounts produced thus far of what is to be done have been less than satisfactory. What political responses on the part of on-the-ground social movements and both current and potential bodies of governance are necessary? Are some already underway but obscured from view? What alternative economic futures can we begin to construct out of the wreckage of the most recent crisis and the structural shifts that produced and accompany it? Is it necessary to break the global economy of its speculative bent and return it to its 'real' roots, or is this antithesis, stemming from Hilferding's classic critique of 'fictitious capital,' fundamentally ill-conceived? Should the focus of political action be shifted away from past struggles – against multinational corporations, free trade, and the powerful political allies of both – in the direction of the financial crux of the global economy? What would such a change in focus entail?
"Potential topics: Financial capitalism and Marxism (The continued efficacy or potential obsolescence of previous critical outlooks [world systems theory, Empire theory, etc.] in confronting global finance; The centrality of the question of global finance in any meaningful
critical engagement with globalization; Systemic global inequality, post-Fordism and crisis); Resistance (Forms of political subjectivity capable of comprehending and acting within [and against] high finance as it stands; What is the role of the state in confronting financial capital?; Real and hypothetical political movements and direct action; Strategies of flight and subtractive action, whether individual [e.g. walking away from mortgage contracts] or institutional [e.g. Argentina's post-crisis debt restructuring]; Alternative financial institutions and orders (Jacques Sapir's recent call for a 'new Bretton Woods' system [akin to Antonio Negri's call for a 'new New Deal']; Microfinance and financial decentralization; The global Tobin tax on of [sic] financial transactions and other forms of regulation; Neo-Luddism and the return to the 'real' economy; Radical political economy and the pursuit of anti-capitalist alternatives); Other (Historical perspectives on high finance, dealing with periodization, secular trends, particular crises and institutions, and exemplary modes of resistance; Mystification, abstraction and the 'new' digital/virtual economy; Epistemological barriers to adequate critique of the global financial system; Perception and belief as primary structural forces in the financial system; Artistic representations of the financial world as possible critical tools; Socio-political underpinnings of the financialization of the world)"
"Polygraph" welcomes work from a variety of disciplines, including political economy, critical geography, cultural anthropology, political theology, science studies, and systems theory. They also encourage the submission of a variety of formats and genres, i.e. field reports, surveys, interviews, photography, essays, etc.
Please e-mail complete manuscripts to the editor of this issue, Lucas Perkins (Duke University): lucas.perkins@duke.edu
Deadline: 31 January 2011
www.duke.edu/web/polygraph/cfp24.html
Description: "What does financial capitalism demand of us in thought and in action today? Financial capital is one of the fundamental structuring forces in our world. Evidence of this is ubiquitous: the severity and extent of the most recent global financial crisis, the collapse of whole national economies (as in Greece and Iceland), the steadily progressing securitization of pensions and savings, a growing volume of derivatives trading that already dwarfs 'real' global GDP. Yet many critical accounts of corporate globalization, free trade, neoliberalism, and so on all too rarely emphasize the fact that high finance constitutes the very condition of possibility of capitalism as we know it. Other available forms of economic critique, from world-systems theory to dependency theory to theories of Empire, often do grant high finance the central role that it in reality occupies, but rarely go beyond critique to directly address the question of resistance. Too often, critique remains mired in highlighting isolated acts and agents of malfeasance rather than producing totalizing, systemic claims with real leverage.
"We now know this state of affairs to be in need of immediate rectification. We also know that action is demanded, but its contours are not yet well defined. The clout of finance capital has received ample attention in Marxist economics, neo-classical economics, and other quarters – yet the accounts produced thus far of what is to be done have been less than satisfactory. What political responses on the part of on-the-ground social movements and both current and potential bodies of governance are necessary? Are some already underway but obscured from view? What alternative economic futures can we begin to construct out of the wreckage of the most recent crisis and the structural shifts that produced and accompany it? Is it necessary to break the global economy of its speculative bent and return it to its 'real' roots, or is this antithesis, stemming from Hilferding's classic critique of 'fictitious capital,' fundamentally ill-conceived? Should the focus of political action be shifted away from past struggles – against multinational corporations, free trade, and the powerful political allies of both – in the direction of the financial crux of the global economy? What would such a change in focus entail?
