scholarly journals Neoliberalism and Political Theologies of the Post-Secular: Historical, Political, and Methodological Considerations in a 20th and 21st Century Discourse

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 680
Author(s):  
Kieryn E. Wurts
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Economic Discourses ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Methodological Reflection

Carl Schmitt’s controversial 1922 Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty initiated a long-standing, lively, and oft misunderstood discourse at the intersections of religious studies, theology, and political theory. Political theology as a discourse has seen something of a revival in recent decades, which has raised genuine problems of interpretation. These include questions of what is at stake in political theology, how political theology can be applied to economic discourses, and how it can be understood in relation to secularity and post-secularity. This study takes Giorgio Agamben’s The Kingdom and Glory as a conceptual bridge that helps to situate contemporary political theologies of neoliberalism historically and theoretically. A survey of four recent political theologies of neoliberalism yields a methodological reflection on the limits and potential of political theology as a discourse. A distinction is made between descriptive-genealogical political theologies and normative-prescriptive political theologies. The former is privileged in its philosophical potential, insofar as it reveals both the contingency and genuine variety of normative-prescriptive political theologies.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Ross Kane
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
Methodological Considerations

Syncretism has been a part of Christianity from its very beginning, when early Christians expressed Jesus’s Aramaic teachings in the Greek language. Yet the category “syncretism,” defined as phenomena of religious mixture, has been poorly understood in both religious studies and theology. Syncretism carries a range of connotations—neutral descriptor, pejorative marker, celebration of indigenous agency. Such differing uses indicate challenges of interpreting religious mixture, challenges that today relate primarily to race and revelation. After outlining the primary arguments of the book, the introduction provides an overview of how the concept of race figures in the book’s overall arguments. It also explains methodological considerations regarding why the book speaks to multiple audiences, notably both theology and religious studies.

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.

scholarly journals Institutions, Ideologies, and Comparative Political Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-438
Author(s):  
Joshua Simon
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Methodological Reflection ◽  
Insight Into

The growing prominence of comparative political theory has inspired extensive and fruitful methodological reflection, raising important questions about the procedures that political theorists should apply when they select texts for study, interpret their passages, and assess their arguments. But, notably, comparative political theorists have mainly rejected the comparative methods used in the subfield of comparative politics, because they argue that applying the comparative method would compromise both the interpretive and the critical projects that comparative political theory should pursue. In this article, I describe a comparative approach for the study of political ideas that offers unique insight into how the intellectual and institutional contexts that political thinkers occupy influence their ideas. By systematically describing how political thinking varies across time and over space in relation to the contexts within which political thinkers live and work, the comparative method can serve as the foundation for both deconstructive critiques, which reveal the partial interests that political ideas presented as universally advantageous actually serve, and reconstructive critiques, which identify particular thinkers or traditions of political thought that, because of the contexts in which they developed, offer compelling critical perspectives on existing political institutions.

Roman Civil Religion and the Question of Jewish Politics in Arendt

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 573-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Civil Religion

This article discusses the question of how Arendt’s mature “neo-Roman” republican political theory relates to her early . It argues that her early reflections on the problem of Jewish politics in modernity already adopt one of the main pillars of her later republican political theory, i.e., the substitution of federalism for sovereignty. The article puts forth the hypothesis that Arendt’s republicanism takes up the idea that Romans and Jews, during their republican periods, both held a “civil” conception of religion. Arendt’s conception of civil religion is analyzed in light of her readings of Virgil. The article concludes that Arendt’s mature political thought is neither “non-religious” nor contains a “political theology” but that it does put forward a civil-religious interpretation of natality and plurality.

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.

What is Religion?

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bergunder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Historical Reconstructions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

Religious studies cannot agree on a common definition of its subject matter. To break the impasse, important insights from recent discussions about post-foundational political theory might be of some help. However, they can only be of benefit in conversations about “religion” when the previous debate on the subject matter of religious studies is framed slightly differently. This is done in the first part of the article. It is, then, shown on closer inspection of past discussions on “religion” that a consensus-capable, contemporary, everyday understanding of “religion,” here called Religion 2, is assumed, though it remains unexplained and unreflected upon. The second part of the article shows how Religion 2 can be newly conceptualized through the lens of Ernesto Laclau’s political theory, combined with concepts from Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, and how Religion 2 can be established as the historical subject matter of religious studies. Though concrete historical reconstructions of Religion 2 always remain contested, I argue that this does not prevent it from being generally accepted as the subject matter of religious studies. The third part discusses the previous findings in the light of postcolonial concerns about potential Eurocentrism in the concept of “religion.” It is argued that Religion 2 has to be understood in a fully global perspective, and, as a consequence, more research on the global religious history of the 19th and 20th centuries is urgently needed.

Political Theory and Political Theology

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 830-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology

scholarly journals Political Theology Revisited: Carl Schmitt's Postwar Reassessment

Konturen ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter U. Hohendahl
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Hans Blumenberg ◽  
Theological Turn ◽  
The Relationship

The essay examines the pronounced theological turn of the late Carl Schmitt, especially in his Politische Theologie II (1970). He aim is to understand what Schmitt meant by a “Catholic intensification” in the relationship between theology and political theory. The essay gives equal attention to Schmitt’s polemic against the theologian Peterson, who denied the possibility of political theology, and the dialogue with the philosopher Hans Blumenberg, who had severely criticized Schmitt’s conception of secularization. The essay shows that in both instances the opposition merely encouraged Schmitt to sharpen and clarify his own theological position, which includes heretical Gnostic elements.

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