XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress "A Spoke in the Wheel: The Political in Bonhoeffer's Theology Reconsidered", at the Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden, 27 June-1 July 2012
Call for papers
Description: "On account of its Christology and ecclesiology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology is intrinsically political. On the one hand, his theological convictions make possible opposition to government authority. Already early on in his critical engagement against the Nazi regime, in 'The Church and the Jewish Question' (1933), Bonhoeffer expected the church to oppose the state when the rights of those disdained by the state were violated. Ultimately, this stance resulted in Bonhoeffer's participation in the resistance and his violent death. On the other hand, however, Bonhoeffer advocated a conservative non-democratic political order for Germany after the war. How can one explain these seeming contradictions? How should we understand Bonhoeffer's political theology? The aim of the XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress is to encourage reflections on the continuing relevance of Bonhoeffer's political theology and ethics for the Christian church in a world that is characterized by an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. Is the church once again expected to put up political resistance?"
Sigtuna is the historical place where Bonhoeffer during the war met Bishop George Bell in secret mission. The historical Sigtuna Foundation is located only 15 minutes from the international airport of Stockholm (Arlanda). President of the congress is Bishop Martin Lind (Linköping).
The planning committee of the congress invites paper proposals for the three working days of the conference, each of which will consist of main speakers in the morning and seminar sessions in the afternoon. The topics of the three days are: "Bonhoeffer's Political Resistance" (28 June, with the subtopics: Democracy; Nationalism; Politics and Oikoumene; Europe and the Refugees), "Bonhoeffer on Church, State and Civil Society" (29 June, subtopics: Human Rights; Public Theology; Lutheran Heritage), and "How Do We Live Responsibly?" (30 June, subtopics: Religion and Ethics; Migration and Refugee Studies; Global Economy; Climate Change). The subtopics should not be seen as binding for the proposals. The organizers welcome papers discussing other dimensions of the topic of the day than the ones mentioned.
The proposals, which should explain topic, main arguments, and conclusions of the paper, should have no more than 500 words. They can be written in German or English, and the presentations at the conference can be held in English or German. Younger scholars, e.g. PhD students, are especially invited to propose papers. Proposals are to be submitted to Kirsten Busch Nielsen (University of Copenhagen): bonhoeffer2012@teol.ku.dk
Deadline: 1 June 2011
The decision, taken by a small committee, as to which proposals are accepted will be communicated via e-mail by the end of August 2011. The afternoon on which the accepted papers will be placed is not necessarily connected to the topic of the day.
Registration for the congress will be possible from June/July 2011. Congress fees, including accommodation and meals at the venue, will be approximately 500 Euro. Information about reduced fees for students is to follow.
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
10 December 2010
23 October 2010
CFP: Religion and Liberation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Conference "Religion and Liberation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives" of Durham University's Department of Theology, Faith and Globalization Programme, and Centre for Catholic Studies, at St Cuthbert's Catholic Church (University Chaplaincy), Durham, UK, 17 December 2010,
9.00 am-6.30 pm
http://religionandliberation.wordpress.com
Call for papers
Description: "Current debates about religion and politics tend towards two positions: 1) concern over the danger of religious extremism; 2) criticism of religious traditions' conservative positions on social issues. While these debates are important, their dominance often eclipses the significant history of religiously rooted liberation movements. This conference aims to address this often-overlooked connection through the investigation of three themes: 1) historical analysis of religiously rooted liberation movements; 2) theoretical analysis of the connection between religious ideas and theories of liberation; and 3) critical analysis of religion's role in contemporary philosophy and critical theory. Through this investigation, we seek to show how the theoretical and historical elements within these traditions may provide a complementary critical resource which enables communities to work on solutions to the crises confronting contemporary society."
The organizers welcome submission on these or other related topics: Religious responses to the political and economic effects of globalization, including the responses of indigenous religious traditions; Theoretic, sociological, or historical perspectives on the role of religious traditions in struggles for human rights; Theoretical, sociological, or historical perspectives on Islamic or Christian liberation theology; Religion and the financial crisis; Religion and environmental activism; Connections between theological traditions and the critique of political economy; Religion and forms of social organization; Religion, politics of identity and contemporary social movements; Influence of theological traditions on political or economic structures; Regional assessments of the current status of liberation theology.
Keynote speakers: Philip Goodchild (University of Nottingham), "The Future of Liberation", and Roland Boer (University of Newcastle, Australia), "Kairos and Akairós"
To propose a paper, please send a title and a 400-word abstract to: t.j.lynch@durham.ac.uk
Deadline: 19 November 2010
Participants will be informed by 26 November.