"Potential topics: Financial capitalism and Marxism (The continued efficacy or potential obsolescence of previous critical outlooks [world systems theory, Empire theory, etc.] in confronting global finance; The centrality of the question of global finance in any meaningful
critical engagement with globalization; Systemic global inequality, post-Fordism and crisis); Resistance (Forms of political subjectivity capable of comprehending and acting within [and against] high finance as it stands; What is the role of the state in confronting financial capital?; Real and hypothetical political movements and direct action; Strategies of flight and subtractive action, whether individual [e.g. walking away from mortgage contracts] or institutional [e.g. Argentina's post-crisis debt restructuring]; Alternative financial institutions and orders (Jacques Sapir's recent call for a 'new Bretton Woods' system [akin to Antonio Negri's call for a 'new New Deal']; Microfinance and financial decentralization; The global Tobin tax on of [sic] financial transactions and other forms of regulation; Neo-Luddism and the return to the 'real' economy; Radical political economy and the pursuit of anti-capitalist alternatives); Other (Historical perspectives on high finance, dealing with periodization, secular trends, particular crises and institutions, and exemplary modes of resistance; Mystification, abstraction and the 'new' digital/virtual economy; Epistemological barriers to adequate critique of the global financial system; Perception and belief as primary structural forces in the financial system; Artistic representations of the financial world as possible critical tools; Socio-political underpinnings of the financialization of the world)"
"Polygraph" welcomes work from a variety of disciplines, including political economy, critical geography, cultural anthropology, political theology, science studies, and systems theory. They also encourage the submission of a variety of formats and genres, i.e. field reports, surveys, interviews, photography, essays, etc.
Please e-mail complete manuscripts to the editor of this issue, Lucas Perkins (Duke University): lucas.perkins@duke.edu
Deadline: 31 January 2011
29 March 2010
Journal special issue: The Continental Shift
Creston Davis (Rollins College) is the editor of a special issue of the journal "Political Theology" titled "The Continental Shift" (11 [1], March 2010):
www.politicaltheology.com/PT/issue/view/739
From Davis' introduction ("The Continental Shift", pp. 5-14): "What is at stake for political theology today? This is the basic question this issue attempts to address. It is true that the subject of political theology resists a singular definition; indeed the term functions like a nebulous concept – a Rorschach test whose ink markings are given meaning by the individual perceiver [...]. The core of the cosmic scandal to which Paul refers and whose very meaning interrupts in the void of the cross, in death as such, is love. Indeed, it is this dis-possessive exceptional scandal that ruptures the immediate fake 'universal' (law, morality, ethics, politics etc.) and founds a new universal based on the infinity of love that gives birth to rethinking the very foundations of political theology in our time. What's more, this interruption of the status quo (of the fake universal) establishes the universal-exception of the Incarnational Event, which affords the world new coordinates for how humanity is defined in a manner that radically breaks with [Carl] Schmitt's false dichotomy of friend/enemy, among other things. This radical thesis is what we may call the 'continental shift' in political theology."
Strangely, an entry on Davis' blog seems to be significantly clearer about the aim of this issue than is the introduction: "The journal issue takes seriously the thesis that Political Theology is radically open to debate; indeed this issue opens the doors of debate about the very nature of Political Theology after-Schmitt and in the wake of such Continental thinkers as Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, J. Taubes, G. Agamben, S. Zizek and others. In light of these thinkers it is clear that the very coordinates of Political Theology has changed forever. I will argue that Schmitt's indebtedness to Hobbesian demonic version of what constitutes the theoretical space called 'the sovereign' needs to be rejected. [...] Thus the thesis of this issue is that there is no one version that defines Political Theology as such, but is rather more like a moving debate that resists a vulgar reduction down to a singular and absolutist view of 'the Political' or 'the Theological.' Political Theology is thus an inherently dynamic process and not a static boring rerun of the same episode called 'the State' or even 'Carl Schmitt' for that matter."
