JOB: Public Theology Administrative Assistant (full-time, temporary)

The Evangelical Alliance, Whitefield House, 186 Kennington Park Road, London, SE11 4BT, England, is looking for a

Public Theology Administrative Assistant (full-time, temporary)

This role involves providing administrative and secretarial assistance to the Public Theology Team, responding to enquiries, arranging and facilitating meetings, assisting in the production and distribution of Public Theology publications, and providing support (including co-ordinating logistics) as the Alliance conducts a large-scale research project at festivals, conferences, and member churches this summer. Candidates would benefit from an interest in politics and/or theology. The successful candidate will have: proven administrative or secretarial skills; the ability to use initiative and take responsibility for tasks; excellent communication and relational skills; positive team-working attitude. All applicants must be committed to the aims and ethos of the Evangelical Alliance.

Salary: ca. £20,000 p.a., plus benefits

A detailed job description, person specification, terms and conditions, applicants guidance notes, etc. are to be found here:

www.eauk.org/vacancies

Please apply online or download an application form from the site and e-mail it to the Evangelical Alliance HR Department: hr@eauk.org

CVs will not be accepted.

Closing date: 14 May 2010

Interviews: 20 May 2010

Book: A Clash of Ideologies: Marxism, Liberation Theology, and Apocalypticism in New Testament Studies

Just published: Randall W. Reed, "A Clash of Ideologies: Marxism, Liberation Theology, and Apocalypticism in New Testament Studies"
(Pickwick Publications, April 2010):

http://wipfandstock.com/store/A_Clash_of_Ideologies_Marxism_Liberation_Theology_and_Apocalypticism_in_New_Testament_Studies/

Publisher's description: "Marxism is one of the revolutionary social-scientific theories that has come to have a prominent place in New Testament studies in the United States. It is often combined with liberation theology and applied to apocalyptic texts. This book argues that the basic presuppositions of these three ideological systems are ultimately at odds with one another. The study then traces the kinds of moves scholars in New Testament studies have made to overcome this problem."

Endorsements: "Reed has uncovered the unexamined assumption of biblical scholarship, namely that the Bible holds the answers to the social issues confronting us in the twenty-first century. He does this by exposing the faulty logics of several major hermeneutical traditions of New Testament scholarship that he calls 'ideologies.' This also serves as a brilliant announcement of an historic change in the reasons for the long-standing investment in biblical studies. The Bible can no longer serve as the theological foundation for ideological argumentation. It has now to be seen as the Christian myth with its own problematic social ideology." (Burton Mack, Claremont Graduate University)

"By highlighting the fundamental and irresolvable incompatibility between Marxist materialism and its distinctive view of religion, and any emancipatory projects rooted in religion – whether ancient apocalypticism or modern liberation theology – Reed's important, timely, and persuasive book establishes the continued and even enhanced salience of Marxist insights into and critiques of biblical texts. An outstanding indictment of the too-common tendency in our field to advocate radical social transformation while maintaining the transcendent authority of privileged biblical texts." (William Arnal, University of Regina)

Randall W. Reed is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University.

Book: Through Us, With Us, In Us: Relational Theologies in the Twenty-First Century

Just published: "Through Us, With Us, In Us: Relational Theologies in the Twenty-First Century", edited by Elaine Bellchambers and Lisa Isherwood (SCM Press, April 2010):

www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk/bookdetails.asp?ISBN=9780334043669

Publisher's description: "Relational theologies, such as feminist theology, ecotheology and liberation theologies of various kinds, turn our traditional starting point for theology on its head. They ask what it is that we experience and where it is that we intuit God manifests and creates in and through our relation and lack of relation with ourselves, others and the cosmos. This book aims to explore the concept of the emerging divine within human and non-human relationality. It is relationship and the relationality that enable knowledge of the divine to emerge. The editors and contributors make the concept of relational theology more widely understood and stimulating theological debate in this area [sic]. The collection is an excellent teaching resource for courses in liberation theology, feminist theology, ecotheology and Christian doctrine at upper undergraduate and MA level. The book offers new and original contributions by well-known authors such as Carter Heyward, Catherine Keller, Mary Grey, Ursula King, Beverley Clack, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Mary Condren."

Elaine Bellchambers is Senior Lecturer in Primary Education at the University of Winchester.

Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies at the University of Winchester.

Public lecture: "The Political": The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of Political Theology

University College Dublin (UCD), Clinton Institute for American Studies/Global Ireland Institute, William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium, 15 June 2010, 6.00 pm

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas will be giving a public lecture on "'The Political': The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of Political Theology".

No abstract was provided by the organizers.

All are welcome, but early arrival is recommended.

On 16 June, Habermas will receive the UCD Ulysses Medal at a special ceremony. The medal is the highest honour that University College Dublin can bestow. It is awarded to individuals whose work has made an outstanding global contribution.

Book: Public Theology in an Age of World Christianity: God's Mission as Word-Event

Just published: Paul S. Chung, "Public Theology in an Age of World Christianity: God's Mission as Word-Event" (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010):

http://us.macmillan.com/publictheologyinanageofworldchristianity

Publisher's description: "This book aims to rearticulate and reinterpret a Christian concept of God's mission and evangelization in light of the universal, irregular, and transversal horizon of God's narrative as it pertains to the realities of public sphere. Paul Chung maintains that mission serves the Word of God which is revealed in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit for all. It is salient to develop a theology of Trinitarian mission through the perspective of God's living 'word-event' in a hermeneutical, intercultural fashion. Here, a Trinitarian concept of missio Dei is deepened and refurbished in light of God as the Subject of speaking: through Israel, the church, and the face of innocent victims and religious outsiders. This perspective contextualizes and widens the mission of God's narrative and deepens its universality in light of the word event."

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

Book: Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy

The contributed volume, "Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy: Transfiguring the World through the Word", was edited by Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider and published by Ashgate in March 2009:

www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=7659&edition_id=10241

Publisher's description: "This book presents the first debate between the contemporary movement Radical Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodox theologians. Leading international scholars offer new insights and reflections on a wide range of contemporary issues from a specifically theological and philosophical perspective. The ancient notion of divine Wisdom (Sophia) serves as a common point of reference in this encounter. Both Radical and Eastern Orthodoxy agree that the transfiguration of the world through the Word is at the very centre of the Christian faith. The book explores how this process of transformation can be envisaged with regard to epistemological, ontological, aesthetical, ecclesiological and political questions. Contributors to this volume include Rowan Williams, John Milbank, Antoine Arjakovsky, Michael Northcott, Nicholas Loudovikos, Andrew Louth and Catherine Pickstock."

Endorsements: "This excellent collection surprises at many turns. It offers not only a unique perspective onto a theological dialogue so far unheard, it also opens up new avenues in theological conversation for both participants – the Radically Orthodox and members of the Eastern Orthodox family. Radical Orthodoxy is pushed to articulate a theology of tradition and to locate its own theology of participation within the Patristic patrimony far more deeply than before; the Eastern Orthodox are pushed toward a re-engagment [sic] with Bulgakov and the theosophical tradition so attractive to the Radically Orthodox. There is much here for all interested in the future of serious theological dialogue." (Lewis Ayres, Emory University)

"This is a stimulating and fruitful exchange between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy by leading scholars of each that both draws upon tradition and opens horizons for the future. Addressing the problems of modernity from their different starting points, the collection offers profound material for reflecting upon our own situation. It deserves a wide readership and will amply repay serious engagement."
(John Behr, St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary)

Adrian Pabst is now a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Kent and a Research Fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies.

Christoph Schneider was at the time of publication a Research Assistant at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

CONF: Space & The Event

Interdisciplinary workshop "Space & The Event" of the Social and Cultural Geography Group in the Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2 Gower Street, London, 26 May 2010, 2.00-6.00 pm

Concepts of 'the event' have taken on an increasingly important role in recent continental political thought in the work of Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida, and Heidegger, amongst others. Although these concepts of 'the event' are multiple and resist consensus all have become central to debates on the nature of political transformations, the political importance of ontological questions, the relationship between order and sovereignty, and the renewed interest in political theology. Whether they have been articulated in relation to appropriation, becoming, rupture, or otherwise, these ideas have largely focused on explicitly temporal understandings of 'the event'. This workshop aims to discuss how 'the event' may be read spatially, and what possibilities this may open for re-thinking radical politics. What effect might an examination of 'the event' have on our understanding of the relationship between space and politics? Conversely, how could a consideration of spatial politics effect our assessment of the nature, scope, and relevance of 'the event'? What bearing does the relationship between space and 'the event' have on other crucial relationships such as between politics and the political, difference and universality, transcendence and immanence, and spatial boundaries and political subjectivities? It is hoped that this discussion may create openings for new understandings of political strategy and spatial practices and enriched conceptions of 'the event'.