Registration fee: £5
9.00 am-6.30 pm
http://religionandliberation.wordpress.com
Call for papers
Description: "Current debates about religion and politics tend towards two positions: 1) concern over the danger of religious extremism; 2) criticism of religious traditions' conservative positions on social issues. While these debates are important, their dominance often eclipses the significant history of religiously rooted liberation movements. This conference aims to address this often-overlooked connection through the investigation of three themes: 1) historical analysis of religiously rooted liberation movements; 2) theoretical analysis of the connection between religious ideas and theories of liberation; and 3) critical analysis of religion's role in contemporary philosophy and critical theory. Through this investigation, we seek to show how the theoretical and historical elements within these traditions may provide a complementary critical resource which enables communities to work on solutions to the crises confronting contemporary society."
The organizers welcome submission on these or other related topics: Religious responses to the political and economic effects of globalization, including the responses of indigenous religious traditions; Theoretic, sociological, or historical perspectives on the role of religious traditions in struggles for human rights; Theoretical, sociological, or historical perspectives on Islamic or Christian liberation theology; Religion and the financial crisis; Religion and environmental activism; Connections between theological traditions and the critique of political economy; Religion and forms of social organization; Religion, politics of identity and contemporary social movements; Influence of theological traditions on political or economic structures; Regional assessments of the current status of liberation theology.
Keynote speakers: Philip Goodchild (University of Nottingham), "The Future of Liberation", and Roland Boer (University of Newcastle, Australia), "Kairos and Akairós"
To propose a paper, please send a title and a 400-word abstract to: t.j.lynch@durham.ac.uk
Deadline: 19 November 2010
Participants will be informed by 26 November.
Registration fee: £5
21 September 2010
Book: Terror, Religion, and Liberal Thought
Just published: Richard B. Miller, "Terror, Religion, and Liberal Thought" (Columbia University Press, September 2010):
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15098-9/terror-religion-and-liberal-thought
Publisher's description: "Religious violence may trigger feelings of repulsion and indignation, especially in a society that encourages toleration and respect, but rejection contradicts the principles of inclusion that define a democracy and its core moral values. How can we think ethically about religious violence and terrorism, especially in the wake of such atrocities as 9/11? Known for his skillful interrogation of ethical issues as they pertain to religion, politics, and culture, Richard B. Miller returns to the basic tenets of liberalism to divine an ethical response to religious extremism. He questions how we should think about the claims and aspirations of political religions, especially when they conflict so deeply with liberal norms and practices, and he suggests how liberal critics can speak confidently in ways that respect cultural and religious difference. Miller explores other concerns within these investigations as well, such as the protection of human rights and a liberal democratic commitment to multicultural politics. In relating religion and ethics, he develops a new lens for viewing political religions and their moral responsibilities. This probing inquiry also forces us to rethink our response to 9/11."
Excerpt: "[I]n chapter 6 I will show how the grounds for thinking about human dignity and human rights provide a basis for dialogue with Muslim political theology."
Richard B. Miller is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions at Indiana University.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15098-9/terror-religion-and-liberal-thought
Publisher's description: "Religious violence may trigger feelings of repulsion and indignation, especially in a society that encourages toleration and respect, but rejection contradicts the principles of inclusion that define a democracy and its core moral values. How can we think ethically about religious violence and terrorism, especially in the wake of such atrocities as 9/11? Known for his skillful interrogation of ethical issues as they pertain to religion, politics, and culture, Richard B. Miller returns to the basic tenets of liberalism to divine an ethical response to religious extremism. He questions how we should think about the claims and aspirations of political religions, especially when they conflict so deeply with liberal norms and practices, and he suggests how liberal critics can speak confidently in ways that respect cultural and religious difference. Miller explores other concerns within these investigations as well, such as the protection of human rights and a liberal democratic commitment to multicultural politics. In relating religion and ethics, he develops a new lens for viewing political religions and their moral responsibilities. This probing inquiry also forces us to rethink our response to 9/11."
Excerpt: "[I]n chapter 6 I will show how the grounds for thinking about human dignity and human rights provide a basis for dialogue with Muslim political theology."
Richard B. Miller is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions at Indiana University.
