Political Theology Without Sovereignty: Some 20th Century Examples (Voegelin, Maritain, Badiou)

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel E. Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology

Introduction

Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Divine Sovereignty ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Higher Law

This chapter situates Jewish political theology as a discourse developed in the 20th century, mainly by German Jewish thinkers. It sets out the basic differences between this analysis and the discourse on political theology developed by Carl Schmitt, centered on the need for absolute sovereignty to “restrain” disorder and revolutionary upheavals. The chapter argues that Jewish political theology offers an alternative conception of divine sovereignty and its implications for democracy and revolution. Jewish political theology is both republican and anarchic, attached to the idea of a higher law above human sovereignty and to the egalitarian ideal of a politics beyond domination. This chapter presents the two analytical-conceptual guiding-threads of the investigation. The first is concerned with Max Weber’s category of charismatic leadership and the problem of its functioning within a constitutional idea of democratic legitimacy. The second guiding-thread is concerned with the process of secularization. This chapter argues that Jewish political theology reconceives divine providence in order to criticize the assumption of human progress in and through history.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Revolutionary Movements

This chapter discusses the role played by Gnosticism in the discourse of Christian political theology in the 20th century. It does so in the context of the late debate between Schmitt and Blumenberg on the legitimacy of Modernity, the political meaning of Trinitarianism, and the connection between Gnosticism and revolutionary movements. This debate focussed on the Gnostic motif of a struggle between true and false gods as it reappears in Goethe and the German Enlightenment. The chapter gives a novel interpretation of Blumenberg’s hypothesis that Goethe adopted the Gnostic motif as a reaction to the appearance of Napoleon’s imperial designs. In so doing it draws upon Foucault’s ideas on the philosopher’s duty of parrhesia or frank speech towards the tyrant. The chapter concludes by offering a republican, anti-imperial interpretation of the motif of resistance to omnipotent gods and men.

Jesus and the minjung revisited: The Legacy of Ahn Byung-Mu (1922-1996)

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Volker Küster
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Minjung Theology ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Korean Christianity ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Form Criticism

AbstractAhn Byung-Mu was not only one of the leading theological thinkers of 20th century Korea, a mediator between Western, especially German theological tradition and Korean Christianity, but also a persistent regime critique under South Korea's development dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. Originally a New Testament scholar he also became one of the founding fathers of minjung theology by giving this political theology in the Korean context a biblical foundation. In his studies on the Gospel of Mark, Ahn advocates the thesis that German historical-critical exegesis viewed the Markan ochlos from the perspective of form criticism as a dramatic element similar to the “antique choir”, thereby failing to acknowledge its social and theological significance. In contrast, he emphasizes Jesus' unconditional commitment to the ochlos, which is displayed in the Gospel of Mark. The Galilean ochlos, an amorphous, and in its membership varying group of people from the Galilean lower class, is the addressee of Jesus' mission. The article reconstructs Ahn Byung Mu's theological way of thinking and tackles the question how his legacy can be re-contextualized.

scholarly journals The political theology of entropy: A Katechon for the cybernetic age

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
David Bates
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Intelligent Machines ◽  
Decision Control ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Theological Concept

The digital revolution invites a reconsideration of the very essence of politics. How can we think about decision, control, and will at a time when technologies of automation are transforming every dimension of human life, from military combat to mental attention, from financial systems to the intimate lives of individuals? This article looks back to a moment in the 20th century when the concept of the political as an independent logic was developed, in a time when the boundaries and operations of the classic state were in question. At the same moment, a whole new technological era was opened up with the emergence of intelligent machines and computers in the postwar cybernetic age. Technology, and cybernetics in particular, loomed large in Carl Schmitt’s articulation of the concept of the political, while the problem of radical open decision was at the heart of influential cybernetic approaches to politics. Linking these was the idea of entropic decay. Schmitt’s invocation of the theological concept of the Katechon, who restrains chaos in the time before Christ’s return, in fact exemplifies the new understandings of order in a cybernetic age facing new challenges of technology in a globalized condition.