The workshop brings together a select interdisciplinary group of academics and graduate students, drawn from across geography, political theory, philosophy, and international relations to consider the relevance of this approach to concepts of 'the event'. General discussion will open out from a series of short papers by speakers addressing the theme in relation to their own work and theoretical approaches: Mustafa Dikeç (Royal Holloway) will discuss Jacques Rancière, Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths) will discuss Alain Badiou, and, provisionally, Marcus Doel (Swansea University) will discuss Deleuze and Badiou, with J.D. Dewsbury (University of Bristol) acting as respondent.

Please note that this is a closed event with very limited seating available. If anyone wishes to attend or would like any further information on the event, please contact the convenor, Rory Rowan (Royal Holloway): r.h.rowan@rhul.ac.uk

Access to the Gower Street building requires a code which can be obtained at the issue desk of Royal Holloway's building on the corner of Gower Street and Montague Place.

Light refreshments will be provided during at a mid-point break in the programme.

CONF: AAR Eastern International Region meeting 2010

2010 Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion Eastern International Region (AAR-EIR), at the University of Ottawa, Tabaret Hall, 550 Cumberland Avenue, Ottawa, Canada, 7-8 May 2010

www.aarweb.org/About_AAR/Regions/Eastern_International/

This conference features a panel on "Culture, Political Theology and Violence" (Panel 2/D, 8 May, 8.30-10.30 am, Room TBT070) with the following papers: Kornel Zathureczky (University of Sudbury), "Political Theologies of Europe: At the Crossroads of Competing Universalisms"; Grant Poettcker (McMaster University), "René Girard and Walter Benjamin on Sacrificial Historiography: A History Without Scapegoats?"; and Michael Sohn (University of Chicago Divinity School), "Levinas on the Question of Religion and Violence: From Universal Particularism to Particular Universalism".

Further information (full programme, how to register, etc.) is to be found on the above website.

Book: Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria

Ruth Marshall, "Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria" (University of Chicago Press, June 2009):

www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=6161614

Publisher's description: "After an explosion of conversions to Pentecostalism over the past three decades, tens of millions of Nigerians now claim that 'Jesus is the answer.' But if Jesus is the answer, what is the question? What led to the movement's dramatic rise and how can we make sense of its social and political significance? In this ambitiously interdisciplinary study, Ruth Marshall draws on years of fieldwork and grapples with a host of important thinkers – including Foucault, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin – to answer these questions. To account for the movement's success, Marshall explores how Pentecostalism presents the experience of being born again as a chance for Nigerians to realize the promises of political and religious salvation made during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Her astute analysis of this religious trend sheds light on Nigeria's contemporary politics, postcolonial statecraft, and the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens coping with poverty, corruption, and inequality. Pentecostalism's rise is truly global, and Political Spiritualities persuasively argues that Nigeria is a key case in this phenomenon while calling for new ways of thinking about the place of religion in contemporary politics."

The book includes a section on "Born-Again Political Theology".

Reviews: "This is one of the most original works in the social sciences that I've read in several years. Much more than a simple monograph that will be vital for an understanding of religious and political life in Nigeria, this book addresses all those interested in the significance of contemporary religious phenomena. Through her energetic prose, exceptional fieldwork, and clear mastery of the theoretical and ethnographic literature, Marshall offers a new perspective on religious action and social and political transformations in sub-Saharan Africa, while also making a major contribution to the historical and comparative study of religion." (Jean-François Bayart, French National Center for Scientific Research/Sciences Po Paris)

"Stunningly creative, this book breaks new ground and yields a strong new approach to questions about the politics of faith in our post-secular age. In a rare combination of theoretical clarity and historical and anthropological concreteness, Ruth Marshall succeeds in rendering politically fruitful the critique of religion while taking ever more seriously religion itself as a critique of the political in our times." (Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand/Duke University)

Ruth Marshall is Assistant Professor in the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion and the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Book: Everything Is Sacred: Spiritual Exegesis in the Political Theology of Henri de Lubac

Bryan C. Hollon, "Everything Is Sacred: Spiritual Exegesis in the Political Theology of Henri de Lubac" (Cascade Books, January 2009):

http://wipfandstock.com/store/Everything_Is_Sacred_Spiritual_Exegesis_in_the_Political_Theology_of_Henri_de_Lubac

Publisher's description: "It is well known that Henri de Lubac's groundbreaking and highly controversial work on nature and grace had important implications for the Church's relationship to culture and was intended to remove a philosophical obstacle hindering Catholicism's faithful engagement with the secular world. This book addresses a too-often-neglected dimension of de Lubac's theological renewal by examining the centrality and indispensability of spiritual exegesis in his oeuvre and making explicit its social and political significance for the Church's worship and witness. In addition to exploring the historical and ecclesial context within which he worked, the current work brings de Lubac into a critical engagement with the more recent theological movements of postliberalism and Radical Orthodoxy in order to demonstrate the enduring significance of his theological vision."

Endorsement: "Hollon offers the best introduction to date on de Lubac's spiritual interpretation of Scripture. His bold recovery of Henri de Lubac's participatory hermeneutic offers an excellent contribution to the rapidly growing scholarship on the French Catholic theologian. The book argues for a hermeneutic that avoids the dual trap of isolating Jesus' biblical identity from the life of the Church (the post-liberal tendency) and of reducing Christology to ecclesiology (the fallacy of Radical Orthodoxy). Hollon convincingly argues that the Church's ontological participation in Christ is mediated through the practice of spiritual interpretation along the lines advocated by de Lubac. The result is both an incisive, sympathetic-critical engagement with contemporary hermeneutics and a superb introduction to one of the central concerns of de Lubac." (Hans Boersma, Regent College, Vancouver)

Bryan C. Hollon is Assistant Professor of Theology at Malone University.

Articles on political theology, third installment

Here's a third installment of recent articles:

Seyla Benhabib (Yale), "The Return of Political Theology: The Scarf Affair in Comparative Constitutional Perspective in France, Germany and Turkey", Philosophy & Social Criticism, 36 (3-4), March 2010:
pp. 451-71.

Abstract: "Increasingly in today's world we are experiencing intensifying antagonisms around religious and ethno-cultural differences. The confrontation between political Islam and the so-called 'West' has replaced the rhetoric of the Cold War against communism. This new constellation has not only challenged the hypothesis that 'secularization' inevitably accompanied modernity but has also placed on the agenda political theology as a potent force in many societies. This article analyzes the contemporary revival of political theology by focusing on the headscarf debate in comparative constitutional perspective. It compares the well-known decision of the French Parliament banning the wearing of the headscarf in public schools (2004) with the decision of the German Constitutional Court concerning whether Fereshta Ludin, an Afghani-German teacher wearing the hijab, could teach in German schools (2003) and with the more recent judgment of the Turkish Constitutional Court (summer 2008) upholding the ban on the wearing of the scarf or the turban in institutions of higher learning. At stake in these debates is not only the meaning of fundamental human rights but also why women and their bodies become the object of disciplinary conflicts in culture, law and religion."

Ola Sigurdson (University of Gothenburg), "Beyond Secularism? Towards a Post-Secular Political Theology", Modern Theology, 26 (2), April 2010: pp. 177-96.

Abstract: "In this article I analyse some of the reasons for a recent, resurgent interest in religion and theology by political philosophers and relate this interest to an inherent instability in modernity itself. In the first part I describe the landscape of current political philosophy with a particular emphasis on radical philosophers. In the second part I describe how the liberal distinction between religion and politics generates a theological instability due to the effective disappearance of the social embodiment of religion within modernity. In the third part I draw some conclusions regarding the challenges the new post-secular condition presents to theology."

Jared Hickman (Johns Hopkins University), "Globalization and the Gods, or the Political Theology of 'Race'", Early American Literature, 45 (1), 2010: pp. 145-82.

Excerpt: "Modernity is getting modernized. In order to explain the world in the early twenty-first century – a transnational world from which religion shows no signs of disappearing – recent scholarship increasingly considers modernity in terms of a long history of globalization whose relativizing effects cannot be equated with 'disenchantment.' In this framework, the colonial Americas – as the bridge between Atlantic and Pacific worlds – rather than Enlightenment Europe immediately take modernity's center stage insofar as globalization, by definition, became possible only with the European 'discovery' of the Americas and the momentous transformations this enabled. Eurocentrism takes an unprecedented hit when we trace modernity to an incipient globalization that necessarily coincides with intercultural encounter in the Americas and beyond rather than to an Enlightenment that proceeds from intracultural European self-reflection."

Charis N. Papacharalambous (University of Cyprus), "The Event and the Subject: The (IM)Possible Rehabilitation of Carl Schmitt", Law and Critique, 21 (1), February 2010: pp. 53-72.

