scholarly journals When Liberalism Is Not Enough: Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 439
Author(s):  
J. Aaron Simmons ◽  
Kevin Carnahan
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
The Face ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Political Ideal

In this paper, we are interested in extending out the dialectical models of religious ethics and political theology that Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas began by enacting a conversation between these two theorists. We do this by presenting and critically comparing Niebuhr’s and Levinas’s thought as concerns three key issues in moral and political theory: (1) the nature of persons, (2) the source and content of the moral ideal of love and the political ideal of justice, and (3) the impossibility and yet continued practical relevance of ideals for social life. Ultimately, we conclude that they mutually offer reasons to find hope in the face of political cynicism.

Toward a Political Theology of the Earth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Keller
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ecological Theology ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Face ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ecological Science ◽  
Legal Theorist

This chapter considers incongruent temporalities in the form of a political theology of the earth. Political theology can rarely be mistaken for ecotheology. At least in its guise as political theory, it leaves concern for the matter of the earth to ecological science, activism, and religion. Key to political theology has been its readings of the German legal theorist Carl Schmitt's definition of sovereignty in terms of emergency. The current conversation in political theology has been unfolding with the rush of a theoretical currency fueled by old, indeed ancient, theopolitical language. Even as ecological theology seems to slow theory down, capturing it in a geological time far older than language, it also lurches into the terrifying speed of climate destabilization. The chapter asks whether, in the guise of thinking for and as terra, we would territorialize politics itself. It shows how, by seeding an alternative to the political theology of exceptionalist power, intercarnation fosters “the new people and earth in the future.” It also explains how a theology forged in alliances of entangled difference helps that alliance emerge—in the face of what may be mounting planetary emergency.

Eric Voegelin and Representation

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-96
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Dual System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Electoral Representation

This chapter discusses the political theory of Eric Voegelin as the earliest example of anti-Schmittian political theology based on the rejection of sovereignty. The chapter shows how Voegelin adopts Schmitt’s suggestion that political theology turns on the idea of a non-electoral representation of political unity but rejects Schmitt’s identification of this representative with the sovereign. Voegelin instead argues that ‘democratic’ societies are characterized by a dual system of representation, where philosophical and theological representatives of the transcendent God stand above sovereign representatives. Conversely, ‘totalitarian’ societies are societies that ‘close’ themselves to divine transcendence because they see salvation as a function of enacting immanent social laws. The chapter ends with a discussion of the relation between Voegelin’s idea of non-sovereign representation and contemporary accounts of populism, especially that of Ernesto Laclau.

The Political Theory of Reinhold Niebuhr

Thought ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
James V. Schall ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr

Is “the Political” a Romantic Concept?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Campe
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter analyzes Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political from the vantage point of German Romanticism. For Schmitt, Romanticism wasan intellectual attitude that precluded the concept and practice of “the political.” Through an in-depth reading of a preeminent document of political thought in German Romanticism, Novalis’s Love and Faith, this chapter considers and qualifies this view, arguing that “political theology” can be understood as a reaction to the French Revolution rather than as a tradition reaching back to medieval or baroque times. This chapter also argues that Novalis’s famous essay must be seen as a precursor to Schmitt’s own political theory. Overlap exists both in the blend of conservatism and radical constructivism in Novalis and Schmitt and in the interventionist character of both men’s statements on politics. Read as a precursor to Schmitt, Novalis’s philosophy of politics also offers a meaningful critique of Schmitt’s later theories.

scholarly journals Theological foundations of the political power ontology

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S1) ◽  
pp. 488-495
Author(s):  
Mikhail Dmitrievich Schelkunov ◽  
Olga Olegovna Volchkova ◽  
Anton Sergeevich Krasnov
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Applied Aspect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
Points Of View

The article is devoted to the study of the normative and theological foundations of political power origin and belongs to the field of political theology research. Despite the narrow field of research, the work is devoted to the study of a separate aspect of social life as a whole. The study of the theological foundations of political power was carried out within the framework of the neoinstitutional methodological paradigm, taking into account the data of hermeneutic analysis, which is an applied aspect of the work. Political power is considered by the authors in the framework of a broader aspect - the ontology of the social, as part of the fundamental layer of being. The authors, within the framework of the theological paradigm, considered the main ontological concepts of the political, analyzed the correlation of key political concepts - "power", "authority", and "sovereign". Various positions on understanding the essence of political power, as well as on the origin of this phenomenon in the historical and theological key are considered, the points of view of both domestic and foreign experts are studied.

Political Theory and Political Theology

2020 ◽  
pp. 248-258
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Political Field ◽  
John Paul Ii

In this article, Böckenförde tries to determine the proper means of conducting political theology. After dismissing juridical political theology in the vein of Carl Schmitt as not so much theological but rather sociological in its discussion of how original theological terms such as ‘sovereignty’ were transposed to the state, people, or government, he turns to two other models: Böckenförde sees a shift away from classical institutional political theology à la Augustine, which explores what Christianity has to say about a state’s status, legitimation, and structure, to what he calls appellative political theology. Immediately concerned with action, the latter manifests itself inter alia as liberation theology and tends to run the risk of dissolving into theologically justified, and ultimately arbitrary, politics. As an alternative model, Böckenförde extols the political theology of Pope John Paul II. By focusing on the words of Jesus and the Gospel and other topics that appear ‘nonpolitical’ at first glance, the pope makes the case for dignity, liberty, and the purpose of man, taking the side of the weak and rejecting violence. In Böckenförde’s view, such a political theology is not about to be rendered obsolete by modernity. Since politics is essentially concerned with relations between individuals and groups, religion cannot avoid being drawn into the political field and raise its voice there as well.