Articles in this special issue include:
Antonio Negri, "The Eclipse of Eschatology: Conversing with Taubes's Messianism and the Common Body" (trans. Bruno Bosteels; pp. 35-41).
Abstract: "In this article Jacob Taubes's idea of eschatology is examined. Taubes's own understanding of eschatology has profound implications on the very expression of political theology and political practice. If politics – as a practice – assumes that time has a terminal point, than it will invariably change this practice and encumber and even neutralize political action of a commonbody that gives voice to the oppressed. This article agrees with Taubes in that eschatology must announce an end to itself, which is at once a birth of a postmodern possibility of the principle of immanence in which a commonbody announces its infinite possibility. The end of eschatology is the end of transcendence and the beginning of a struggle for liberating the infinite possibility of a common-body of labor."
Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA), "There is Something of One (God): Lacan and Political Theology" (pp. 43-60).
Abstract: "For both Lacan and Badiou, Plato's Parmenides is a primary locus for the question of the One. Moreover, for both Lacan and Badiou, the One ultimately takes on political valence, as key to the problematics of representation and the discursive conditions of collectivity. However, unlike Badiou, Lacan's exploration of the question of One also passes through theology – through what I am calling 'something of One God' – and I want to argue that it is only by bringing the One into explicit relationship with those monotheistic issues that we can fully understand its implications for analytic discourse and political life. Lacan's thinking on the 'something of One [sic] takes a necessary swerve back through a theological problematic, and in the process articulates the terms of a political theology, an essential conjunction of political and religious understandings of sovereignty, subjectivity and collectivity."
Daniel M. Bell, Jr. (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary), "The Fragile Brillance of Glass: Empire, Multitude, and the Coming Community" (pp. 61-76).
Abstract: "Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Giorgio Agamben are among a handful of contemporary continental philosophers whose thought of the political proves simultaneously most salutary and vexing for the task of articulating a postliberal Augustinian political theology. Their accounts of the political problem of the early twenty-first century West are most helpful while their anticipation of democracy raises serious questions about the viability of the church as a political formation capable of escaping the clutches of the current terror. In the end I argue that the hope nurtured by Agamben, Hardt and Negri fails to hold out the promise of life beyond empire and this because finally they, and not an Augustinian church, are insufficiently democratic."
Mary-Jane Rubenstein (Wesleyan University), "Capital Shares: The Way Back into the With of Christianity" (pp. 103-19).
Abstract: "In the ten years since the publication of Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's *Empire*, the relationship between Christianity and global capital has received increasing theological attention among the adherents, critics, sympathizers, and apostates of Radical Orthodoxy. At stake in this conversation is the possibility that Christianity might provide a universal ontology sufficient to ground a counter-hegemonic, specifically socialist, praxis. One question that many of these authors rarely address, however, is the extent to which Christian universalism has been responsible for the emergence of global capital in the first place. This article will address this profound split at the heart of a tradition; that is, Christianity's culpability for and resistance to global capital. To this end, 'Capital Shares' sketches the aporia of Christianity's relation to Empire and then appeals to Jean-Luc Nancy's 'deconstruction of Christianity'; in particular, his attempt to find 'a source of Christianity, more original than Christianity itself, that might provoke another possibility to arise.'"
Further articles: Clayton Crockett (University of Central Arkansas) and Catherine Malabou (Paris West University Nanterre La Défense), "Plasticity and the Future of Philosophy and Theology" (pp. 15-34); C.C. Pecknold (Catholic University of America), "Migrations of the Host: Fugitive Democracy and the Corpus Mysticum" (pp. 77-101); Joshua Delpech-Ramey (Rowan University), "Supernatural Capital: A Note on the Zizek-Milbank Debate" (pp. 121-5); John Milbank (University of Nottingham), "Without Heaven There is Only Hell on Earth: 15 Verdicts on Zizek's Response" (pp. 126-35); Slavoj Zizek (University of Ljubljana/Birkbeck College), "The Atheist Wager"
(pp. 136-40).
