Political Theology

In this article, I read von Balthasar's theology for what it has to say about the interaction of grace and power in history. By doing so, I draw attention to the resources given by this supposedly conservative theologian for an incipient theology of protest, one which is marked by a distinctly Ignatian imagination and which proves sensitive to the realities of historical injustice. Following his friend Reinhold Schneider, von Balthasar conceives of the grace/power dynamic symbolically as an encounter between the "king" and the "saint" (understood metonymically as stand-ins for grace and power writ large). The value of von Balthasar's approach lies in the way in which it conceives of an essential continuity between the historical present and the eschato-logical future, thus providing the grounds for a critique of the former in light of the latter. I aim to highlight these and other features of von Balthasar's account in order to contribute to the growing body of research that reads von Balthasar's theology as a resource for a liberative political theology (Walatka, Brown, etc.) as well as to establish some general theological principles for a theology of protest.

In Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel, The Idiot, two characters mention an intriguing theory, which they both attribute to the eponymous spiritual hero, the Prince: the idea that “beauty will save the world.”  Since then, a long line of writers and thinkers have picked up on this grand and inspiring motto.  After all, who wouldn’t want to believe that beauty will save the world?  Yet few people have tried to work out exactly what that might entail.

One of the most important figures to have taken up this challenge is Sergeii Bulgakov—philosopher, economist, politician, theologian, and priest.  Bulgakov quotes this phrase in at least four different works spanning the major phases of his mature intellectual career: Philosophy of Economy (1912), The Unfading Light (1917), the essay “Beauty and Art” (1934), and The Comforter (1936).  For Bulgakov, this declaration represents the crystallization of an all-encompassing vision for society, a cosmic process of material and metaphysical redemption analogous to individual salvation.  Through it, Bulgakov underlines the continuity between political aims and theological means, with beauty as the pivot. 

In this paper, I consider the role of the aesthetic principle of beauty in Bulgakov’s political theology.  I focus on two dogmatic works of the 1930s: a treatise, The Comforter, and an essay, “Religion and Art,” drawing on a sermon from the same period, entitled “Social Teaching in Modern Russian Orthodox Theology” to clarify key points in his political theology.  I discuss how Bulgakov’s aesthetic notion of Christian humanism enables him to petition for the transfiguration of society and reform of its unjust structures while steering a political theological course between Marxist positivism and Christian apathy.  Furthermore, I argue that the beauty at the core of his conceptual framework enables him to hold together history and eschatology, human freedom and divine sovereignty, in a theologically coherent theandric whole that nevertheless resists collapse into essentially atheistic “progress” or a pantheistic cosmology.  I conclude by posing a question about the possible role of beauty as a functional substitute for Sophia for theologians adapting Bulgakov’s brand of Christian humanism.

Situated within the wider post-secular turn in politics and international relations, this collection focuses not on religion per se, but rather explicitly on theology. Contributions to this volume highlight the political theological foundations of international theory and world politics, explicitly recasting theology and politics as symbiotic discourses with all the risks, promises and open questions this relation may involve. The overarching claim this volume makes is that all politics has theology embedded in it, both in the genealogical sense of carrying ineradicable traces of its theological origins, but also in the more ontological sense of being enacted by alternative configurations of the theologico-political. The book is unique in bringing together a diverse group of scholars, spanning knowledge areas as varied as IR, political theory, philosophy, theology, and history to investigate the complex interconnections between theology and world politics. It will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, international relations, intellectual history, and political theology.

Résumé. ― Il y a une nette évolution dans la pensée de Johann Baptist Metz, ce qui nous permet de parler d’un premier et d’un second Metz, bien que notre auteur soit surtout connu pour la deuxième étape de sa pensée, centrée sur sa Politische Theologie. Cette deuxième époque ne doit être analysée, comme la plupart des auteurs le font souvent, séparément de la première, caractérisée par son transcendantalisme et par son œuvre Christliche Anthropozentrik. L’objet de cette étude ―divisée et publiée dans deux fascicules différents de la Revue Thomiste― consiste en l’analyse de la pensée de Metz, tant de sa première étape que de sa seconde, mettant en évidence son évolution (homogène) et ses éléments fondamentaux (principes et concepts), qui donnent unité à toute son œuvre.