Abstract: "The subject is the bearer of the sovereign decision, according to C. Schmitt. This decision grounds on certain situational pragmatics, yet mainly is born out of a 'null'; as the decision forms the political normalcy that follows after, it displays its nature as an 'event'. This subject is simultaneously a legal and a political one; it is the founder of the Nomos. This founding subject has been eclipsed in alignment with its post-modernly acclaimed 'death'. The subject is deemed to have been inherently divided, as long as its identity steadily postpones itself, is incessantly 'differing', according to the deconstructionist approach; or it is considered as fundamentally 'passive', meaning not so much 'weak', but rather dethroning the Western preoccupation with the active autonomous individual; or, it is maintained but intrinsically reversed, now held either as part of a fundamental ontological order and indirectly of the nature (Agamben), or, opposite to Kantian assumptions, as primarily captured in a radical heteronomy, which constitutes it as a proper ethical subject (Levinas). Crucial is how to develop a concept taking into account the eventfulness of the constitution of the subject, without effacing the political character of such constitution by reducing it to non-political discourses, i.e., to metaphysics, morals or economics; how to conceive of Derrida's 'democracy to-come' as political event, namely both as secular act and in the same time as referring to extramundane fundaments (to a 'political theology'?); how to go beyond the linearity of the liberalist ideology by equating the political event with a messianic miracle 'without messianism'; how to 'salute' democracy?"

Ronald Beiner (University of Toronto), "Has the Great Separation Failed?", Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 22 (1), March 2010: pp. 45-63.

Abstract: "In The Stillborn God, Mark Lilla illuminates why 'political theology' remains relevant today, in a world we might have assumed was thoroughly secularized. Lilla suggests that political theology is the norm, and that Christianity inadvertently gave birth to an exception. But the exception – liberal theology, or a separation of church and state that would give full play to religious impulses – was doomed. Religious impulses were not satisfied by mere moral sentiment, as offered by Rousseau and Kant; and Hegel opened the door to messianism – and eventually to Hitler – by bringing a philosophical version of redemption into liberal theology."

Michael Allen Gillespie and Lucas Perkins (both Duke University), "Political Anti-Theology", Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 22 (1), March 2010: pp. 65-84.

Abstract: "In The Stillborn God, Mark Lilla argues that political theology invariably leads to apocalyptic politics, and that we can avoid this fate only by maintaining a 'Great Separation' between politics and religion, such as the one that Hobbes initiated, but which was overturned by Rousseau and German liberal theology – leading to Nazism. We argue that Hobbes never established such a divide; political theology is far more diverse than Lilla suggests; and liberal German political theology was not a significant source of Nazism. Moreover, liberalism is itself a political theology, suggesting that religion and politics should not, and perhaps cannot, be divided – although they may be reconciled."

Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Pennsylvania State University), "The Political Theologies of Empires: Jesuit Missionaries between Counter-Reformation Europe and the Chinese Empire", in "Friars, Nobles and Burghers – Sermons, Images and Prints: Studies of Culture and Society in Early-Modern Europe. In Memoriam István György Tóth", eds. Jaroslav Miller and László Kontler (Central European University Press, March 2010): page numbers not given.

www.ceupress.com/books/html/Friars-Nobles-and-Burghers.htm

No abstract or excerpt given.

Giacomo Coccolini (Associazione teologica italiana per lo studio della morale), "Il ritorno della teologia politica [The return of the political theology]", Rivista di teologia morale, 42 (165), 2010: pp. 45-55.

Abstract: "The contemporary political theology is again perceived as ambit of central reflection. It is owed to the renewed centrality of the theological matter in the current political debates, and also to the debate on the political matter related to its bases and legitimation. There are two aspects to deepen: the political one, that seems to forget its own theological origin, even though secularized; and the different theologies that, for long time, have refused a political declination of their fundamental assertions. To answer to these questions, the article analyzes three matters: the secularization of the political matter in the European public ambit; the historical relationship between Christianity and politics; the inseparable connection between theology and politics in the today's post-secular society [sic]."

Kristien Justaert (Catholic University of Leuven), "Liberation Theology: Deleuze and Althaus-Reid", SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, 39 (1), April 2010: pp. 154-64.

Excerpt: "The contemporary relation between theology and philosophy is a complicated one, but there is at least one strand in theology that has always explicitly used philosophical mediations to clarify and support its theological programme: so-called liberation theology. [...] According to one of the most famous liberation theologians, Enrique Dussel, Marx's thought as a 'philosophy of liberation' was used to 'formulate a metaphysics demanded by revolutionary praxis and technologico-design poiesis against the background of peripheral social formations. To do this it is necessary to deprive Being of its alleged eternal and divine foundation' [...]. This last remark is crucial to understanding the world view and the general perspective of liberation theologians: it is holistic and immanent, not created by a transcendent God that made creation necessarily Good. On the contrary, creation is pervaded with sin, in every place and in every moment where or when human beings or other creatures are oppressed. It is in the 'face' of the oppressed that God can be found, and from the perspective of the 'poor' (in a broad sense) that resistance must grow."

Laura C. Robson (Portland State University), "Palestinian Liberation Theology: Muslim-Christian Relations and the Arab-Israeli Conflict", Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 21 (1), January 2010: pp. 39-50.

Abstract: "This article offers an investigation of the history and intellectual development of Palestinian liberation theology. It focuses in particular on the ways in which the movement's founding writers both made use of and departed from the Latin American model to produce a new theology firmly grounded in specific, local historical and political conditions; the importance of the first intifada for the genesis of this new Palestinian version of liberation theology; and the effort by Palestinian liberation theologians to recast the relationship between Christianity and Islam in the modern Israeli/Palestinian context. It argues that Palestinian liberation theology has become an important intellectual movement among Palestinian Christian elites who seek to convince both Western Christians and Middle Eastern Muslims of a Christian theological justification for a political solution to the Palestinian plight."

Nissim Leon (Bar-Ilan University), "The Transformation of Israel's Religious-Zionist Middle Class", Journal of Israeli History, 29 (1), March 2010: pp. 61-78.

Abstract: "This article argues that the emergence of a new religious-Zionist middle class in Israel may be a factor in restraining the radical potential of the political tendencies that research on religious Zionism has been pointing to for years. It examines, as test cases, the restrained protest against the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the most recent attempt to change the political leadership of the religious-Zionist parties prior to the 2009 elections. It concludes by connecting the processes described here with a discussion of the possible role of the Israeli middle class in mitigating the rifts within Israeli society."

Anthony G. Reddie (Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education), "Exploring the Workings of Black Theology in Britain: Issues of Theological Method and Epistemological Construct", Black Theology: An International Journal, 7 (1), 2009: pp. 64-85.

Abstract: "This essay outlines two contrasting methods for undertaking Black theology in Britain, namely the respective work of Robert Beckford and that of the author of this paper. The paper is offered as a contribution to the wider development of urban theology in Britain. The author, who is one of the leading Black theologians in Britain, offers this work as a means of unpacking some of the methodological and epistemological concerns of this developing mode of largely Christian inspired Black theological reflection in this country."

Anthony G. Reddie (Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education), "Not Just Seeing, But Really Seeing: A Practical Black Liberationist Spirituality for Re-interpreting Reality", Black Theology: An International Journal, 7 (3), 2009: pp. 339-65.

Abstract: "One of the biggest challenges that confront Black people living in the UK is how to assess the veracity of the macro and micro contexts in which our lives are lived. In a country whose indices for what constitutes normality and acceptability are predicated on notions of 'Whiteness', Black people have always needed to possess an armoury of experiential and psycho-social tools in order to discern how to live as a potent symbol of 'otherness' within the body politic of the nation. This essay, which arises from engagement with a group of Black Methodists, seeks to demonstrate how the use of personal experience and the role the spirit in Black life can lead to ways of being able to discern ones positionality within the broader world of White dominated Britain. The essay brings together reflections on Black theology, Pneumatology and experiential learning in order to great a Practical/Participative Black theology for seeing and reinterpreting the reality of being Black in Britain."

Jonathan L. Walton (University of California, Riverside), "Black Theology and Birmingham: Revisiting a Conversation on Culture", Black Theology: An International Journal, 7 (3), 2009: pp. 259-81.

Abstract: "The purpose of this essay is to trace the development of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies in order to suggest that it offers a viable option for black liberation theologians concerned with interpreting the intersections of theology and culture in general, and pop culture forms of religious expression such as televangelism in particular. This essay will reveal that the varying methods of cultural studies and black theology have, in many ways, mirrored one another since their respective inceptions. And over the course of the past decade leading black liberation theologians have appealed to the theories and methods of cultural studies in their work. Yet a review of Dwight Hopkins theological analysis of the intersections of black religion and popular culture will demonstrate that revisiting the Birmingham tradition can still prove beneficial, theoretically and methodologically, to the black liberation project. This is particular true in regards to finding the appropriate balance between creative cultural agency and interpretive freedom of the folk, on the one hand, and the ideological dimensions of mass mediated cultural expression such as black televangelism, on the other."