Philo and the Origins of Political Theology

Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 11-34
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The West ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
Hellenistic Judaism ◽  
Interpretative Approach

This chapter discusses why Philo became an essential source for the development of political theology in the West through his conception of the prophet as nomos empsychos or living law. The chapter addresses the controversial interpretation of Philo proposed by Erwin Goodenough, which establishes a new paradigm on how to think about the relation between Athens and Jerusalem, pagan philosophy and Jewish revelation, in Hellenistic Judaism. The chapter argues that this interpretative approach to Philo sheds light on why he became a decisive source for the renaissance of Jewish political theology in the 20th century, starting with Hermann Cohen’s foundational work.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Hans Blumenberg ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Theological Concept

This chapter identifies the question of the legitimacy of democratic government as the key site in which the discourse of political theology intervenes. It explains why ‘legitimacy’ is necessarily a politico-theological concept that raises the problem of the representation of a People. It then contextualizes the emergence of political theology in the 20th century as a reaction against the theorems of secularization developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber that point towards the eventual abolition of religion in modern society. The chapter concludes with some methodological considerations derived from the debate between Carl Schmitt and Hans Blumenberg on political theology.

Hannah Arendt and Federalism

Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 237-284
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses the relation between Arendt’s conception of Judaism, its relation to the history of the Jewish people, and her theory of republicanism. The chapter argues that Arendt follows Martin Buber’s lead, who was the first 20th-century thinker to explicitly identify the anarchic core of Jewish political theology. Buber conceives God’s Kingship as the inner meaning of the Jewish faith and articulates this Kingship in the post-Weberian terms of the idea of charismatic leadership. In contrast with Heidegger’s political theology in the 1930s, which attempts to determine peoplehood as a function of opening a space for the manifestation of the gods of the Earth, the chapter shows that Arendt recovers Roman civil religion in order to unify republican federalism with an anarchic conception of political freedom.

Politische Theologie und öffentliche Theologie

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 287-290
Author(s):  
Jürgen Moltmann
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Johann Baptist Metz ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Message

AbstractReferring to the discussions on »Public Theology« in issue 1 of this volume of EvTh, Jürgen Moltmann recalls the »new political theology« to which, together with Johann Baptist Metz and others, he contributed in the 60th and 70th of the 20th century. Unlike this »Political Theology«, according to Moltmann, »Public Theology« does not primarily focus on a libera­ting practice but rather on the Church’s Impact on public discourse. Moltmann reminds the Church, however, not to neglect the content of the Christian message by only aiming at public attention and Impact.

scholarly journals Sanctifying Security: Jewish Approaches to Religious Education in Jerusalem

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Isaac Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Jewish Schools ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Jewish Religious Education ◽  
The Relationship

While Schmitt’s Political Theology paints modern theories of the state as secularized theological concepts, prominent threads of Jewish religious education in 20th century Jerusalem have moved in a different direction, that is, toward the re-sacralization of such secularized theological concepts. Orthodox Jewish schools in Jerusalem, or yeshivot, take an orthopractic approach to religious education as informing all aspects of life, rather than a delimited set of doctrines or beliefs. As such, questions of security fall within the purview Jewish religious education. To look more closely at the relationship between orthodox Jewish religious education, sanctity and security, I spent seven months enrolled as a student-observer in three Jerusalem yeshivot taking daily field notes, conducting interviews, attending classes, and studying related sacred texts. By examining both Jewish sacred texts and ethnographic data from contemporary Jerusalem yeshivot, this article highlights how geo-political ideals of security in modern Jerusalem are being re-sacralized by contemporizing ancient sacred texts and approaching religious education itself as a means of eliciting divine aid in the securitization process for Jewish Jerusalem.

scholarly journals Performing Redemption: Metzian Theology in the Art of Kendrick Lamar

Elements ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
Johann Baptist Metz ◽  
Convincing Case ◽  
The Face

The German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz makes a convincing case that in the face of the catastrophes of the 20th century, Christian theology can no longer isolate itself from its role as a perpetrator of injustice. To that end, he seeks to challenge abstract answers to theological questions with a renewed sensitivity to past transgressions. For Metz, Christian faith cannot simply be a matter of assent to theoretical propositions, but rather a practical engagement with "dangerous memories" of systematic injustice. In this paper, the author takes up Metz's conceptual framework for political theology and uses it to examine Kendrick Lamar's "Sing about Me, I'm Dying of Thirst" as a theological, and specifically soteriological, performance. By re-telling in his own voice the stories of friends who have died, Kendrick both documents the struggle they lived and reveals his own vulnerability to the same conditions (of sin). But in addressing this vulnerability, he transcends it, protecting himself from sin precisely by telling the story. The paper closes with some reflections on how Kendrick's track might gesture towards a mode of doing theology that subverts the abstract tendencies of the hegemonic Western tradition.

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