Abstract. ― There is a clear evolution in the thought of Johann Baptist Metz, allowing us to speak of a first and a second Metz, although our author is best known for his second stage of thought, centred on his Politische Theologie. This second period should not be analyzed, as most authors often do, separately from the first, characterized by its transcendentalism and by his work Christliche Anthropozentrik. The purpose of this study ―divided and published in two different fascicles of the Revue Thomiste― is to analyse Metz’s thought, both in its first and second stages, highlighting its (homogenous) evolution and its fundamental elements (principles and concepts), which give unity to all his work.

This paper deals with the relation between God and the secular legal systems of Western liberal democracies. It provides a normative argument for the compatibility of God and secular legal reasoning. In our age, in which believing in God is no longer socially axiomatic and the right to religious freedom protects all kinds of theistic and non-theistic religious beliefs, creeds, and first philosophies, it seems contrary to religious neutrality for secular legal systems to single out God. This paper instead argues that, although God and religion are inextricably intertwined, they affect the legal system in different ways because they are ontologically different. God cannot be reduced to a mere component of theistic religion. This paper argues that a proper understanding of secularization might call for keeping God outside the legal system but not for driving God out of the public sphere of democratic societies. Secular legal systems are not atheist legal systems. Secular legal systems are legal systems 'without religion' but not 'without God.' Secularization implies some degree of minimal recognition of God as a metalegal concept. The specific degree of recognition of God appropriate for any given political community depends on its cultural and communitarian identity and should be subject to the rules of democratic procedures and majorities. This is the metalegal God.

Contemporary political theology often defines itself against Lutheran social ethics, which is portrayed as politically disengaged and overly deferential to state power. At the same time, contemporary political theology often embraces the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an exemplary political theologian. This incongruity is generally resolved by distancing Bonhoeffer from his tradition, at least on matters of political theology. But Bonhoeffer's political theology was thoroughly Lutheran. Throughout the years of his political-theological engagement, from the Nazi rise to power in 1932-33 to the drafting of Ethics and related writing in 1940-43, he participated in ongoing conversations within Lutheran social ethics on the issues of, among others, the two kingdoms and the orders. In the process, he critically appropriated these elements of Lutheran thinking into an especially dynamic and christocentric framework that in turn informed his positions on various issues such as the church's proclamation against the Nazi state and the ecumenical church's witness for peace. Bonhoeffer is an example of Lutheran political theology, one that suggests the need to revise at least the more sweeping judgments about Lutheran theology as inherently incompatible with political engagement.

The article reads the invention of the Exodus-Narrative in its historical context of the religious and political system of the Ancient Near East. It reconstructs the revolutionary different approach to political power and theological foundation in the development of the Mose- and Exodus-Narrative and its innerbiblical Fortschreibung. For this development it is most decisive that the Exodus-Narrative is not based on a historical migration-movement "from point A to point B", but on a historical confrontation with the political powers at that time. The foundation of a strict monotheistic understanding of theology and the invention of “textual authority” that diverged from the status of scripture in the Ancient Near East and which can be reconstructed through the structure of the Exodus-Narrative and its canonical form as the Tora of Mose, has laid the foundation for the identity of Israel and the basis for the three Monotheistic Religions. The article's argument is strictly developed in correspondence with contemporary exegetical and historical research (esp. E. Otto and Chr. Dohmen) and is brought together with contemporary accounts to political thought from poststructuralist and deconstructive philosophers like Derrida, Levinas, Badiou and Agamben. The outcome of this study is articulated as a contribution to an affirmative reading of the so-called »crisis of representation«.

Alexander Dugin continues to garner attention in geopolitical and theological circles within Russia and beyond its borders.  His geopolitical-theology ideas espousing a Neo-Eurasian empire stretching from Dublin to Vladivostok are becoming increasingly well known.  There is substantial evidence that Vladimir Putin's strategic agenda reflects distinct elements of Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism.  If so, the potential impact of such a reception could be significant.