Young Bin Moon (Seoul Women's University), "God as a Communicative System Sui Generis: Beyond the Psychic, Social, Process Models of the Trinity", Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 45 (1), March 2010: 105-26.

Abstract: "With an aim to develop a public theology for an age of information media (or media theology), this article proposes a new
God-concept: God is a communicative system sui generis that autopoietically processes meaning/information in the supratemporal realm via perfect divine media ad intra (Word/Spirit). For this task, Niklas Luhmann's systems theory is critically appropriated in dialogue with theology. First, my working postmetaphysical/epistemological stance is articulated as realistic operational constructivism and functionalism. Second, a series of arguments are advanced to substantiate the thesis: (1) God is an observing system sui generis; (2) self-referential communication is divine operation; (3) unsurpassable complexity is divine mystery; (4) supratemporal autopoiesis of meaning is divine processing; (5) agape is the symbolic medium of divine communication. Third, this communicative model of God is developed into a trinitarian theology, with a claim that this model offers a viable alternative beyond the standard (psychic, social, process) models. Finally, some implications of this model are explored for constructive theology (conceiving creation as divine mediatization) and for science-and-religion in terms of derivative models: (1) God as a living system sui generis and (2) God as a meaning system sui generis."

Matthew L. Becker (Valparaiso University), "What Good is Theology?", Daystar Journal, fall 2009: page numbers not given. Available here:

http://daystarnet.org/Jounal-spring-2010/What%20Good%20Is%20Theology.pdf

Excerpt: "How does good theology relate to the publics that are 'society' and 'the world'? In other words, is there a viable 'public theology' that can claim the adjective 'good?' While the constraints of this little essay preclude even a partially-developed understanding of public theology, a few key elements can be highlighted."

Book: From Political Theory to Political Theology

Just published: Péter Losonczi and Aakash Singh, "From Political Theory to Political Theology: Religious Challenges and the Prospects of Democracy" (Continuum, March 2010):

www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=136609

Publisher's description: "During the last two decades we have witnessed what José Casanova has characterised as 'religion going public'. This has not been a trend exclusive to traditionally religious nations. Rather, it has been visible in as diverse environments as that of the construction of the new Russian political identity or in the 'post-9/11' political discourses of the USA. Surprisingly, important religious manifestations also influenced the political discourses in Britain and, more recently, in France. Partly as a consequence of these phenomena an intensive debate is now evolving about the compatibility of the neutrality of liberal democracy in relation to religiously motivated opinions in public discourses, and the conditions under which such religiously driven contributions could viably 'go public'. This book offers a collection of essays on Religion and Democracy which critically discusses the most important questions that characterize these debates at the points of their intersection within political theory, political theology and the philosophy of religion, and considers both the challenges and the prospects of this new era which, following Habermas, one may call post-secular."

Review: "This is an impressive collection of interesting essays on political theology, covering a spectrum of possibilities from the more liberal to the more conservative. These essays diversely address the major issues that have been intensely discussed since the return of religion as an urgent concern for recent political developments. The editors have done a fine job in choosing essays which reflect current debates where a pluralism of possibilities vie for consideration and favor." (William Desmond, Catholic University of Leuven)

Péter Losonczi is Associate Professor in the Institute for Intercultural Studies at the University of West Hungary, Szombathely.

Aakash Singh is Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Global Politics at LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome.

Book: Doing Contextual Theology

Angie Pears, "Doing Contextual Theology" (Routledge, September 2009):

www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415417051/

Publisher's description: "Christian theology, like all forms of knowledge, thinking and practice, arises from and is influenced by the context in which it is done. In Doing Contextual Theology, Angie Pears demonstrates the radically contextual nature of Christian theology by focusing on five forms of liberation theology: Latin American Liberation Theologies; Black Theologies; Feminist Informed Theologies; Sexual Theologies; Body Theologies. Pears analyses how each of these asserts a clear and persistent link to the Christian tradition through The Bible and Christology and discusses the implications of contextual and local theologies for understanding Christianity as a religion. Moreover, she considers whether fears are justified that a radically contextual reading of Christian theologies leads to a relativist understanding of the religion, or whether these theologies share some form of common identity both despite and because of their contextual nature. Doing Contextual Theology offers students a clear and up-to-date survey of the field of contemporary liberation theology and provides them with a sound understanding of how contextual theology works in practice."

Reviews: "Written with crystal clarity Angie Pears has provided an accessible, detailed and critical study of contemporary contextual theologies. This book will be an essential text for both students and tutors seeking to understand both the appeal and limitations of contextual theologies. I hope too that contextual theologians will find pause for thought in some of the questions Pears raises about the nature of these theologies." (Elizabeth Stuart, University of Winchester)

"Her interpretations are accurate and generous. She asks the right questions and offers wise answers. Her work does what the best of syntheses do: it takes us to a new place." (Stephen Bevans, Catholic Theological Union; here and above bold removed)

Angie Pears is now Learning and Development Officer in the Equality and Diversity Team at Nottingham Trent University, this following a decade as a Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University.

CFP: Catholicism and Fascism(s) in Europe 1918-1945: Beyond a Manichean Approach

International conference "Catholicism and Fascism(s) in Europe 1918-1945: Beyond a Manichean Approach", at the Academia Belgica, Rome, Italy, 15-17 September 2010

Call for papers

Outline: "The general theme of the proposed conference is the ideologisation of the relationship between Catholicism and fascism in Europe (1918-1945). The historiography in this particular field of research has often been characterised by rather outspoken and sometimes conflicting ideological currents. In extreme cases, some historians fully deny any possible convergence between catholic religion and fascist ideology, where others sustain that catholics unconditionally supported fascism. The conference intends to make a meaningful contribution to this fundamental methodological and theoretical debate, through the presentation of original research presented by a group of international scholars, each of whom will focus on a European country or region where in the interwar years a fascist movement or regime flourished, and where there was a significant catholic presence in society.

"Participants will explore a wide range of relevant contexts and methodologies. More in particular, the following investigative pathways will guide a series of thematic panels: 1) the heuristic notion of fascism as a 'political religion'; 2) the concept of catholic 'politicisation of religion'; 3) the phenomenon of 'clerical fascism' and its manifestations; 4) value and usefulness of a comparative approach; 5) the various forms of reception of German, Italian and Spanish fascism by catholics in foreign contexts; 6) the prospect of research based on recently discovered and/or released archival materials (cf. the Vatican interwar archives); 7) importance of the role of catholic and fascist intellectuals: towards a historiography of fascist and catholic culture?; 8) the relationship between catholic and fascist 'modernism'.

"The conference intends to serve a double purpose: on the one hand participants will present research on the general theme of the relationship Catholicism-fascism in Europe (fundamental contribution concerning content); on the other hand the discussion will be moved to a theoretical level (fundamental methodological contribution). In addition, the aim to cover as large as possible a number of countries and regions will make for a highly complete and complex understanding of the general theme. It is hoped that this will contribute to a more refined and nuanced understanding of not only the notions 'catholic Church' and 'catholics', but also of the highly enigmatic phenomenon of 'fascism'. Much in the same way as traditional religion, as a form of 'political religion', the latter denomination could indeed cover very heterogeneous constituents. The final aim is to contribute to the development of an interpretive 'cluster' model that ideally incorporates a series of investigative matrixes, thus acting as a catalyst to future research."

Abstracts of 300-500 words (in English, French, or Italian), accompanied by the title of the contribution as well as a CV which mentions the participant's most relevant publications and his/her institutional affiliation, are to be sent, as an e-mail attachment (in Word, RTF, or PDF format), to Jan Nelis (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Christian Traditions, University of Ghent): jan.nelis@ugent.be
with a 'cc' to nelisjanunighent@gmail.com

Deadline: 10 May 2010

Abstracts should clearly indicate the originality of the projected paper presentation, and situate it in the general theme of the conference. Proposals concerning Poland, Slovenia, and Austria are particularly encouraged. Abstracts will be evaluated in function of their relevance to the general conference theme and panel structure, as well as of the available places.

Notification of acceptance or refusal will be given by 1 June 2010.