The last three articles assess and continue the debate between John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek started in their joint book "The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?" (MIT Press, April 2009), which was equally edited by Creston Davis.
www.politicaltheology.com/PT/issue/view/739
From Davis' introduction ("The Continental Shift", pp. 5-14): "What is at stake for political theology today? This is the basic question this issue attempts to address. It is true that the subject of political theology resists a singular definition; indeed the term functions like a nebulous concept – a Rorschach test whose ink markings are given meaning by the individual perceiver [...]. The core of the cosmic scandal to which Paul refers and whose very meaning interrupts in the void of the cross, in death as such, is love. Indeed, it is this dis-possessive exceptional scandal that ruptures the immediate fake 'universal' (law, morality, ethics, politics etc.) and founds a new universal based on the infinity of love that gives birth to rethinking the very foundations of political theology in our time. What's more, this interruption of the status quo (of the fake universal) establishes the universal-exception of the Incarnational Event, which affords the world new coordinates for how humanity is defined in a manner that radically breaks with [Carl] Schmitt's false dichotomy of friend/enemy, among other things. This radical thesis is what we may call the 'continental shift' in political theology."
Strangely, an entry on Davis' blog seems to be significantly clearer about the aim of this issue than is the introduction: "The journal issue takes seriously the thesis that Political Theology is radically open to debate; indeed this issue opens the doors of debate about the very nature of Political Theology after-Schmitt and in the wake of such Continental thinkers as Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, J. Taubes, G. Agamben, S. Zizek and others. In light of these thinkers it is clear that the very coordinates of Political Theology has changed forever. I will argue that Schmitt's indebtedness to Hobbesian demonic version of what constitutes the theoretical space called 'the sovereign' needs to be rejected. [...] Thus the thesis of this issue is that there is no one version that defines Political Theology as such, but is rather more like a moving debate that resists a vulgar reduction down to a singular and absolutist view of 'the Political' or 'the Theological.' Political Theology is thus an inherently dynamic process and not a static boring rerun of the same episode called 'the State' or even 'Carl Schmitt' for that matter."
Articles in this special issue include:
Antonio Negri, "The Eclipse of Eschatology: Conversing with Taubes's Messianism and the Common Body" (trans. Bruno Bosteels; pp. 35-41).
Abstract: "In this article Jacob Taubes's idea of eschatology is examined. Taubes's own understanding of eschatology has profound implications on the very expression of political theology and political practice. If politics – as a practice – assumes that time has a terminal point, than it will invariably change this practice and encumber and even neutralize political action of a commonbody that gives voice to the oppressed. This article agrees with Taubes in that eschatology must announce an end to itself, which is at once a birth of a postmodern possibility of the principle of immanence in which a commonbody announces its infinite possibility. The end of eschatology is the end of transcendence and the beginning of a struggle for liberating the infinite possibility of a common-body of labor."
Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA), "There is Something of One (God): Lacan and Political Theology" (pp. 43-60).
Abstract: "For both Lacan and Badiou, Plato's Parmenides is a primary locus for the question of the One. Moreover, for both Lacan and Badiou, the One ultimately takes on political valence, as key to the problematics of representation and the discursive conditions of collectivity. However, unlike Badiou, Lacan's exploration of the question of One also passes through theology – through what I am calling 'something of One God' – and I want to argue that it is only by bringing the One into explicit relationship with those monotheistic issues that we can fully understand its implications for analytic discourse and political life. Lacan's thinking on the 'something of One [sic] takes a necessary swerve back through a theological problematic, and in the process articulates the terms of a political theology, an essential conjunction of political and religious understandings of sovereignty, subjectivity and collectivity."
Daniel M. Bell, Jr. (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary), "The Fragile Brillance of Glass: Empire, Multitude, and the Coming Community" (pp. 61-76).