Dugin is a controversial player on the world stage; characterized at once as "Putin's Brain," "Putin's Rasputin," an apocalyptic prophet, and a neo-Nazi inhabitant of the lunatic fringe.  Playing to a predominately Russian audience, Dugin is noteworthy.  More significantly, Dugin, now recognized as a player on the broader world stage, may even pack an international punch.  Given his increased recognition, it is appropriate to inquire after Dugin's contemporary influence and to speculate on his staying power.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

Transcendence and Power. Carl Schmitt's Political Theology

L' opera di CarI Schmitt (1888-1985) rappresenta una delle più forti provocazioni del pensiero del Novecento. La sua ricerca intellettuale e politica spazia nei diversi ambiti del diritto costituzionale e internazionale, della filosofia e della scienza della politica, della storia delle istituzioni, della letteratura e della teologia e si intreccia singolarmente con le vicende più drammatiche della storia contemporanea, in particolare
con la fine della repubblica di Weimar e con i primi anni del regime nazista, che lo vedono coinvolto in ruoli di primo piano. Il suo pensiero, riscoperto in questi ultimi anni, si trova oggi al centro di un serrato dibattito e di accese controversie.
Una delle provocazioni più significative di Schmitt è quella legata alla sua interpretazione del concetto di "teologia politica", un concetto destinato, pur con diverse interpretazioni, ad avere notevole fortuna nel pensiero teologico del '900, tanto da essere ancora oggi al centro dell'attenzione. Questo volume ricostruisce analiticamente, a partire dai primi
scritti fino alle ultime elaborazioni, la genesi, lo sviluppo e le applicazioni del concetto di "teologia politica" collocandolo sullo sfondo della sua ricerca e analizzando le reazioni e le critiche suscitate negli ambienti filosofici e teologici. Dall'angolo visuale della "teologia politica" l'intera opera schmittiana riceve una nuova e suggestiva luce e assume in certo senso valore di simbolo dell'itinerario della riflessione contemporanea sul politico, sul potere e sul suo ineliminabile riferimento alla trascendenza.

Als e-book:
https://www.turia.at/titel/finkelde1.php


Im Zentrum der Paulus-Lektüren von Badiou, Agamben, Zizek und Santner steht die Frage nach dem politischen und philosophischen Erbe der Briefe des Apostels. Dieses Erbe betrifft zwei Aspekte: Paulus’ Verständnis des christlichen Universalismus, der die exklusive Offenbarung des Sinai-Bundes des jüdischen Volkes zu einer Heilslehre für »alle Nationen« (Röm 1,5) macht. Und es betrifft Paulus’ Konzept eines christlichen Subjekts, das sich durch ein »Leben in Christus« der politischen Ordnung entgegen stellt.

Dabei dient der »Apostel der Heiden« den Autoren als Gewährsmann im Streit um philosophische Positionen, die unter Begriffen wie Differenz-Philosophie, Alterität und Dekonstruktion das letzte Jahrhundert dominiert haben und heute neu verhandelt werden.

Während Agamben und Santner sich explizit in die Tradition der »Philosophie der Differenz« stellen, versuchen Badiou und Zizek diese zu überwinden. Paulus erscheint dabei als Begründer eines radikalen politischen Subjekts, das wiederzuentdecken nötig ist in Zeiten, in denen »die großen Erzählungen« (Lyotard) als ideologisch-totalitär verworfen werden und gleichzeitig ein weit verbreiteter Zynismus die Beurteilung der politischen Debatten in den westlichen Demokratien prägt. Nicht eine Rekonstruktion theologischer Glaubensfragen steht im Vordergrund dieses ‚Streits um Paulus’, sondern die theologischen Implikationen in politischen Fragen der Gegenwart.