CONF: Canadian Theological Society annual meeting

Annual Meeting of the Canadian Theological Society (CTS), at Concordia University, Molson School of Business, 1450 Rue Guy, Montréal, Canada, 31 May-2 June 2010

http://cts-stc.ca/previous-conferences/2010_annual_program/

Two one-hour slots in the parallel sessions at this small conference are reserved for papers on political theology:

Andrew Atkinson (Wilfred Laurier University), "Carl Schmitt and the Political Theology of HBO: John Adams and Rome as Sites of Discourse on De-differentiated Secularism and the Relationship between Violence and Law" (1 June, 9.15-10.10 am, MB 3-430)

From the abstract: "Since Six Feet Under began airing in 2001, HBO has consistently marketed programming that integrates left wing ideals with various religious traditions. [...] The star-studded miniseries, John Adams, and the raucous reinvention of the sword and sandal genre, Rome, are both productions that complicate HBO's ideological stance and aesthetic. These two shows delve head-long into theo-political concepts that are usually monopolized by conservatives, such as the friend-enemy distinction, the small and powerful state, and the exceptions permitted to the sovereign. These concepts find a common focus in the writings of Carl Schmitt [...]. Interest in Schmitt's concepts on TV has clearly been influenced by what Simon Critchley calls the 'Crypto-Schmittianism' of the Bush-Cheney years [...]. However, while Critchley uses this term derisively there are a great number on the left who actively endorse Schmitt's concepts even though they are grounded in his right-wing Catholic Christology [...]. This paper will seek to argue that the left-right commonality on violence and law is intimately associated with theological understandings the political [sic] [...]."

Kornel Zathureczky (University of Sudbury), "Critical Political Theology in an Apocalyptic Key: A Reception of the Work of Jacob Taubes"
(1 June, 1.45-2.40 pm, MB 3-435)

Abstract: "Jacob Taubes' last lecture on 'The Political Theology of Paul' offered a significant opening to help to reconsider – as a phenomenon imbued with the tensions that exists before a an [sic] ultimate separation – the central figure of Christian history from the perspective of the tradition of Jewish messianism. Taubes' other recently translated works, 'Occidental Eschatology' and 'From Cult to Culture,' generated an added impetus to revisit this hidden core of Christianity. Essential in this enterprise is a reconsideration of the enduring significance of comic [sic] Gnostic dualism for a better understanding of what is at stake with the, often suppressed and marginalised, apocalyptic dimension of Christianity and how by [sic] retrieving this dimension may serve to construe a critical political theology in what many, including Taubes, consider as a post-Christian stage in history, an epoch that corresponds to Joachim of Fiore's 'ecclesia spiritualis.' The paper's purpose is thus two-fold: First, it offers a critical reception of the thought of Taubes, one that evaluates his contribution to the genealogy of political theologies. Second, it proposes to draw up the outlines of a contemporary political theology in an apocalyptic key. Here, the recent work of Žižek and Milbank on the apocalyptic substrate of God's kenosis in Christ serves as a vital conversation partner to further the development of a new political theology in a post-political global bio-polis."

Also of interest: Timothy Harvie (St. Mary's University College), "Public Hope in Dialogue: The Debate Between Moltmann and Ratzinger as a Means to Public Theology" (1 June, 10.15-11.10 am, MB 3-435)

From the abstract: "In 2008, eminent theologian of hope, Jürgen Moltmann, published a critical response to Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Spe salvi. This paper will analyze the main contours of Moltmann's argument in light of a summary of the theological contents of the relevant papal encyclical and highlight the ongoing debate between Moltmann's public theology and Joseph Ratzinger. [...] By outlining Moltmann's eshcatological [sic] and ethical theology of hope this paper will analyze the ad hoc engagement with Catholic theologians which Moltmann employs throughout his writings. The paper will call several of these readings into question utilizing encyclicals from the Catholic social tradition and documents from the Second Vatican Council complimented by the doctrine of hope outlined by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae (IIaIIae.17-22). This intersection between Moltmann and the Roman Catholic Church on the ethical relevance of theological doctrines raises pertinent issues regarding the potential for an eschatologically informed public theology to be a potential avenue of viable theological dialogue between traditions through a coherent and ecclesiologically informed public ethic."

Further information (including how to register) is to be found on the above website.

The CTS annual meeting is part of the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, an annual event in Canada that brings together thousands of scholars under the aegis of more than seventy associations from various disciplines.

Book: From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe

Just published: Peter Y. Paik, "From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe" (University of Minnesota Press, March 2010).

Publisher's description: "Revolutionary narratives in recent science fiction graphic novels and films compel audiences to reflect on the politics and societal ills of the day. Through character and story, science fiction brings theory to life, giving shape to the motivations behind the action as well as to the consequences they produce. In From Utopia to Apocalypse, Peter Y. Paik shows how science fiction generates intriguing and profound insights into politics. He reveals that the fantasy of putting annihilating omnipotence to beneficial effect underlies the revolutionary projects that have defined the collective upheavals of the modern age. Paik traces how this political theology is expressed, and indeed literalized, in popular superhero fiction, examining works including Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel Watchmen, the science fiction cinema of Jang Joon-Hwan, the manga of Hayao Miyazaki, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, and the Matrix trilogy.

"Superhero fantasies are usually seen as compensations for individual feelings of weakness, victimization, and vulnerability. But Paik presents these fantasies as social constructions concerned with questions of political will and the disintegration of democracy rather than with the psychology of the personal. What is urgently at stake, Paik argues, is a critique of the limitations and deadlocks of the political imagination. The utopias dreamed of by totalitarianism, which must be imposed through torture, oppression, and mass imprisonment, nevertheless persist in liberal political systems. With this reality looming throughout, Paik demonstrates the uneasy juxtaposition of saintliness and cynically manipulative realpolitik, of torture and the assertion of human dignity, of cruelty and benevolence."

www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/paik_utopia.html

Contents: Introduction: The God That Succeeded; 1. Utopia Achieved: The Case of Watchmen; 2. The Defense of Necessity: On Jang Joon-Hwan's Save the Green Planet; 3. The Saintly Politics of Catastrophe: Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind; 4. Between Trauma and Tragedy: From The Matrix to V for Vendetta

Endorsements: "I read Peter Y. Paik's lucid, graceful, ruthless book in one single astonished sitting. I scarred it all over with arrows and exclamation points, so I can read it again as soon as possible." (Bruce Sterling, novelist)

"Uncommonly powerful and original, From Utopia to Apocalypse both raises issues that are disturbing and disturbingly relevant, and casts a whole genre of cultural fictions in an entirely new light." (Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University)

Peter Y. Paik is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Book: Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism

Just published: Roger A. Sneed, "Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism" (Palgrave Macmillan, March 2010):

http://us.macmillan.com/representationsofhomosexuality

Publisher's description: "This book challenges black religious and cultural critics to rethink theological and ethical approaches to homosexuality. Sneed demonstrates how black liberation theology and [sic] has often characterized homosexuality as a problem to be solved, and his work here offers a different way for black religious scholars to approach black homosexuality and religious experiences. Drawing on a range of black gay writers from Essex Hemphill to J.L. King, Sneed identifies black gay men's literature as a rich source for theological and ethical reflection and points black religious scholarship toward an ethics of openness."

Endorsement: "This important work by Sneed challenges theologies that ground themselves in Black experience – Black and Womanist
[–], to recognize that without the inclusion of the experience of gay Black men our work is incomplete. This book will add significantly to conversations about the future of Black and Womanist theologies." (Stephen G. Ray Jr., Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary)

Roger A. Sneed is Assistant Professor of Religion at Furman University.

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.

Book: A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited

Just published: Volker Küster, "A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited" (Brill, March 2010):

www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=31210

Publisher's description: "Minjung Theology is introduced here through theological biographical sketches of its main representatives. They formulated a protestant liberation theology under the South Korean military dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. Their strong emphasis on the suffering (han) of the people (minjung) led them to the formulation of a genuine theology of the cross in Asia. Volker Küster explores the reception of Minjung Theology and raises the question what happened to it during the democratization process and the rise of globalization in the 1990s. Interpretations of art works by Minjung artists provide deep insights into these transformation processes. Prologue and epilogue abstract from the Korean case and offer a concise theory of contextual theology in an intercultural framework."

Endorsements: "This important book provides the first thorough academic discussion of Korean Minjung theology in any Western language, introducing key Korean theologians in the movement, in relationship to one another and to contextual theological developments elsewhere. A unique feature of this study is Küster's use of visual art as an inculturated expression of Minjung theology in its own right. His contention that contextual theologies are 'open systems' suggests the continuing relevance of Minjung theology for our 'glocalized' future." (Philip L. Wickeri, San Francisco Theological Seminary/Graduate Theological Union)

"'A Protestant Theology of Passion' chronicles an important movement in Korean theology that has significance far beyond the borders of that country. True to Minjung method, Küster includes not only texts, but art and poetry as sources for this theology as well. In doing so, he makes an important contribution to the wider discussion of contextual theology today." (Robert Schreiter, Catholic Theological Union; here and above bold removed, here italics removed)

Volker Küster is Professor of Crosscultural Theology at the Protestant Theological University in Kampen, the Netherlands.