02 July 2010
Book: Theology and the Boundary Discourse of Human Rights
Ethna Regan, "Theology and the Boundary Discourse of Human Rights" (Georgetown University Press, April 2010):
http://press.georgetown.edu/detail.html?id=9781589016422
Publisher's description: "What are human rights? Can theology acknowledge human rights discourse? Is theological engagement with human rights justified? What place should this discourse occupy within ethics? Ethna Regan seeks to answer these questions about human rights, Christian theology, and philosophical ethics. The main purpose of this book is to justify and explore theological engagement with human rights. Regan illustrates how that engagement is both ecumenical and diverse, citing the emerging engagement with human rights discourse by evangelical theologians in response to the War on Terror. The book examines where the themes and concerns of key modern theologians – Karl Rahner, J. B. Metz, Jon Sobrino, and Ignacio Ellacuría – converge with the themes and concerns of those committed to the advancement of human rights. Regan also critically engages with the 'disdain' for rights discourse that is found in the postliberal critiques of John Milbank and Stanley Hauerwas. This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of systematic theology, theological ethics, human rights, religion and politics, and political theory."
The book includes sections on both political theology and liberation theology.
Ethna Regan is a Lecturer in the School of Theology at the Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin City University.
http://press.georgetown.edu/detail.html?id=9781589016422
Publisher's description: "What are human rights? Can theology acknowledge human rights discourse? Is theological engagement with human rights justified? What place should this discourse occupy within ethics? Ethna Regan seeks to answer these questions about human rights, Christian theology, and philosophical ethics. The main purpose of this book is to justify and explore theological engagement with human rights. Regan illustrates how that engagement is both ecumenical and diverse, citing the emerging engagement with human rights discourse by evangelical theologians in response to the War on Terror. The book examines where the themes and concerns of key modern theologians – Karl Rahner, J. B. Metz, Jon Sobrino, and Ignacio Ellacuría – converge with the themes and concerns of those committed to the advancement of human rights. Regan also critically engages with the 'disdain' for rights discourse that is found in the postliberal critiques of John Milbank and Stanley Hauerwas. This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of systematic theology, theological ethics, human rights, religion and politics, and political theory."
The book includes sections on both political theology and liberation theology.
Ethna Regan is a Lecturer in the School of Theology at the Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin City University.
02 March 2010
Book on Islamic political theology and human rights
Again a book that in early announcements bore "political theology" in the (working) title, but which for unexplained reasons was ultimately published under another title. Abdulaziz Sachedina's new book, called "Reform through Human Rights: Islamic Political Theology" early last year, was published by Oxford University Press as "Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights" in November 2009:
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195388428.do
Publisher's description: "Whether Islam is compatible with human rights in general, and with the Declaration of Human Rights in particular, has been both a Muslim issue and a concern of the international community. Muslim rulers, Western analysts and policymakers, and Muslim extremists as well as conservative Muslims, have often agreed for diverse reasons that Islam and human rights cannot co-exist. In this book Aziz Sachedina argues for the essential compatibility of Islam and human rights. He offers a balanced and incisive critique of leading Western experts who ignore or marginalize the relationship of religion to human rights. At the same time, he re-examines the inherited tradition that forms the basis of conservative Muslim objections, arguing that it is culturally conditioned and therefore open to development and change. Finally, and most importantly, Sachedina delineates a fresh contemporary Muslim position that argues for a correspondence between Islam and secular concepts of human rights, grounded in sacred sources as well as Islamic history and thought."
Excerpts: "Islamic political theology involves metaphysics and carries an underlying assumption that revelation-based certainty guides the move from the ontological-theological level to the ethical-political to create the ideal public order. [...] [T]he emergence of a new
theological-ethical vision of politics among traditionalist interpreters of political theology is basically different from the classically formulated political society in that the new vision of public order is nationalistic as well as self-deterministic. [...] The most critical challenge facing the traditional leadership is to search for an inclusive political theology that no longer discriminates by faith to determine an individual's rights and duties. [...] Islamic political theology from its early inception provided religious legitimacy to existing social and political structures by insisting upon certain extraneous characteristics to the public order under divinely ordained legal norms. [...] I undertake to analyze diverse interpretations of political theology as they impact upon human rights discourse".
Abdulaziz Sachedina is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195388428.do
Publisher's description: "Whether Islam is compatible with human rights in general, and with the Declaration of Human Rights in particular, has been both a Muslim issue and a concern of the international community. Muslim rulers, Western analysts and policymakers, and Muslim extremists as well as conservative Muslims, have often agreed for diverse reasons that Islam and human rights cannot co-exist. In this book Aziz Sachedina argues for the essential compatibility of Islam and human rights. He offers a balanced and incisive critique of leading Western experts who ignore or marginalize the relationship of religion to human rights. At the same time, he re-examines the inherited tradition that forms the basis of conservative Muslim objections, arguing that it is culturally conditioned and therefore open to development and change. Finally, and most importantly, Sachedina delineates a fresh contemporary Muslim position that argues for a correspondence between Islam and secular concepts of human rights, grounded in sacred sources as well as Islamic history and thought."