Abstract: "Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Giorgio Agamben are among a handful of contemporary continental philosophers whose thought of the political proves simultaneously most salutary and vexing for the task of articulating a postliberal Augustinian political theology. Their accounts of the political problem of the early twenty-first century West are most helpful while their anticipation of democracy raises serious questions about the viability of the church as a political formation capable of escaping the clutches of the current terror. In the end I argue that the hope nurtured by Agamben, Hardt and Negri fails to hold out the promise of life beyond empire and this because finally they, and not an Augustinian church, are insufficiently democratic."
Mary-Jane Rubenstein (Wesleyan University), "Capital Shares: The Way Back into the With of Christianity" (pp. 103-19).
Abstract: "In the ten years since the publication of Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's *Empire*, the relationship between Christianity and global capital has received increasing theological attention among the adherents, critics, sympathizers, and apostates of Radical Orthodoxy. At stake in this conversation is the possibility that Christianity might provide a universal ontology sufficient to ground a counter-hegemonic, specifically socialist, praxis. One question that many of these authors rarely address, however, is the extent to which Christian universalism has been responsible for the emergence of global capital in the first place. This article will address this profound split at the heart of a tradition; that is, Christianity's culpability for and resistance to global capital. To this end, 'Capital Shares' sketches the aporia of Christianity's relation to Empire and then appeals to Jean-Luc Nancy's 'deconstruction of Christianity'; in particular, his attempt to find 'a source of Christianity, more original than Christianity itself, that might provoke another possibility to arise.'"
Further articles: Clayton Crockett (University of Central Arkansas) and Catherine Malabou (Paris West University Nanterre La Défense), "Plasticity and the Future of Philosophy and Theology" (pp. 15-34); C.C. Pecknold (Catholic University of America), "Migrations of the Host: Fugitive Democracy and the Corpus Mysticum" (pp. 77-101); Joshua Delpech-Ramey (Rowan University), "Supernatural Capital: A Note on the Zizek-Milbank Debate" (pp. 121-5); John Milbank (University of Nottingham), "Without Heaven There is Only Hell on Earth: 15 Verdicts on Zizek's Response" (pp. 126-35); Slavoj Zizek (University of Ljubljana/Birkbeck College), "The Atheist Wager"
(pp. 136-40).
The last three articles assess and continue the debate between John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek started in their joint book "The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?" (MIT Press, April 2009), which was equally edited by Creston Davis.
05 January 2010
Book: Credit, crisis, and redemption (in German)
Samuel Weber (Northwestern University) has had a small booklet published in Germany titled "Geld ist Zeit: Gedanken zu Kredit und Krise" (Diaphanes Verlag, September 2009):
www.diaphanes.de/scripts/buch.php?ID=180
According to the publisher's website, this is a translation from English, but the original text seems not yet to have been published. Weber appears to have spoken on the topic in English ("Money is Time: Is the 'Credit Crisis' A Crisis of 'Redemption'?") at the University of Stockholm (December 2008), the University of Nottingham (October 2009), and the Catholic University of Portugal (November 2009), though.
From the publisher's description (my rough translation): Along with the financial crisis and the crisis of the banking industry, "[w]e are currently experiencing a veritable crisis of faith, which shakes the value system of the western world in its foundations. Samuel Weber's essay is guided by the question what logic is at the basis of an economy that has reached such extensive, quasi-theological dimensions".
Benjamin Franklin said "time is money", but also "credit is money". "The logic of capitalism is built [...] on credit: the belief of investors and consumers in the amortization of debt through return on investment ('Rendite'). 'Return on investment' is 'the capitalist kind of profit as redemption: repayment, amortization and salvation ('Rückzahlung, Tilgung und Erlösung').
"Weber's lucid, fierce analysis of the 'crisis' reveals that in a society in which the credere has taken the place of the Lutheran sola fide, capitalism has become the religion of a cult that is (with Walter Benjamin) 'not atoning, but indebting'." (my italics)
A (largely unfavourable) review in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung indicates that Weber bases his essay as much on Carl Schmitt's political theology – an analogy between religious and secular terminology – as on Benjamin.
www.diaphanes.de/scripts/buch.php?ID=180
According to the publisher's website, this is a translation from English, but the original text seems not yet to have been published. Weber appears to have spoken on the topic in English ("Money is Time: Is the 'Credit Crisis' A Crisis of 'Redemption'?") at the University of Stockholm (December 2008), the University of Nottingham (October 2009), and the Catholic University of Portugal (November 2009), though.