The volume "In Need of a Master: Politics, Theology, and Radical Democracy" discusses how our so-called postmodern age of widespread ideological critique paves the way for reactionary and conservative political movements. At center stage is the question of whether these movements can and must be – contrary to widespread beliefs among liberal elites – interpreted both as a symptom of a political awakening in the horizon of political theology in our era of immanence, as well as perhaps the perilous end of democracy as we know it. The book brings to the fore political theology as the hidden agenda of politics and presents at the same time Christian and Jewish theological traditions as an antidote to a global empire with its often unacknowledged rule of immanence.

Een introductie tot de historische context waarin Jezus van Nazareth kan geplaatst worden. In dit artikel wijk ik af van de zuiver spirituele en theologische betekenis van Jezus, maar ga ik de zoektocht aan om de historiciteit van Hem te beschrijven

Laudate Si also calls for a new way of thinking, an “ecological culture of solidarity” to resist the globalized technocratic paradigm. (par. 111) Bolivia's indigenous people are, I believe, an example of this ecological culture of solidarity, which has some interesting economic and social consequences as they adapt to the modern forces of climate change and globalized neoliberalism in their own way. The paper explains an example of a sanitation project with vermin-composting toilets being built by a women's cooperative and its compatibility with the indigenous Pachamama theology of nature.

Augustine’s recognition of the lust to dominate and how it veils itself in concepts like “glory,” “honor,” and “nobility” are as relevant today as in his own time. Augustine’s deconstruction of Romanitas was done to offer all the people of Rome a greater project in its place. How often do we hear, like the Roman propagandists Augustine critiqued, that the benevolent empire advances liberty and prosperity? Augustine would take a step back and unmask American Exceptionalism and liberal exceptionalism to ascertain whether it really lives up to its promises. In fact, one could go as far as to say that Augustine was the first systematic deconstructionist in his penetration into the heart of Rome, its ideological mythology, and its self-understanding—revealing the lust to dominate, rather than love, as being at its core.

The twenty-first century has seen a renewal of scholarly interest in religion that might seem surprising, especially given how many scholars have for so long steadfastly behaved as though religion was in progressive decline since sometime in the eighteenth century, and that this decline was inevitable (Berger). Precisely because religion has thwarted this and other assumptions, there is today a pervasive uncertainty about just how to understand religion. What is especially perplexing, as José Casanova observes, is “the assumption of public roles by precisely those religious traditions which both theories of secularization and cyclical theories of religious revival had assumed were becoming ever more marginal and irrelevant in the modern world” (5). Rather than abandon politics for the safety of private life, in other words, religion has found new and creative ways to adapt and reinvigorate itself in the public sphere. In response to this state of affairs, some have proposed that political theology is the rubric best suited to reconsidering the relationship between religion and politics. Political theology, in this context, refers to the “stories we tell ourselves about our nature as humans, our aspirations for order and justice in light of the sacred, and what, thereby, constitutes and limits legitimate rule over our collective lives” (Kessler 1). But it also refers “to the impossibility of both to completely separate and to completely conflate politics and religion” (Vardoulakis 125). To understand why interest in political theology has emerged at this particular moment, when there seems to be pervasive uncertainty about the fate of religion in the modern world, it is important to recognize that its appeal is not so much its analytic bite but the synthetic possibilities it offers; political theology offers new possibilities for charting relationships that cross otherwise hard and fast barriers. It is clearly this desire to capitalize on new possibilities for thinking about religion and politics that motivates Hent de Vries to argue, in his introduction to Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, that political theology “reach[es] further . . . upon the central questions of political philosophy and political theory” than other approaches to religion, and offers, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 2014 Vol. 36, No. 3, 269–285, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08905495.2014.919991

Abstract: This article addresses the ‘touch-event’ as a mediated affective encounter that pivots around a tension between intimacy and distance, seduction and sovereignty, investment and withdrawal. Through a rereading of the Pauline event of conversion to Christianity, it argues that an analysis of the evolving significance of touch-events for Catholic liturgy and a religious congregation shows the theopolitical as always already constituted within an economy of enfleshed virtues. Focusing on contemporary examples of touch-events from the life of Francis, the first pope from the Americas, as well as from fieldwork among a group of female Latin American Catholic migrants in Rome, I argue for a closer examination of touch-events in order to grasp some of their theopolitical, radical, emancipatory, and, in some contexts, subjugating effects.
Keywords: Atlantic Return, economies of virtues, incarnation, Pauline event, Pope Francis, sovereignty, theopolitics, touch-event