Excerpts: "Islamic political theology involves metaphysics and carries an underlying assumption that revelation-based certainty guides the move from the ontological-theological level to the ethical-political to create the ideal public order. [...] [T]he emergence of a new
theological-ethical vision of politics among traditionalist interpreters of political theology is basically different from the classically formulated political society in that the new vision of public order is nationalistic as well as self-deterministic. [...] The most critical challenge facing the traditional leadership is to search for an inclusive political theology that no longer discriminates by faith to determine an individual's rights and duties. [...] Islamic political theology from its early inception provided religious legitimacy to existing social and political structures by insisting upon certain extraneous characteristics to the public order under divinely ordained legal norms. [...] I undertake to analyze diverse interpretations of political theology as they impact upon human rights discourse".
Abdulaziz Sachedina is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
05 January 2010
Journal articles on political theology 2009
Some articles on political theology published in 2009 in academic journals of all conceivable disciplines:
David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine), "A Political Theology of Race: Articulating Racial Southafricanization", Cultural Studies, 23 (4), July 2009: pp. 513-37.
Abstract: "Over the past three decades Stuart Hall has provided many of the key terms for (re)thinking the social, the cultural, and the political. Largely absent from his work has been consideration of religion and, given more recent theoretical developments, of the theologico-political. I pose a series of questions to Stuart Hall by considering an analysis of race as political theology, exemplified by a focus on the history of South African apartheid and its afterlife."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "Political Theology, Anthropomorphism, and Person-hood of the State: The Religion of IR", International Political Sociology, 3 (3), September 2009: pp. 293-309.
Abstract: "In this article I identify international relations as a form of religion. My identification takes two epistemological paths. The first one has been cleared by political theologians such as Carl Schmitt, who teach that 'secular' political ideas not only have a divine origin, but also structural identity with Christian theology. I will clear the second path with help from a cognitive theory of religion that identifies anthropomorphism as a defining criterion of religion. International relations is a religion, because it is a system of thought that takes the metaphorical image of the personified, embodied state more seriously than other, more idiosyncratic forms of anthropomorphism. What we have in academic IR is, thus, a theology that works to generalize and systematize this religious image into a disciplinary form."
Dimitris Vardoulakis (University of Western Sydney), "Stasis: Beyond Political Theology?", Cultural Critique, 73, fall 2009, pp. 125-47.
From the preview: "Political theology refers to the impossibility of both to completely separate and to completely conflate politics and religion. [...] It remains a point of contention, however, what the repercussions of the trespassing of theological concepts into the political are. [...] Despite the differences between these thinkers, there is one abiding characteristic. There is a constitutive disjunction between politics and the political, between law and justice. As a result, political theology forecloses meaning in politics – that is, no political party or representative can be thought to represent the political ideal. More emphatically, there is no end of history. I will explore here whether it is possible to understand the foreclosure of meaning not as the conclusion, but rather as the condition of the possibility of the political. Can the meaningless or the irrational function as the basis of the intertwining and imbrication of the secular and the sacred?"
Nur Masalha (St Mary's University College), "Reading the Bible with the Eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, Political Theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)", Holy Land Studies, 8 (1), May 2009: pp. 55-108.
Abstract: "In modern times, a whole range of colonial enterprises have used the Bible. The book of Joshua and other biblical texts evoking the exploits of ancient Israelites have been deployed in support of secular Zionism and settler colonisation in Palestine. The mega narratives of the Bible, however, appeared to mandate the ethnic cleansing and even genocide of the indigenous population of Canaan. This article argues that, with the rise of messianic Zionism since 1967, a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the land traditions of the Bible, has emerged in Israel – a political theology that demanded the destruction of the so-called modern Canaanites; since 1967 fundamentalist rabbis have routinely compared the Palestinian people to the ancient Canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites, whose annihilation or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was predestined by a divine design. This article focuses on the politics of reading the Bible by neo-Zionists and examines the theology of the messianic current which embraces the paradigm of Jews as a divinely 'chosen people' and sees the indigenous Palestinians as no more than illegitimate squatters, and a threat to the process of messianic redemption; their human and civil rights are no match for the biblically ordained holy war of conquering and settling the 'Promised Land'."
Rutger Henneman (researcher and activist) and Alastair McIntosh (University of Strathclyde), "The Political Theology of Modern Scottish Land Reform", Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3 (3), 2009: pp. 340-75.