From the publisher's description (my rough translation): Along with the financial crisis and the crisis of the banking industry, "[w]e are currently experiencing a veritable crisis of faith, which shakes the value system of the western world in its foundations. Samuel Weber's essay is guided by the question what logic is at the basis of an economy that has reached such extensive, quasi-theological dimensions".
Benjamin Franklin said "time is money", but also "credit is money". "The logic of capitalism is built [...] on credit: the belief of investors and consumers in the amortization of debt through return on investment ('Rendite'). 'Return on investment' is 'the capitalist kind of profit as redemption: repayment, amortization and salvation ('Rückzahlung, Tilgung und Erlösung').
"Weber's lucid, fierce analysis of the 'crisis' reveals that in a society in which the credere has taken the place of the Lutheran sola fide, capitalism has become the religion of a cult that is (with Walter Benjamin) 'not atoning, but indebting'." (my italics)
A (largely unfavourable) review in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung indicates that Weber bases his essay as much on Carl Schmitt's political theology – an analogy between religious and secular terminology – as on Benjamin.
31 December 2009
Books: "The Radical Orthodoxy Reader", and essays in political theology
The year 2009 has seen a number of books by John Milbank published. "The Radical Orthodoxy Reader" (Routledge), co-edited with Simon Oliver, includes a chapter, written by Milbank himself, titled "Political Theology and the New Science of Politics":
www.routledge.com/books/The-Radical-Orthodoxy-Reader-isbn9780415425131
From the publisher's description: "The Radical Orthodoxy Reader presents a selection of key readings in the field of [Anglican] Radical Orthodoxy, the most influential theological movement in contemporary academic theology. Radical Orthodoxy draws on pre-Enlightenment theology and philosophy to engage critically with the assumption and priorities of secularism, modernity, postmodernity, and associated theologies."
Already in January 2009, Milbank's "The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology" (Cascade Books) was published:
www.wipfandstock.com/store/The_Future_of_Love_Essays_in_Political_Theology
Described thus: "With a newly written preface relating his theology to the current global situation, The Future of Love contains revised versions of eighteen of John Milbank's essays on theology, politics, religion, and culture – ranging from the onset of neoliberalism to its current crisis, and from the British to the global context. [...] Taken together, the collection amounts to a 'political theology' arrived at from diverse angles."
Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh) writes: "These essays, published over thirty years and gathered in this important new book, demonstrate the consistent acuity and imaginative power of John Milbank's politico-theological vision. Milbank bestrides the Anglosaxon theological world with a project that is uniquely embedded in the romantic, anglocatholic, and socialist critiques of modernity from Coleridge to Ruskin. In this book we see the gradual repristination of these critiques against atheism, humanism, and neoliberalism, and the unfolding of a political theology after the secular in the form of a biblical and realist metaphysic and the neoplatonist sublime. The Future of Love is a powerful rendering of a truer and more virtuous life world than that delivered by the last thirty years of godforsaken market capitalism."
www.routledge.com/books/The-Radical-Orthodoxy-Reader-isbn9780415425131
From the publisher's description: "The Radical Orthodoxy Reader presents a selection of key readings in the field of [Anglican] Radical Orthodoxy, the most influential theological movement in contemporary academic theology. Radical Orthodoxy draws on pre-Enlightenment theology and philosophy to engage critically with the assumption and priorities of secularism, modernity, postmodernity, and associated theologies."
Already in January 2009, Milbank's "The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology" (Cascade Books) was published:
www.wipfandstock.com/store/The_Future_of_Love_Essays_in_Political_Theology
Described thus: "With a newly written preface relating his theology to the current global situation, The Future of Love contains revised versions of eighteen of John Milbank's essays on theology, politics, religion, and culture – ranging from the onset of neoliberalism to its current crisis, and from the British to the global context. [...] Taken together, the collection amounts to a 'political theology' arrived at from diverse angles."
Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh) writes: "These essays, published over thirty years and gathered in this important new book, demonstrate the consistent acuity and imaginative power of John Milbank's politico-theological vision. Milbank bestrides the Anglosaxon theological world with a project that is uniquely embedded in the romantic, anglocatholic, and socialist critiques of modernity from Coleridge to Ruskin. In this book we see the gradual repristination of these critiques against atheism, humanism, and neoliberalism, and the unfolding of a political theology after the secular in the form of a biblical and realist metaphysic and the neoplatonist sublime. The Future of Love is a powerful rendering of a truer and more virtuous life world than that delivered by the last thirty years of godforsaken market capitalism."
30 December 2009
Book: The Christian Anarchists of the 20th Century
Tripp York wrote a book on religious anarchism: "Living on Hope While Living in Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the 20th Century" (Wipf and Stock, 2009).
http://wipfandstock.com/store/Living_on_Hope_While_Living_in_Babylon_The_Christian_Anarchists_of_the_20th_Century
Publisher's description: "Though Christendom has come to an end, it appears that old habits die hard. Jesus promised his followers neither safety nor affluence, but rather that those who come after him should expect persecution. Christian discipleship and tribal nationalism, however, despite the legal separation of church and state, continue to be co-opted into the nation-state project of prosperity and security. This co-option has made it difficult for the church to recognize her task to be a prophetic witness both for and against the state. That only a small pocket of Christians bear witness against such an accommodation of Christian practice is disconcerting; and yet, it breeds hope.
"In Living on Hope While Living in Babylon, Tripp York examines a few twentieth century Christians who lived such a witness, including the Berrigan brothers, Dorothy Day, and Eberhard Arnold. These witnesses can be viewed as anarchical in the sense that their loyalty to Christ undermines the pseudo-soteriological myth employed by the state. While these Christians have been labeled pilgrims, revolutionaries, nomads, subversives, agitators, and now, anarchists, they are more importantly seekers of the peace of the city whose chief desire is for those belonging to the temporal cities to be able to participate in the eternal city – the city of God. By examining their ideas and their actions, this book will attempt to understand how the politics of the church – an apocalyptic politic – is necessary for the church to understand her mission as bearer of the gospel."
Endorsed by D. Stephen Long (Marquette University) thus: "This work offers one of the most constructive political theologies I have read for some time. Refusing any merely reactive logic, York develops a theological an-archy that neither seeks relevance to nor reaction against a specific construal of state sovereignty. The 'arche' is the Risen Lamb who was slain, who calls into question the disorder created by materialism, racism, and militarism. [...] This is lively, enjoyable, and convicting reading."
http://wipfandstock.com/store/Living_on_Hope_While_Living_in_Babylon_The_Christian_Anarchists_of_the_20th_Century
Publisher's description: "Though Christendom has come to an end, it appears that old habits die hard. Jesus promised his followers neither safety nor affluence, but rather that those who come after him should expect persecution. Christian discipleship and tribal nationalism, however, despite the legal separation of church and state, continue to be co-opted into the nation-state project of prosperity and security. This co-option has made it difficult for the church to recognize her task to be a prophetic witness both for and against the state. That only a small pocket of Christians bear witness against such an accommodation of Christian practice is disconcerting; and yet, it breeds hope.
"In Living on Hope While Living in Babylon, Tripp York examines a few twentieth century Christians who lived such a witness, including the Berrigan brothers, Dorothy Day, and Eberhard Arnold. These witnesses can be viewed as anarchical in the sense that their loyalty to Christ undermines the pseudo-soteriological myth employed by the state. While these Christians have been labeled pilgrims, revolutionaries, nomads, subversives, agitators, and now, anarchists, they are more importantly seekers of the peace of the city whose chief desire is for those belonging to the temporal cities to be able to participate in the eternal city – the city of God. By examining their ideas and their actions, this book will attempt to understand how the politics of the church – an apocalyptic politic – is necessary for the church to understand her mission as bearer of the gospel."