Book: God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State

Lew Daly, "God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State" (University of Chicago Press, December 2009), with an introduction by E.J. Dionne Jr. (Georgetown University/Brookings Institution):

www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?isbn=9780226134857

Publisher's description: "President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush Administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, though, Obama's version of the policy has generated loud criticism – from both sides of the aisle – even as the communities that stand to benefit suffer through an ailing economy. God's Economy reveals that virtually all of the critics, as well as many supporters, have long misunderstood both the true implications of faith-based partnerships and their unique potential for advancing social justice. Unearthing the intellectual history of the faith-based initiative, Lew Daly locates its roots in the pluralist tradition of Europe's Christian democracies, in which the state shares sovereignty with social institutions.

"He argues that Catholic and Dutch Calvinist ideas played a crucial role in the evolution of this tradition, as churches across nineteenth-century Europe developed philosophical and legal defenses to protect their education and social programs against ascendant governments. Tracing the influence of this heritage on the past three decades of American social policy and church-state law, Daly finally untangles the radical beginnings of the faith-based initiative. In the process, he frees it from the narrow culture-war framework that has limited debate on the subject since Bush opened the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001. A major contribution from an important new voice at the intersection of religion and politics, God's Economy points the way toward policymaking that combines strong social support with a new moral focus on the protection of families and communities."

On his blog, Daly writes: "In the second half of the book, I explore the social-pluralist genealogy of the faith-based initiative, examining in depth the political theology and legal philosophy of this tradition as it evolved through confessional struggles and beyond, across the long nineteenth century. The strongest sources for this tradition are found in social Catholicism (Bonald, Lamennais, Émile Keller, Bishop Ketteler, Pope Leo XIII) and in Dutch anti-revolutionary thought (Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd). The common root of these varied confessional traditions of social pluralism, I argue, was the idea of libertas ecclesiae, reaching back to the New Testament vision of distinct but coexisting spheres of authority and law – God's and Caesar's. This idea of dual or plural sovereignty was refined in Papal teaching, from Gelasius I's famous Duo sunt ('Two there are') in his dispute with Emperor Anastasius, to the reform vision of Gregory VII, culminating in the great Investiture Contest of the late 11th century."

Lew Daly is a Senior Fellow at the non-partisan US public policy research and advocacy organization Demos.

Book: Toward a Planetary Theology: Along the Many Paths of God

"Toward a Planetary Theology: Along the Many Paths of God", edited by José María Vigil, is a contributed volume just published by a Montreal-based small independent operation called Dunamis Publishers (March 2010).

The full text of the book can be read free of charge here:

http://tiempoaxial.org/AlongTheManyPaths/EATWOT-TowardAPlanetaryTheology.pdf

This is the fifth volume in a series initiated by the Latin American Theological Commission of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). The earlier volumes seem to have been published in English elsewhere.

According to the publisher's blog, "[t]his is a book that [...] contains reflections by theologians from at least five major world religions on five continents. They all responded to questions about the possibility and urgency of a planetary theology with which every religion would be able to identify – like an ecumenical theology but much, much broader. The results are interesting and open a debate. Never before has there been an effort to bring together the threads of inter-religious theology and liberation theology."

José María Vigil, from Panama, is a theologian and psychologist. He is Coordinator of the International Theological Commission of EATWOT and Editor-in-Chief of the annual "World Latin American Agenda".

Book: Post-Christian Protestant Political Theology in John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan

Paul G. Doerksen, "Beyond Suspicion: Post-Christian Protestant Political Theology in John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan" (Wipf and Stock, January 2010), with a foreword by P. Travis Kroeker (McMaster University):

http://wipfandstock.com/store/Beyond_Suspicion_PostChristian_Protestant_Political_Theology_in_John_Howard_Yoder_and_Oliver_ODonovan

Publisher's description: "The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion – the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, the present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant political theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom. O'Donovan's political theology, written from within the British Anglican tradition, is a bold project in which he attempts to push back the horizons of commonplace secularist politics and open it up theologically, a move that he believes will offer crucial resources for thinking about justice and the common good.

"A related response is presented by Yoder, who, as an American Mennonite, represents Anabaptism. From this more marginal ecclesial location, Yoder's thought stands both as a challenge to regnant liberal notions of the relation of church and state, and as an important interlocutor for O'Donovan's political theology. Yoder argues that political theology entails a particular kind of focus on the church, where the very shape of the church in the world is a public witness for the world, and not first of all a withdrawal from the world. The critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, as are their views on the legitimacy of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic Pacifism."

Endorsements: "I often observe if there is any alternative to Yoder it is Oliver O'Donovan. So we are in Doerksen's debt for putting Yoder and O'Donovan in conversation. His careful exposition of these thinkers helps us better see the challenges before the church in the world in which we find ourselves." (Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University)

"This study of O'Donovan and Yoder demonstrates more common ground between them than one might have suspected. Doerksen provides a fair and balanced treatment of the Reformed and Anabaptist theo-political traditions in the two persons of two of those traditions' strongest proponents. It deserves careful reading by anyone interested in social ethics done from outside the dominant traditions of political theology." (Craig A. Carter, Tyndale University College)

"In this fine, critical analysis of two very different theological ethicists [...,] Paul Doerksen rescues 'political theology' from its ideological distortion on the right (fascism), on the left (socialism), and in the centre (liberalism), grounding theo-political ethics squarely in scripture and the church as alternative political community. This is an important contribution to the growing literature in politics and theology, one in which political thought and action are grounded in sound biblical theology." (A. James Reimer, University of Waterloo/Conrad Grebel University College)

Paul G. Doerksen is Department Head-Biblical Studies at the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute, Winnipeg. This book is based on his doctoral dissertation at McMaster University.

The book was apparently published previously by Paternoster Press in 2009.

Book: To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity Today

Just published: James Davison Hunter, "To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity Today" (Oxford University Press USA, March 2010):

www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/SociologyofReligion/?view=usa&ci=9780199730803

From the publisher's description: "The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive – and provocative – answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire. Because change implies power, all Christian [sic] eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a trenchant critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists, taking on many respected leaders, from Charles Colson to Jim Wallis and Stanley Hauerwas. Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve."

Endorsement: "How should Christians act in the world? The dominant answer in America today seems to be: through politics. But the major model of Christian political action, visible most obviously but not exclusively in the Christian Right, has been a politics fuelled by resentment and a sense of victimization, actuated by a strong will to power, and a propensity to demonize its opponents. This politics is a capitulation to the worst elements of the contemporary culture it claims to be redeeming. Hunter offers an acute end [sic] penetrating analysis of this paradoxical and distressing phenomenon, and carefully charts an alternative course for contemporary Christians, a form of 'faithful presence' within culture and society." (Charles Taylor, McGill University)

James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory and Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

Book: Pioneers of Religious Zionism: Rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, Mohliver, Reines, Kook and Maimon

Raymond Goldwater, "Pioneers of Religious Zionism: Rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, Mohliver, Reines, Kook and Maimon" (Urim Publications, January 2009):

www.urimpublications.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=UP&Product_Code=ReligZionism

Publisher's description: "Pioneers of Religious Zionism describes the lives and philosophies of the most important rabbinical Zionists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Yehuda ben Shlomo Alkalai (1798-1878), Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874), Samuel Mohliver (1824-1891), Jacob Reines (1839-1915), Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) and Judah Leib (Fishman) Maimon (1875-1962). They joined secular Zionists in the struggle for the re-establishment of a Jewish national home – an unusual act for their time – and had to contend with fierce opposition and condemnations from many rabbis in Eastern Europe, who believed that the return of the Jewish people to its ancestral homeland of Israel depended upon the arrival of the Messiah. In their lives and writings, Rabbis Alkali, Kalischer, Mohliver, Reines, Kook and Maimon provided the foundation on which modern religious Zionism was built."

Raymond Goldwater, who graduated in Law at the University of London, has been active in Anglo-Jewish affairs for many decades.

Pamphlet: The Political Theology of Mazzini and the International

Heinrich Meier convincingly traced the term "political theology" back to Mikhail Bakunin's derogatory 1871 attack, "La Théologie politique de Mazzini et l'Internationale".

At the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair this weekend, Shawn P. Wilbur will be releasing a pamphlet titled "The Political Theology of Mazzini and the International" containing the text of Sarah Elizabeth Holmes English translation of Bakunin's essay. The translation was originally published serialized in Benjamin Tucker's individualist-anarchist periodical "Liberty" in 1886 and 1887.

Wilbur has made the full text of the translation available online too:

http://libertarian-labyrinth.org/archive/The_Political_Theology_of_Mazzini_and_the_International

To obtain the pamphlet, contact Shawn P. Wilbur (Bowling Green State University): swilbur@bgsu.edu

Book: Constructing Irregular Theology: Bamboo and Minjung in East Asian Perspective

Quite pricey: Paul S. Chung, "Constructing Irregular Theology: Bamboo and Minjung in East Asian Perspective" (Brill, October 2009):

www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=31367

Publisher's description: "The project of constructing Asian irregular theology in East Asian perspective, based on life-word of Bamboo and social political reality of minjung, embraces Dr. Chung's cross-cultural existence as he develops his long-standing interest and expertise in Christian minjung theology in new ways with the image of bamboo as a symbol for the theological perspective of grass roots marginality. Using the ancient Chinese story 'The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,' Dr. Chung engages with Christian eschatological discourse to support an aesthetical-utopian theological ethics that is opposed to an ethics concerned with legitimation of a socio-economic status quo. In addition, Dr. Chung's develops [sic] his deep commitment to the Lutheran theology of the cross and the suffering Christ through the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering) to create, in the end, a genuinely East Asian contextual theology".