Abstract: "This paper gathers evidence that modern Scottish land reform was influenced by applied liberation theology from both grassroot community activists and institutional churches. Scotland's land tenure was feudal to the late twentieth century. Plutocratic ownership impacted the economics and psychology of community wellbeing. The 1990s produced a land reform movement culminating in the new Scottish Parliament's Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. These created a conditional 'community right to buy' and affirmed freedom of 'right to roam'. Two percent of Scottish land is now in community ownership. Our research interviewed fifteen movers and shakers – both national theologians and local activists from the vanguard land trusts of Eigg, Assynt and Gigha. We conclude that spirituality and religion can be subtle drivers of community empowerment. By inspiring, informing and legitimising socio-political transformation, a 'Remnant' theology factored into Scottish legislation of international significance."
Erin Runions (Pomona College), "Detranscendentalizing Decisionism: Political Theology after Gayatri Spivak", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 25 (2), fall 2009, pp. 67-85.
Abstract: "This essay uses the thought of Gayatri Spivak to reread one religious trope – the antichrist – commonly used in conservative political discourse to motivate a masculinist theopolitical decisionism. Runions draws a connection between Spivak's insistence on detranscendentalizing radical alterity – which is a deconstructive literary approach to religious narratives – and Spivak's larger concern with ethics. The project of detranscendentalizing is an important first step toward the impossible ethical encounter with the other; it thus charts a course for critiquing theopolitics and imagining new modes of political engagement, in ways that resist the usual conservative accusations of neutrality. To illustrate, the essay draws to the fore the ancient Near Eastern mythological filiations between Christ and antichrist; it reads the antichrist as a detranscendentalized figure that ironically disrupts the masculinist authority of decisions made in the name of Christ and makes room for the singular encounter with the political other."
Anthony O'Mahony (Heythrop College), "The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI", International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 9 (3), August 2009, pp. 177-94.
Abstract: "The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the 'Idea of Europe' in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
Victoria Kahn (University of California at Berkeley), "Political Theology and Fiction in The King's Two Bodies", Representations, 106, spring 2009: pp. 77-101.
Abstract: "This essay argues that Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies is intended as a contribution to twentieth-century debates about political theology and that modern students of political theology can learn from Kantorowicz's association of political theology with legal fiction."
Jennifer R. Rust (Saint Louis University), "Political Theology and Shakespeare Studies", Literature Compass, 6 (1), January 2009: pp. 175-90.
Abstract: "The current focus on political theology in Shakespeare studies is largely devoted to tracing how Shakespeare's dramas illuminate the structural link between religious and political forms in both early modernity and modern liberal democracy. Critics concerned with addressing Shakespeare's engagement with political theology are also interested in how Shakespeare's portrayal of sovereign bodies in crisis constitute an early representation of 'biopolitics'. These critics draw on theorists ranging from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben to inform their analyses of the way Shakespeare dramatizes sovereignty in a 'state of emergency' in his histories and tragedies. Plays such as Richard II, Coriolanus, and Hamlet have drawn particular attention insofar as they vividly interrogate the nature of the sovereign exception and decision highlighted by theorists of political theology. While this line of criticism adds a new theoretical dimension to Shakespeare studies, it also offers the potential for remapping our understanding of the religious and political history of early modern England in its attention to the deforming pressure of religious schism on traditional structures of sovereignty."
Aaron Riches (University of Nottingham), "Political Theology and Pauline Law: Notes Toward a Sapiential Legality", Telos, 146, spring 2009, pp. 140-57.
Excerpt: "In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke 'under a priestly seal': Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, a Roman Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition ..."
Mike Grimshaw (University of Canterbury), "Responding not Believing: Political Theology and Post-Secular Society", Political Theology, 10 (3), fall 2009: pp. 537-57.
Abstract: "In the past decade social theorists and Continental philosophers have returned again to an engagement with Christianity and the legacy of Christian belief. This is framed in the context of a Europe seen in transition to a post-secular identity and, often implicitly, against what is seen as an encroaching Islamic presence within Europe. This move has often brought together Marxist, post-Marxist, and Catholic-legacy philosophers, together with philosophical Protestants in an attempt to recover what I term a political theology of response. Response, in opposition to belief, signals an alternative post-secular turn of attempted inclusion out of a perceived shared cultural legacy. This essay asks if, in such a cultural philosophical turn, the alternative post-secular turn of a political theology of response signals that belief remains within the private sphere as we seek to engage in a public conversation of non-believing 'response'?"
