rosarir@slu.edu Rosario

Within the Western Christian tradition two distinct methodological approaches dominate the contemporary theological landscape: (1) the anthropological approach embodied in Paul Tillich’s theology of culture, and (2) the revelational approach originating in Karl Barth’s critical retrieval of orthodoxy. The proposed monograph will articulate a pneumatological approach that seeks to ground knowledge of God in human participation in the divine act of self-communication, thereby overcoming the dichotomy between revelation and experience characterizing the methodological divide separating Tillich and Barth and their respective intellectual progeny.

The “theologian of culture” (examples include David Tracy, Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Gordon Kaufman) begins with an examination of the historical and social context of the believing community, then seeks to ascertain the meaning of God’s message for the present human situation through a method of correlation by which the universal concerns of the human condition find expression in the particular symbols of the Christian faith. By contrast, the “church theologian” (figures like Hans W. Frei, George Lindbeck, Stanley Haurwaus, and John Milbank) eschews the particularities of human culture, focusing primarily on God’s message as revealed in Scripture (and to a lesser extent, the Christian tradition), before addressing the culture in which the church is located. The critique raised by the anthropological model about the revelational approach is that it perpetuates a “supranaturalist” theology in which Scripture stands outside of culture, thus shielded from criticism by culture, while the critique of the anthropological approach by more church-centered theologians is that, in its efforts to make the Christian faith relevant to culture, theologies of culture undermine the uniqueness of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

This monograph argues that, despite methodological differences, both anthropological and revelational schools of thought are located within the Western, primarily European and North American, intellectual tradition, and both are responding to the post-Enlightenment atheistic rejection of Christianity manifested in the works of Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Appealing to the work of liberationist, feminist, and other contextual theologians, the proposed book moves systematic/constructive theology beyond the anthropological and revelational impasse by articulating a doctrine of revelation grounded in pneumatology that overcomes the perceived divides between scripture and tradition, Christ and culture, revelation and reason. However, since the forces of globalization have made interaction between the world’s major religions an inescapable fact of life, dogmatic reflection also demands clarity on the relationship of Christianity to other faiths. Consequently, the monograph also undertakes theological reflection on the doctrine of revelation by means of a comparative analysis of Christian, Jewish and Muslim beliefs.

Avoiding the dichotomy between anthropological and revelational approaches is possible when revelation—understood as God’s self-disclosure—is not limited to the written Word or to one particular interpretive tradition, but is understood as a divine act mediated by and experienced through the work of the Spirit. In other words, revelation understood as (sacramental) encounter. This avenue of exploration (1) challenges the notion that revelation is an event in the past that ended with the closing of the biblical canon, (2) engages the Pentecostal movement’s affirmation that the infinite grace of the self-revealing God is made manifest in new works of the Spirit, and (3) demonstrates how an emphasis on the work of the Spirit makes doctrinal conversation possible among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In all three Abrahamic religions some variance of the doctrine of the hiddenness of God leads to the conclusion that the full mystery of God cannot be contained by human theological formulations. Complementarily, affirming that there is one God, that this God is known primarily through God’s own action, and that even in God’s self-disclosure God is not fully known but remains mystery, demands a conception of theology as an imperfect human endeavor. However, while the claims of theology are viewed as limited, open-ended, and subject to continual revision, this in no way undermines the ontological ground (God) that gives rise to the human hermeneutical enterprise in the first place.

This investigation confronts religiously motivated political violence with the claim that underlying the three Abrahamic monotheistic traditions is a shared belief that God requires liberation for the oppressed, justice for the victims, and most demanding of all, love for the political enemy. While attempting a comparative theology in conversation with Judaism and Islam, this is a work of Christian theology and as such seeks neither to convert the other nor to reinterpret the other’s religious traditions from a Christian perspective. The book’s more modest goal is a constructive theological proposal for how to model religious pluralism and cooperation by retrieving distinctly Christian sources that nurture tolerance and facilitate coexistence while respecting religious difference. On the premise that no single theological voice can capture or represent any religion, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim martyr narratives that condone political violence—whether terrorist or state-sponsored—are subjected to critical scrutiny within each religion’s canon of normative sources in order to evaluate how central or marginalized these discourses are to that tradition. It will be argued, despite recent conflation of martyrdom with political violence in the public imagination, that martyr narratives deserve consideration as potential resources for resisting political violence in contemporary theological reflection.