Endorsements: "Paul Chung once described himself as having a Confucian mind, Taoist guts, Buddhist heart, and Christian body. This book embraces Chung's whole being as he appropriates and develops the ancient Chinese story [...] of scholars who fled the accommodation of Confucian ethics in support of the tyranny and political chaos of the third century. Asian irregular theology, built on the image of bamboo and minjung, marks a new model in constructing Asian contextual theology in light of the irregularity of God's speech event and from the perspective of grass roots marginality." (Elizabeth A. Leeper, Wartburg Theological Seminary)

"Chung constructs an interpretive and irregular theology provocatively in a global context. He is a creative, original, and thought-provoking pioneer [...], making a great contribution for a contemporary discussion of inculturation and emancipation." (Wang Zhicheng, Zhejiang University)

"One of the major issues facing the Christian Church today has to do with a right understanding of the relationship between Christ and Christian faith on the one hand, and the other great world religions on the other. The tired trilogy of exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist is woefully inadequate, but nothing has come along to replace it. In our multi-cultural and postmodern world of many religions and worldviews, the gospel itself calls us to imagine creative, new theological proposals. The Korean-American theologian Paul S. Chung has developed such a creative theological proposal which he calls 'irregular theology,' that is, a theology of God's irregular grace which moves beyond the walls of Christendom to speak a fresh word to us in the religious wisdom of other cultures (especially Asian). This book explores and develops his proposal in several important directions. The resulting synthesis of many voices and traditions is bracing, controversial, and rewarding. The careful reader will come away with new insights and new questions." (Alan G. Padgett, Luther Seminary; all endorsements originally in italics)

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

Book: Liberation Theologies in the United States: An Introduction

Just published: "Liberation Theologies in the United States: An Introduction", edited by Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas and Anthony B. Pinn (New York University Press, March 2010):

www.nyupress.org/books/Liberation_Theologies_in_the_United_States-products_id-11250.html

Publisher's description: "In the nascent United States, religion often functioned as a justifier of oppression. Yet while religious discourse buttressed such oppressive activities as slavery and the destruction of native populations, oppressed communities have also made use of religion to critique and challenge this abuse. As Liberation Theologies in the United States demonstrates, this critical use of religion has often taken the form of liberation theologies, which use primarily Christian principles to address questions of social justice, including racism, poverty, and other types of oppression. Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas and Anthony B. Pinn have brought together a stellar group of liberation theology scholars to provide a synthetic introduction to the historical development, context, theory, and goals of a range of U.S.-born liberation theologies. Chapters cover Black Theology, Womanist Theology, Latino/Hispanic Theology, Latina Theology, Asian American Theology, Asian American Feminist Theology, Native American Theology, Native Feminist Theology, Gay and Lesbian Theology, and Feminist Theology."

Endorsements: "An extraordinary resource for understanding the vitality of liberation theologies and their relation to social transformation in the changing U.S. context. Written in an accessible and engaged way, this powerful and informative text will inspire beginners and scholars alike. I highly recommend it." (Kwok Pui-lan, Episcopal Divinity School)

"To acknowledge the limits and gifts of our theological past, to mourn and rage the depth of oppression, to gratefully accept our place in a lineage of struggle and hope, such is the blessing provided by the authors of Liberation Theologies in the United States. May their work be a catalyst for further acts of daring, compassion, and insight." (Sharon D. Welch, Meadville Lombard Theological School; here and above, italics originally bold)

Apparently, the book is also available as paperback (although I can't find it on the NYU Press website).

Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

Anthony B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University.

Recent articles on political theology, second installment

Here's a second installment of recent articles (this will be a recurrent feature from now on):

Wolfram Malte Fues (University of Basel), "The Foe. The Radical Evil. Political Theology in Immanuel Kant and Carl Schmitt", The Philosophical Forum, 41 (1-2), spring/summer 2010: pp. 181-204.

Excerpt: "'In a few weeks' time, I shall surprise you with a new work by Kant that will very much astound you,' Friedrich Schiller writes to his friend Christian Gottfried Körner on February 28, 1793, referring to Immanuel Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. 'One of the fundamental principles held in it, however, outrages my [...] feelings. For he [Kant, W.M.F.] asserts a propensity of the human heart to evil, which he calls the radical evil, and which under no circumstances must be confused with the stimuli of the sensuous nature. He places it above and beyond the sensuous, in man's spiritual nature, as the locus of freedom.' No sooner has self-enlightening reason drawn religion into its bounds, than it breaks with the old Manichaean-Christian dogma of evil as the sin of the flash against the spirit. Reason starts seeking evil within itself, within its principle of self-determination, and hence at the very 'locus of freedom.' A Janus-faced reason, which, entirely by its freedom of choice, conceals good behind evil, evil behind good? Whose 'progress in the consciousness of freedom' can lead us into paradise just as well as into utter catastrophe? It is not surprising that this radical evil fascinates Schiller as much as it outrages him. Let us investigate the causes for Schiller's conflicting sensations and their interconnection."

Geoffrey Waite (Cornell University), "Kant, Schmitt or Fues on Political Theology, Radical Evil and the Foe (pour une philosophie buissonière et parallactique)", The Philosophical Forum, 41 (1-2), spring/summer 2010: pp. 205-27.

No abstract or excerpt given.

R.R. Reno (Creighton University), "Lawe, loue and lewete: The Kenotic Vision of Traditional Christian Political Theology", in "Crisis, Call, and Leadership in the Abrahamic Tradition", eds. Peter Ochs and William Stacy Johnson (Palgrave Macmillan, December 2009): pp. 169-83.

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=375019

Excerpt: "My purpose, then, is to show how [William Langland's late medieval poem] Piers Plowman and its allegorical dream sequences function as a scripturally reasoned response to the cry of the poor that gives spiritual transformation priority over social change. I begin with a brief account of the argument of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, and then I move to an exposition of the social analysis present in Langland's poem. In conclusion, I will gesture toward the question of how my interpretation of Piers Plowman might inform a postliberal effort to restore scriptural reasoning to a foundational role in forming our social consciences."

Jacob Schiff (University of Chicago), "From Anti-Liberal to Untimely Liberal: Leo Strauss' Two Critiques of Liberalism", Philosophy & Social Criticism, 36 (2), February 2010: pp. 157-81.

Abstract: "Leo Strauss' ubiquitous presence in recent US foreign policy debates demands a thorough analysis of his critique of liberalism. I identify and explain a previously unnoticed transformation in that critique. Strauss' Weimar critique of liberalism was philosophical and political; like Carl Schmitt, he sought philosophical grounds to replace liberalism with an authoritarian political system. However, post-emigration Strauss abandoned this political agenda, exclusively pursuing a philosophical critique that exposed modern liberalism's purported weaknesses in order to strengthen its core. I accentuate this change by reading Strauss' postwar lecture, 'The Three Waves of Modernity', as an implicit response to and reconstruction of Schmitt's 'Neutralizations and Depoliticizations' essay. Strauss' changing relationship to political theology and political philosophy was central to his transformation: while a philosophically grounded political theology undergirded his early disdain for liberalism, Strauss later abandoned political theology for a quasi-theological faith in political philosophy that motivated his more moderate, philosophical critique."

Govert J. Buijs (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), "The Souls of Europe", LIMES: Cultural Regionalistics, 2 (2), 2009: pp. 126-39.

Abstract: "How should Europe deal politically with its legacy as a so-called 'Christian civilization'? Should this imply an overt reference to God or to the Christian or Judeo-Christian tradition in European constitutional documents (as was debated when the so-called 'Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe' was tabled)? This debate raised the old 'politico-theological problem': does a political order need some kind of metaphysical or religious grounding, a 'soul', or can it present itself as a purely rational order, the result of a utilitarian calculus? In this article it is argued that the secular idea of the state as an inherent element in the 'Judeo-Christian tradition', for a 'divine state' usurps a place that is only God's. So, this religious tradition itself calls for a secular state, and this inherent relationship between religion and secularity has become a key element for the interpretation of European civilization, most notably in the idea of a separation of the church and the state. But the very fact that this is a religious idea does imply that the European political order cannot be seen as a purely rational political order without a soul. The idea of a 'plural soul' is proposed as a way out of the dilemma."