The same journal, "Political Theology", carried, on occasion of the 500th birthday of John Calvin, in issue 3 of its 10th volume (fall 2009) a symposium on "John Calvin and Political Theology":
www.politicaltheology.com/ojs/index.php/PT/issue/view/690
Articles include: "Editorial: Remembering Geneva's Calvin" by Marilynne Robinson (University of Iowa); "John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology" by David C. Steinmetz (Duke Divinity School); "Calvin and Natural Rights" by David Little (Harvard Divinity School); "Calvin's Legacy for Public Theology" by Richard J. Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary); and "What Reformed Theology in a Calvinist Key Brings to Conversations about Justice" by Douglas F. Ottati (Davidson College).
Aristide Tessitore (Furman University), "Political Theology and the Theological-Political Problem", Perspectives on Political Science, 38 (1), winter 2009: pp. 5-12.
Abstract: "This essay offers a critical appreciation of Mark Lilla's Stillborn God. To his credit, Lilla understands the primacy and enduring appeal of political theology, as well as the danger of intellectual complacency about the underlying principles of modern politics. Lilla maintains that modern politics is a relatively recent and radically novel experiment that aims at nothing less than displacing a primordial and perennial way of constituting politics with reference to the divine. My essay compares Lilla's analysis of the fundamental antagonism between political theology and modern liberal politics to Strauss's analysis of the theological-political problem. In doing so, I bring to light both the strengths and limits of Lilla's attempt to clarify the relationship between politics, biblical religion, and philosophic rationalism."
Sandrine Baume (University of Lausanne), "On Political Theology: A Controversy Between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt", History of European Ideas, 35 (3), September 2009: pp. 369-81.
Abstract: "This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The 'legal miracle' – in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law – was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order."
Anna Schmidt (University of Munich), "The Problem of Carl Schmitt's Political Theology", Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 36 (3), summer 2009: pp. 219-52.
No abstract available.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (University of Coimbra, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Warwick), "If God Were a Human Rights Activist: Human Rights and the Challenge of Political Theologies", Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal (LGD), 13, 2009 (1), March, refereed electronic journal, full text available online:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2009_1/santos
Abstract: "Citing the inability of conventional human rights thinking to address the 'strong' questions raised by our times, this article pursues a twofold objective: to identify the major challenges that the rise of political theologies at the beginning of the twentieth-first [sic] century posed to human rights; and second, to select within a broad landscape of theological analysis the types of reflections and practices that might contribute to expand and deepen the canon of human rights politics. In order to achieve this double goal the article uses complexity as its main analytical guideline making distinctions from which significant consequences were drawn: on one side, distinctions among different types of political theologies (pluralist versus revelationist, traditionalist versus progressive); and, on the other, between two contrasting discourses and practices of human rights politics (hegemonic versus counter-hegemonic). Depending on the circumstances, even conventional or hegemonic human rights struggles may be a progressive tool against social practices and norms derived from traditionalist and revelationist theologies. Pluralist and progressive theologies, in turn, may be a source of radical energy toward more ambitious, counter-hegemonic human rights struggles."
Please let me know if I missed any important articles.
David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine), "A Political Theology of Race: Articulating Racial Southafricanization", Cultural Studies, 23 (4), July 2009: pp. 513-37.
Abstract: "Over the past three decades Stuart Hall has provided many of the key terms for (re)thinking the social, the cultural, and the political. Largely absent from his work has been consideration of religion and, given more recent theoretical developments, of the theologico-political. I pose a series of questions to Stuart Hall by considering an analysis of race as political theology, exemplified by a focus on the history of South African apartheid and its afterlife."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "Political Theology, Anthropomorphism, and Person-hood of the State: The Religion of IR", International Political Sociology, 3 (3), September 2009: pp. 293-309.
Abstract: "In this article I identify international relations as a form of religion. My identification takes two epistemological paths. The first one has been cleared by political theologians such as Carl Schmitt, who teach that 'secular' political ideas not only have a divine origin, but also structural identity with Christian theology. I will clear the second path with help from a cognitive theory of religion that identifies anthropomorphism as a defining criterion of religion. International relations is a religion, because it is a system of thought that takes the metaphorical image of the personified, embodied state more seriously than other, more idiosyncratic forms of anthropomorphism. What we have in academic IR is, thus, a theology that works to generalize and systematize this religious image into a disciplinary form."
Dimitris Vardoulakis (University of Western Sydney), "Stasis: Beyond Political Theology?", Cultural Critique, 73, fall 2009, pp. 125-47.
From the preview: "Political theology refers to the impossibility of both to completely separate and to completely conflate politics and religion. [...] It remains a point of contention, however, what the repercussions of the trespassing of theological concepts into the political are. [...] Despite the differences between these thinkers, there is one abiding characteristic. There is a constitutive disjunction between politics and the political, between law and justice. As a result, political theology forecloses meaning in politics – that is, no political party or representative can be thought to represent the political ideal. More emphatically, there is no end of history. I will explore here whether it is possible to understand the foreclosure of meaning not as the conclusion, but rather as the condition of the possibility of the political. Can the meaningless or the irrational function as the basis of the intertwining and imbrication of the secular and the sacred?"