This companion provides a more inclusive and expansive definition of “political theology” by looking at the rich historical resources within each of the Abrahamic traditions that facilitate discussion of the interface between the theological and the political spheres. (1) The companion is conceived as both a reference resource and a collection of original constructive essays in the field of political theology. (2) Unlike other such anthologies that focus almost exclusively on Christian political theology, this volume employs the theological resources of the three Abrahamic faiths in recognition of the long and complex history in the West of interfaith conflict, interaction, and cooperation between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (3) The editor has procured a diverse group of scholars representing a broad base of perspectives, disciplines, and traditions in order to engender a lively discussion that provides a solid grounding in the contemporary state of the discipline of political theology without glossing over important differences.

Is political theology inherently theological? If so, which theology and whose theology? To what ends and used how? The session will explore the way political theology has been taken up across fields such as philosophy of religion, ethics, African American religion, Jewish Studies, sexuality studies, and more broadly in the humanities and social sciences. It will use this question to further discussion about the contemporary state of the field. Panelists will discuss what political theology means in their own work, how they see a unified conversation about political theology emerging, and what future directions they suspect it will take.

Thanks to the generous support of Stanford University Press, this event will help build consensus among emerging scholars by identifying problems and raising issues for future exploration, with the aim of establishing a new AAR Group in 2017. The structure of the roundtable reflects this aim: after some brief introductions, we will undertake a conversation built up around a sequence of questions, before opening up the discussion to audience members.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in Contemporary Politics, Law, and Social Movements (OEPoL) provides a comprehensive source of information on the diverse historical and contemporary experiences of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Incorporating key material from the acclaimed four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (OUP, 2005), this ground-breaking publication addresses the significant ways in which the Latino and Latina populations have shaped the political, legal, and social institutions of the United States, with new and updated scholarship on political movements and organizations, important legal cases, minority-rights laws, and immigration legislation.

The two-volume OEPoL contains over 450 topical entries written by key academics, intellectuals, and scholars. The articles range from expansive survey essays, to biographies that document the lives of important individuals in Latino and Latina history, to interdisciplinary entries focused on essential themes and issues. Supplemented by over 50 images and a bibliography of suggested readings for each entry, OEPoL ensures that this timely, increasingly prominent subject receives the reference coverage it deserves.

As a Latino/a theologian I employ a liberation methodology in order to argue that underlying the three great monotheistic traditions is a shared belief that God requires liberation for the oppressed, justice for the victims, and most demanding of all, love for the political enemy. Despite a long and troubled history of conflict, the historical and cultural ties between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam facilitate comparative work. Shared doctrinal loci include a doctrine of revelation, transmission of God's revelation via sacred texts, and some variance of the doctrine of the hiddenness of God. The implications for comparative theology arising from these doctrines—especially revelation and the hiddenness of God—coupled with the limits these doctrines place on human knowledge of God, cannot be overstated.

This article considers trends and thematic conjunctions within Latino/a theology in order to identify distinctly Latino/a sources and methodologies for theological construction. Decrying the myth of a normative, objective, and universally applicable theological method, Latino/a theologies offer an alternative to the dominant epistemological perspectives within the academy and the church by articulating a collaborative, ecumenical, and multi-cultural theology en conjunto (“together with”), in critical dialogue with a plurality of voices within and without the Christian tradition.

An enduring characteristic of the Christian religion is its sense of social responsibility in caring for the poor. Reformed theology in the twenty-first century, inheritors of John Calvin’s reformation efforts in sixteenth-century Geneva, affirms this civic dimension of the Christian faith. By focusing on Calvin’s ministry in Geneva—a French exile ministering to refugees from France, Poland, Spain, England, and Italy—the Reformed theological tradition can identify valuable resources for engaging the contemporary public debate over questions of immigration and social welfare.

My contribution to a five-part symposium on the question “how theological is political theology”, which took place at the 2016 American Academy of Religion meeting in San Antonio.  Other participants included Martin Kavka, Catherine Keller, and Charles Matthewes.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE ABOVE LINK (THEOLOGICAL STUDIES) TO ACCESS THIS ARTICLE! An engagement of Nietzsche’s genealogy of religion from a liberationist perspective, this article argues that despite Nietzsche’s valuable insights on theology’s potential for limiting human freedom, a Christian theological anthropology is preferable to Nietzsche’s naturalistic view of humanity. The author offers a challenge to Nietzsche scholarship by demonstrating how Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity as a morality of ressentiment is grounded in 19th-century theories of racial inequality that equate religious belief with racial identity, and are opposed to the political liberation of all people.