“Tough Love”: The Political Theology of Civil Disobedience

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 851-866
Author(s):  
Alexander Livingston
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nonviolent Resistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Interpretation ◽  
Civil Rights History ◽  
Martin Luther King

Love is a key concept in the theory and history of civil disobedience yet it has been purposefully neglected in recent debates in political theory. Through an examination of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s paradoxical notion of “aggressive love,” I offer a critical interpretation of love as a key concept in a vernacular black political theology, and the consequences of love’s displacement by law in liberal theories of civil disobedience. The first section locates the origins of aggressive love in an earlier generation of black theologians who looked to India’s anticolonial struggle to reimagine the dignity of the oppressed as “creative survival.” The second contextualizes King’s early sermons on moral injury and self-respect within this tradition to reinterpret Stride toward Freedom’s account of the dignity-enhancing effects of nonviolent resistance as the triumph of love over fear. The third considers the implications of these arguments for conceptualizing the moral psychology of the white citizen and its consequences for contemporary debates over the ideological uses of Civil Rights history. The call to respond to oppression with aggressive love illustrates the paradoxical character of civil disobedience obscured by legal accounts as well as by criticisms of the very idea of “civil” disobedience. This is the paradox of affirming civility while enacting disobedience in order to bind political confrontation with political pedagogy.

scholarly journals The Other, Shame, and Politics: Levinas, Justice, and Feeling Responsible

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 381
Author(s):  
Steve Larocco
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Realm

Adi Ophir has suggested that the political realm is an order of evils, producing and managing regular forms of suffering and violence rather than eliminating them. Thus, the political is always to some extent a corrupted order of justice. Emmanuel Levinas’ work presents in its focus on the face-to-face relationship a means of rethinking how to make the political more open to compassionate justice. Though Levinas himself doesn’t sufficiently take on this question, I argue that his work facilitates a way of thinking about commiserative shame that provides a means to connect the face-to-face to its potential effects in the political sphere. If such shame isn’t ignored or bypassed, it produces an unsettling relation to the other that in its adversity motivates a kind of responsibility and care for the other that can alter the public sphere.

Biopolitics as the “Fifth Character” in the Process of Humankind Editing

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Dmitry V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Psychology ◽  
The Status ◽  
Living Person ◽  
Tremendous Impact

At the end of the XIX — the beginning of the XX century under the influence of the ideas of K. Schmitt, G. Le Bon, G. Tarde, S. Freud, R. Kjellen and F. Galton intellectual discourses of political theology, mass psychology, geopolitics, and eugenics are gaining popularity. Each of these trends has a tremendous impact on the political and social life of the 1st half of the XX century. Political theology edits the beliefs and ideals of the age, mass psychology edits social relations, geopolitics edits the boundaries and physical space of the population, and eugenics claims to transform the very nature of man. If, in accordance with the canon of dramatic art, there are four main characters of the events of the era, then political theology should be assigned the status of a Hero, mass psychology — a Heroine, geopolitics and eugenics — Confidante and Villain (in the mask of the Savior). The key to clarifying historical conflicts is the Fifth character — biopolitics, the initiator, inspirer and hidden censor of these theoretical discourses, which have become the drivers of humankind editing practices. At the turn of the XX–XXI centuries, under the influence of biopolitics, political theology is transformed into biotheology, mass psychology — into biolaw, geopolitics — into biocapitalism, eugenics — into biotechnology. Together, these factors, expressing the biotheological hopes of the biopower, drive humankind towards the utopia of an eternal world based on eternal values in a state of eternal walfare for an ever-living person.

Recepcja idei „nowego średniowiecza” w polskiej myśli nacjonalistycznej

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (247) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Radomski
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Face ◽  
Civic Religion

The research aim of this article is to analyze the ideo-political reflections of the publicists andactivists connected with the young nationalists movement in the 1930s on the background of the political philosophy included in the book by a Russian thinker Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) New Middle Ages. The fate of a man in a contemporary world, translated by MarianReutt – idealistically and organizationally connected with the nationalist formation of the1930s the research ambition of the author is to show the idea of “new Middle Ages”, accentingthe meaning of collective ethics (Decalogue ethics) as a factor of social solidarity, which isnow called “civic religion”, which means values and rules fundamental for the conceptof a national country – in a shape dictated by the publicist of the “Myśl Narodowa” in theyears of the Third Republic. The author refers to the contemporary phenomenon of ideasecularization and the atrophy of the “civic religion”, which – as Berdyaev convinces – is anopportunity to manipulate the consciousness of an entity and allows for releasing in it a stateof uncritical adaptation of the politically dangerous offers (various forms of totalitarianism).Furthermore, in the face of the progressive dechristianisation and ateisation of the society,the postulates by Berdyaev and his young nationalist successors lose the value of usefulnessand are included into the catalog of the idealist system concepts, becoming an utopian versionof the democratic system.Key words: nationalism, political theology, New Middle Ages idea

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