Nur Masalha (St Mary's University College), "Reading the Bible with the Eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, Political Theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)", Holy Land Studies, 8 (1), May 2009: pp. 55-108.
Abstract: "In modern times, a whole range of colonial enterprises have used the Bible. The book of Joshua and other biblical texts evoking the exploits of ancient Israelites have been deployed in support of secular Zionism and settler colonisation in Palestine. The mega narratives of the Bible, however, appeared to mandate the ethnic cleansing and even genocide of the indigenous population of Canaan. This article argues that, with the rise of messianic Zionism since 1967, a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the land traditions of the Bible, has emerged in Israel – a political theology that demanded the destruction of the so-called modern Canaanites; since 1967 fundamentalist rabbis have routinely compared the Palestinian people to the ancient Canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites, whose annihilation or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was predestined by a divine design. This article focuses on the politics of reading the Bible by neo-Zionists and examines the theology of the messianic current which embraces the paradigm of Jews as a divinely 'chosen people' and sees the indigenous Palestinians as no more than illegitimate squatters, and a threat to the process of messianic redemption; their human and civil rights are no match for the biblically ordained holy war of conquering and settling the 'Promised Land'."
Rutger Henneman (researcher and activist) and Alastair McIntosh (University of Strathclyde), "The Political Theology of Modern Scottish Land Reform", Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3 (3), 2009: pp. 340-75.
Abstract: "This paper gathers evidence that modern Scottish land reform was influenced by applied liberation theology from both grassroot community activists and institutional churches. Scotland's land tenure was feudal to the late twentieth century. Plutocratic ownership impacted the economics and psychology of community wellbeing. The 1990s produced a land reform movement culminating in the new Scottish Parliament's Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. These created a conditional 'community right to buy' and affirmed freedom of 'right to roam'. Two percent of Scottish land is now in community ownership. Our research interviewed fifteen movers and shakers – both national theologians and local activists from the vanguard land trusts of Eigg, Assynt and Gigha. We conclude that spirituality and religion can be subtle drivers of community empowerment. By inspiring, informing and legitimising socio-political transformation, a 'Remnant' theology factored into Scottish legislation of international significance."
Erin Runions (Pomona College), "Detranscendentalizing Decisionism: Political Theology after Gayatri Spivak", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 25 (2), fall 2009, pp. 67-85.
Abstract: "This essay uses the thought of Gayatri Spivak to reread one religious trope – the antichrist – commonly used in conservative political discourse to motivate a masculinist theopolitical decisionism. Runions draws a connection between Spivak's insistence on detranscendentalizing radical alterity – which is a deconstructive literary approach to religious narratives – and Spivak's larger concern with ethics. The project of detranscendentalizing is an important first step toward the impossible ethical encounter with the other; it thus charts a course for critiquing theopolitics and imagining new modes of political engagement, in ways that resist the usual conservative accusations of neutrality. To illustrate, the essay draws to the fore the ancient Near Eastern mythological filiations between Christ and antichrist; it reads the antichrist as a detranscendentalized figure that ironically disrupts the masculinist authority of decisions made in the name of Christ and makes room for the singular encounter with the political other."
Anthony O'Mahony (Heythrop College), "The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI", International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 9 (3), August 2009, pp. 177-94.
Abstract: "The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the 'Idea of Europe' in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
Victoria Kahn (University of California at Berkeley), "Political Theology and Fiction in The King's Two Bodies", Representations, 106, spring 2009: pp. 77-101.
Abstract: "This essay argues that Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies is intended as a contribution to twentieth-century debates about political theology and that modern students of political theology can learn from Kantorowicz's association of political theology with legal fiction."
Jennifer R. Rust (Saint Louis University), "Political Theology and Shakespeare Studies", Literature Compass, 6 (1), January 2009: pp. 175-90.
Abstract: "The current focus on political theology in Shakespeare studies is largely devoted to tracing how Shakespeare's dramas illuminate the structural link between religious and political forms in both early modernity and modern liberal democracy. Critics concerned with addressing Shakespeare's engagement with political theology are also interested in how Shakespeare's portrayal of sovereign bodies in crisis constitute an early representation of 'biopolitics'. These critics draw on theorists ranging from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben to inform their analyses of the way Shakespeare dramatizes sovereignty in a 'state of emergency' in his histories and tragedies. Plays such as Richard II, Coriolanus, and Hamlet have drawn particular attention insofar as they vividly interrogate the nature of the sovereign exception and decision highlighted by theorists of political theology. While this line of criticism adds a new theoretical dimension to Shakespeare studies, it also offers the potential for remapping our understanding of the religious and political history of early modern England in its attention to the deforming pressure of religious schism on traditional structures of sovereignty."