This book by Edwin Gaustad was the first book I read on Roger Williams in 2002.  It inspired me to proceed with research on Williams during the ensuing decade while I was working full time as a litigation lawyer and then, finally, in retirement, when I wrote and published my book The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience.  Gaustad is, in my view, one of the finest interpreters of Roger Williams, though he did not meticulously document his factual statements with footnotes or endnotes.  I wrote this review of his book in 2002.

Confederate monuments figure prominently as epicenters of social conflict. These stone and metal constructs resonate with the tensions of modern America, giving concrete definition to the ideologies that divide us. Confederate monuments alone did not generate these feelings of aggravation, but they are far from innocent. Rather than serving as neutral objects of public remembrance, Confederate monuments articulate a narration of the past that forms the basis for a normative vision of the future. The story, told through the character of a religious mythos, carries implicit sacred convictions; thus, these spires and statues are inherently theological.

In Cut in Stone, Ryan Andrew Newson contends that we cannot fully understand or disrupt these statues without attending to the convictions that give them their power. With a careful overview of the historical contexts in which most Confederate monuments were constructed, Newson demonstrates that these "memorials" were part of a revisionary project intended to resist the social changes brought on by Reconstruction while maintaining a romanticized Southern identity. Confederate monuments thus reinforce a theology concerning the nature of sacrifice and the ultimacy of whiteness. Moreover, this underlying theology serves to conceal inherited collective wounds in the present.

If Confederate monuments are theologically weighted in their allure, then it stands to reason that they must also be contested at this level―precisely as sacred symbols. Newson responds to these inherently theological objects with suggestions for action that are sensitive to the varying contexts within which monuments reside, showing that while all Confederate monuments must come under scrutiny, some monuments should remain standing, but in redefined contexts. Cut in Stone represents the first detailed theological investigation of Confederate monuments, a resource for the larger collective task of determining how to memorialize problematic pasts and how to shape public space amidst contested memory.

Indice
Introduzione: teologia politica del giusto nascosto. Per una fenomenologia dell'ebraismo tedesco tra le due guerre.
Capitolo I. Il Messia senza scettro. Rilettura filosofica di alcune prese di posizioni politiche nel campo dell'ebraismo
Capitolo II. Epifanie del dopodomani. Tipologie messianiche da S. Paolo a Benjamin
Capitolo III Spirito dell'utopia, utopia dello Spirito. Una teologia politica nella Germania del primo Novecento
Capitolo IV. To Pneuma ópou thèlei. Il problema dello spirito e il meridiano della decisione in Benjamin
Capitolo V. Il gesto ideale. L'intelligencija ebraico-tedesca tra potere e rinuncia
Capitolo VI. L'umano e la legge. Una teologia politica dell'ebraismo
Capitolo VII. Storia a termine. Riflessioni politico-religiose sulla differenza tra apocalittica ed escatologia nel pensiero tedesco.

The first time I saw one of the sewn fabric masks that have now become so popular during the coronavirus pandemic was not in the United States, where I currently live, but in Venezuela. It was March 2020. My mother-in-law had just gotten internet in her home in a small city in the Venezuelan Andes, and my partner and I were able to have our first video call with her. She told us how a public health official had come to her home, reminding her to get tested at the local clinic free-of-charge, while her neighbor had sewn masks for the entire block. The cloth mask hid her expressions of concern as she asked about our health and the rates of infection in the United States. At that point, my partner was still leaving home to go to work, and I had just been asked to move from in-person to online teaching in the middle of the semester. I immediately developed an upper respiratory infection and dry cough, which was diagnosed as a presumptive case of Covid-19 (presumptive because no testing was available). In Texas, we had been unable to find thermometers, masks, or antiseptic in any nearby pharmacies. While Venezuela faced an ever tightening economic and military blockade by the United States that made no exceptions for medical supplies, masks and tests were already reaching my mother-in-law in her remote town. Why was the response to a public health crisis in the United States, the leader of a global capitalist empire, more uncoordinated and less effective than in a country whose food and medical supplies had been severely compromised?