Endorsed by D. Stephen Long (Marquette University) thus: "This work offers one of the most constructive political theologies I have read for some time. Refusing any merely reactive logic, York develops a theological an-archy that neither seeks relevance to nor reaction against a specific construal of state sovereignty. The 'arche' is the Risen Lamb who was slain, who calls into question the disorder created by materialism, racism, and militarism. [...] This is lively, enjoyable, and convicting reading."
26 December 2009
Book: The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens
Graham Ward (University of Manchester) recently had his new book published, "The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens" (Baker Academic, September 2009):
www.bakeracademic.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=C5E01AF419374641BEA3063DB0415D7D
Endorsements: "In this book, Graham Ward boldly offers a fresh description of the consumer economy and the processes of globalization, examining the illusions they generate, the states of amnesia they call us into, and the slavery they impose. In the process, he constructs a counter-narrative of a Christian discipleship in the service of postmaterial values that is founded on an eschatological humanism and ecclesiology. The result is a new political theology, powerfully presented, rooted in Scripture and tradition, and fully engaged in reading the postsecular signs of the times." (Peter Manley Scott, University of Manchester)
"For some time now, Graham Ward has blended orthodox theology, biblical study, and cultural theory with an independent originality. Now he has added politics to this mix. The result is simultaneously a greater edge to his own theology and an imbuing of contemporary political theology with more realistic depth and practical prescience than it usually exhibits. An extremely significant volume in the present time." (John Milbank, University of Nottingham)
"With erudition, insight, and sheer imaginative power, Graham Ward examines the complexities and tasks of Christian discipleship in a globalized world. There is no surer guide than Ward to the enticements and dangers of postmodern, postmaterial life – where values themselves have become virtual, adopted for a day – or to the hope of finding the true meaning of our still-present materiality in the practices of church and in the ecclesiality of the body of Christ. Yet Ward's encyclopedic grasp of political theory; his detailed, often dazzling readings of Scripture; and his profound inhabitation of theology are deployed with a humor and lightness of touch that renders this book both challenging and immensely readable. It is political theology but also a page-turner: impressive, provocative, and impossible to put down." (Gerard Loughlin, Durham University)
The author of the book is part of the Anglican Radical Orthodoxy movement.
www.bakeracademic.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=C5E01AF419374641BEA3063DB0415D7D
Endorsements: "In this book, Graham Ward boldly offers a fresh description of the consumer economy and the processes of globalization, examining the illusions they generate, the states of amnesia they call us into, and the slavery they impose. In the process, he constructs a counter-narrative of a Christian discipleship in the service of postmaterial values that is founded on an eschatological humanism and ecclesiology. The result is a new political theology, powerfully presented, rooted in Scripture and tradition, and fully engaged in reading the postsecular signs of the times." (Peter Manley Scott, University of Manchester)
"For some time now, Graham Ward has blended orthodox theology, biblical study, and cultural theory with an independent originality. Now he has added politics to this mix. The result is simultaneously a greater edge to his own theology and an imbuing of contemporary political theology with more realistic depth and practical prescience than it usually exhibits. An extremely significant volume in the present time." (John Milbank, University of Nottingham)
"With erudition, insight, and sheer imaginative power, Graham Ward examines the complexities and tasks of Christian discipleship in a globalized world. There is no surer guide than Ward to the enticements and dangers of postmodern, postmaterial life – where values themselves have become virtual, adopted for a day – or to the hope of finding the true meaning of our still-present materiality in the practices of church and in the ecclesiality of the body of Christ. Yet Ward's encyclopedic grasp of political theory; his detailed, often dazzling readings of Scripture; and his profound inhabitation of theology are deployed with a humor and lightness of touch that renders this book both challenging and immensely readable. It is political theology but also a page-turner: impressive, provocative, and impossible to put down." (Gerard Loughlin, Durham University)
The author of the book is part of the Anglican Radical Orthodoxy movement.
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