Aaron Riches (University of Nottingham), "Political Theology and Pauline Law: Notes Toward a Sapiential Legality", Telos, 146, spring 2009, pp. 140-57.
Excerpt: "In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke 'under a priestly seal': Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, a Roman Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition ..."
Mike Grimshaw (University of Canterbury), "Responding not Believing: Political Theology and Post-Secular Society", Political Theology, 10 (3), fall 2009: pp. 537-57.
Abstract: "In the past decade social theorists and Continental philosophers have returned again to an engagement with Christianity and the legacy of Christian belief. This is framed in the context of a Europe seen in transition to a post-secular identity and, often implicitly, against what is seen as an encroaching Islamic presence within Europe. This move has often brought together Marxist, post-Marxist, and Catholic-legacy philosophers, together with philosophical Protestants in an attempt to recover what I term a political theology of response. Response, in opposition to belief, signals an alternative post-secular turn of attempted inclusion out of a perceived shared cultural legacy. This essay asks if, in such a cultural philosophical turn, the alternative post-secular turn of a political theology of response signals that belief remains within the private sphere as we seek to engage in a public conversation of non-believing 'response'?"
The same journal, "Political Theology", carried, on occasion of the 500th birthday of John Calvin, in issue 3 of its 10th volume (fall 2009) a symposium on "John Calvin and Political Theology":
www.politicaltheology.com/ojs/index.php/PT/issue/view/690
Articles include: "Editorial: Remembering Geneva's Calvin" by Marilynne Robinson (University of Iowa); "John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology" by David C. Steinmetz (Duke Divinity School); "Calvin and Natural Rights" by David Little (Harvard Divinity School); "Calvin's Legacy for Public Theology" by Richard J. Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary); and "What Reformed Theology in a Calvinist Key Brings to Conversations about Justice" by Douglas F. Ottati (Davidson College).
Aristide Tessitore (Furman University), "Political Theology and the Theological-Political Problem", Perspectives on Political Science, 38 (1), winter 2009: pp. 5-12.
Abstract: "This essay offers a critical appreciation of Mark Lilla's Stillborn God. To his credit, Lilla understands the primacy and enduring appeal of political theology, as well as the danger of intellectual complacency about the underlying principles of modern politics. Lilla maintains that modern politics is a relatively recent and radically novel experiment that aims at nothing less than displacing a primordial and perennial way of constituting politics with reference to the divine. My essay compares Lilla's analysis of the fundamental antagonism between political theology and modern liberal politics to Strauss's analysis of the theological-political problem. In doing so, I bring to light both the strengths and limits of Lilla's attempt to clarify the relationship between politics, biblical religion, and philosophic rationalism."
Sandrine Baume (University of Lausanne), "On Political Theology: A Controversy Between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt", History of European Ideas, 35 (3), September 2009: pp. 369-81.
Abstract: "This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The 'legal miracle' – in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law – was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order."
Anna Schmidt (University of Munich), "The Problem of Carl Schmitt's Political Theology", Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 36 (3), summer 2009: pp. 219-52.
No abstract available.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (University of Coimbra, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Warwick), "If God Were a Human Rights Activist: Human Rights and the Challenge of Political Theologies", Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal (LGD), 13, 2009 (1), March, refereed electronic journal, full text available online:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2009_1/santos
Abstract: "Citing the inability of conventional human rights thinking to address the 'strong' questions raised by our times, this article pursues a twofold objective: to identify the major challenges that the rise of political theologies at the beginning of the twentieth-first [sic] century posed to human rights; and second, to select within a broad landscape of theological analysis the types of reflections and practices that might contribute to expand and deepen the canon of human rights politics. In order to achieve this double goal the article uses complexity as its main analytical guideline making distinctions from which significant consequences were drawn: on one side, distinctions among different types of political theologies (pluralist versus revelationist, traditionalist versus progressive); and, on the other, between two contrasting discourses and practices of human rights politics (hegemonic versus counter-hegemonic). Depending on the circumstances, even conventional or hegemonic human rights struggles may be a progressive tool against social practices and norms derived from traditionalist and revelationist theologies. Pluralist and progressive theologies, in turn, may be a source of radical energy toward more ambitious, counter-hegemonic human rights struggles."
Please let me know if I missed any important articles.
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