Shmuel Trigano (University Paris X Nanterre), "The Return of the Theological-Political in Democracy and the Rediscovery of Biblical Politics", Hebraic Political Studies, 4 (3), summer 2009: pp. 304-18. Available online:

www.hpstudies.org/20/admin/pdfs/07305e34-7d1c-437c-a8ce-f0fd3df92a25.pdf

Abstract: "The Spinozist moment was a turning point for democratic theory. It reduced the biblical heritage of political philosophy to mere theology and thus founded the 'autonomy of politics' so brilliantly theorized by Rousseau in his 'Social Contract.' Yet Spinoza and Rousseau could not found their system without reintroducing (an immanent or secularized) transcendence to politics, such that a kind of reenchantment, in the form of civil and political religions, has occurred in modern politics. These are crucial matters to consider today, as this transcendence so crucial to the foundations of democracy is collapsing. To confront this problem, one might consider that Spinoza theoretically founded democracy by expelling the biblical, and its rediscovery today might help us think through the present crisis."

Martín Plot, "The Democratico-Political: Social Flesh and Political Forms in Lefort and Merleau-Ponty", Theory & Event, 12 (4), 2009, no page numbers given.

Excerpt: "Modern democracy is an enigma. It is an enigma because, being born out of the split of the theological and the political, it places society face to face with its own institution. In theologico-political orders, societies take themselves for granted, they see themselves as a unity guaranteed by the objectifying gaze of God. Modern democracies, in contrast, confront the ambiguity proper of a being that becomes an entity before its own gaze – a two-dimensional, reversible being, a seer that is also a visible. No longer being a heteronomously constituted object, now the body politic becomes both a subject and an object, a flesh in the gaze of itself. In order to understand this mutation and the advent of the form of society that I will call democratico-political, one of my articulating strategies will be the uncovering of the implicit dimensions – and the exploration of the political potentialities – of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh."

Paul W. Kahn (Yale Law School), "Torture and Democratic Violence", Ratio Juris, 22 (2), June 2009: pp. 244-59.

Abstract: "To understand the problem of torture in a democratic society, we have to take up a political-theological perspective. We must ask how violence creates political meaning. Torture is no more destructive and no more illiberal than other forms of political violence. The turn away from torture was not a turn away from violence, but a change in the locus of sacrifice: from scaffold to battlefield. Torture had been a ritual of mediation between sovereign and subject. Once sovereignty is located in the people, it no longer makes sense to speak of being sacrificed for the sovereign. Instead, sovereign presence is now realized in an act of self-sacrifice. The wars of modern nation-states have been acts of reciprocal self-sacrifice. Terror invokes torture in response because both speak a primitive language of political sacrifice, denying the enemy the privilege of self-sacrifice."

Gerard Mannion (Catholic University of Leuven), "A Brief Genealogy of Public Theology, Or Doing Theology when it Seems Nobody is Listening ...", Annali di Studi Religiosi, 10, November 2009: pp. 121-54.

Abstract: "This paper seeks to introduce the background to public theology, offering some reflections upon its origins, history, methodologies, as well as the recent state of public theology as a sub-discipline in its own right. After a brief discussion of the scope and definitions of public theology, the paper will offer a genealogical account of the origins and development of what is today termed 'public theology', throughout key periods of the history of the church. A discussion of the emergence of the sense of public theology as a sub-discipline in its own right in the later stages of the twentieth century will follow. Then, the paper will offer a tentative 'typology' of recent forms of public theology, before offering some suggestive conclusions concerning the most fruitful direction in which theological contributions to the wider public arena might progress."

Nimi Wariboko (Andover Newton Theological School), "Ethical Methodology: Between Public Theology and Public Policy", Journal of Religion and Business Ethics, 1 (1), 2009: article 4. Available online:

http://via.library.depaul.edu/jrbe/vol1/iss1/4/

Abstract: "That public theology is relevant to public policy debates and formulation should be self-evident. After all, public theologians aspire to develop ethical frameworks and discourses about how we should live together in plural civil societies. They offer public theology as a form of discourse. Unfortunately, they have largely failed to explicitly develop a procedural method of ethical analysis relevant to public policy decision-making. This paper proposes an ethical methodology as a form of public discourse, a meta-ethical model showing how themes, concerns, and insights of public theology can be systematically organized into practical policy arguments. It provides a robust 'mechanics' to aid public theologians prepare ethical analyses for public policies."

Nico N. Koopman (Stellenbosch University), "For God So Loved the World ... Some Contours for Public Theology in South Africa", Dutch Reformed Theological Journal/Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, 50 (3-4), December 2009: pp. 409-26.

Abstract: "After a brief autobiographical outline of the author's involvement in public theology, this article argues in favour of a critical and constructive public theology, which reflects upon the role of Christian faith in public life in the young South African democracy and in other democratic societies. It offers some crucial contours for the development of public theology. It firstly calls attention to different approaches to and emphases in public theology. With different emphases and methodologies the three central questions of public theology regarding the inherent public nature of God's love for the world, the public rationality of this love, and the public implications of God's love for the world, are addressed. Public theology is secondly described as an intra-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarly practice. In the formulation of a third contour the possibilities of what [p]ublic theology might become are discussed, namely a theological discipline, subdiscipline, research field, curriculum organiser, catalyst or a new contextual theology. In two final sections the publics of public theology and the contemporary agenda of public theology are discussed."

David Novak (University of Toronto), "The Theopolitics of Abraham Joshua Heschel", Modern Judaism, 29 (1), February 2009: pp. 106-16.

Excerpt: "My late revered teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, even today is probably best remembered by many for his political activism during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Whenever newsreels taken during that time are shown again, one will inevitably see Heschel alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the march from Selma, Alabama, or one will frequently see Heschel marching in front of the White House protesting the war in Vietnam. Yet there is little in Heschel's earlier work, written or oral, to intimate that, let alone how, he would move into this kind of public role in the last years of his life".

Yaniv Belhassen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) and Jonathan Ebel (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne), "Tourism, Faith and Politics in the Holy Land: An Ideological Analysis of Evangelical Pilgrimage", Current Issues in Tourism, 12 (4), July 2009: pp. 359-78.

Abstract: "This article aims to enhance the discussion of the role of ideology in the development of tourism practices through a closer examination of the case of Christian pilgrimage. The analysis focuses on the theo-political ideology of Christian Zionism and its roles and manifestations in the context of evangelical pilgrimages to Israel. Findings suggest that ideological dynamics within the development of these tours can be discussed by distinguishing between four tourism actors, namely, ideological organizations, tour organizers, Israeli officials, and the tourists. We suggest that these actors can be differentiated from each other in accordance with their ideological roles and orientations. Additionally, by demonstrating the similar utilization of pilgrimage by theo-political opponents of Christian Zionism, such as Sabeel and FOSNA, this article illustrates how pilgrimage to the Holy Land has become an arena for competition between these two rival ideologies within the Evangelical movement. The article concludes with a discussion on the role of pilgrimages to Israel as a platform through which theo-political ideologies are manifested, distributed, utilized, and consumed."

Benjamin H. Bratton (University of California, San Diego), "On Geoscapes and the Google Caliphate: Reflections on the Mumbai Attacks", Theory, Culture & Society, 26 (7-8), December 2009:
pp. 329-42.

Abstract: "When advanced technologies of globalization that are closely associated with secular cosmopolitics are opportunistically employed by fundamentalist politico-theologies for their own particular purposes, an essential irresolution of territory, jurisdiction and programmatic projection is revealed. Where some may wish to identify an ideal correspondence between a global political sphere into which multiple differences might be adjudicated and the visual, geographic representation of a single planetary space, this conjunction is dubious and highly conditional. Instead multiple territorial projections and competing claims on space are also generative of the very qualities of the spatial as a political medium altogether. For example, the well-publicized use of satellite-based mapping and telecommunications tools, such as Google Earth, by the terrorist group that attacked Mumbai in November 2008, raises several knotty and important questions about how contrary comprehensive images of the world can make use of one another in ways that undermine the 'unitotality' of global territory. It is not that Google and Jihad are 'equivalent' or even 'translatable', but rather because they are not, they are in practice interoperable. Instead links between urbanism, cosmography, and the socialization of planetary software networks demonstrate the centrality of design to the ongoing fashioning of the territory of territories, the geoscape."

Ana Belén Soage (University of Granada), "Introduction to Political Islam", Religion Compass, 3 (5), September 2009: pp. 887-96.

Abstract: "This paper explores how and why Islamism (i.e. political Islam) emerged in the last decades of the 19th century. It resorts to original sources to illustrate Muslim responses to the perceived threat of Westernisation and, notably, the development of Islamism as a reaction to the evolving socio-political conditions in the Middle East. In addition, it demonstrates that, despite claims to religious purity, Islamists have incorporated elements of the foreign ideologies they profess to oppose. The article ends by providing a tentative classification of modern-day Islamists."