The answer leads us away from the material facts of medical supplies or national wealth and into the realms of the sacred.

This article submits that the confluence of language and power proliferate social strata and exacts violence on subaltern bodies in a punitive age of mass incarceration. I explore racialized social hierarchies in Judeo- Christian sacred texts and its relationship to secular texts that mark subaltern bodies for punishment. I argue that hegemonic scriptural economies perpetuate discursive violence that is evident in the imperial use of jurisprudence to warehouse black bodies in a prison industrial complex. In response, proclamations of protest become the voice of victors to self-name, overcome silence and rewrite histories as authors of subaltern narratives of resistance.

“Bottom’s Dream” at the end of act 4 of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has long been recognized as an extended allusion to Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. This passage also develops a complex version of political aesthetics. In this essay, I trace how the peculiar aesthetics of Bottom’s discourse are intertwined with the theological and political concerns of the Pauline text. The aesthetics of “Bottom’s Dream” are intrinsically linked to the way that Paul’s epistle composes the mystical body, a major trope for religious and social order in premodern Europe. Paul’s text develops the incarnational and eschatological elements of the mystical body that will form the foundation for a liturgical tradition that remained resonant into the sixteenth century. Bottom’s allusive vision maintains an essential relation to the eschatological aspects of the Pauline original even as its synesthetic elements reimagine the incarnational dimensions of Paul’s text. “Bottom’s Dream” merges aesthetics with politics and theology, but this aesthetics cannot be reduced to either pure politics or theology. Ultimately, the multifaceted character of this aesthetic vision resists becoming assimilated to the instrumental politics of the Athenian elite at the end of the play.

Starting from observing the prevailing confusion about the meaning of "political theology", this paper individuates three main meanings for the concept, then showing how each of them is "impossible" in the specific sense of contradicting the validity claims it would itself raise. The main argument proceeds by reprising Augustine's philosophical critique of the first meaning of political theology, then showing how and in what sense the other two are also subject to it. The conclusion is that "political theology" may be useful as a sociological/descriptive concept, but it is not an appropriate object of philosophy, not even as a polemical foil, except than to demonstrate its impossibility.

Das Thema des vorliegenden Aufsatzes sind die jüngsten politischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen in der Ukraine, die durch die Proteste auf dem Maidan in Kiew angestoßen worden sind. In sozialethischer Perspektive analysiert er das neo-sowjetische sozio-politische Modell, das aus den Trümmern der Sowjetunion entstanden ist und sich in der Herrschaft Viktor Janukowitschs verkörpert hat. Er geht der Frage nach, wie dieses neo-sowjetische Modell die Kirchen beeinflusst hat und wiederum von ihnen beeinflusst worden ist. Dabei steht insbesondere die Rolle der Kirche vor, während und nach dem Maidan im Blickpunkt. Der Autor macht Vorschläge, wie die ukrainischen Kirchen konstruktiv zum Aufbau einer Zivilgesellschaft in diesem post-sowjetischen Land beitragen können. Darüber hinaus erörtert er Strategien, wie die getrennten ukrainischen Kirchen miteinander versöhnt werden können.

"The purpose of this analysis is to provide an overview of the North Korean situation in order to design effective mission strategies among the North Korean people.  This analysis will provide a summary overview of the current North Korean culture, current missionary work, and possible strategies for the future.  Due to the intense suspicion of foreigners and extreme resistance to religious activity, missionaries will have to rely heavily on political, social, and humanitarian methods in order to evangelize the North Korean people" (taken from the introduction).

Frederick Douglass appeals to Acts 17:26 in his famous letter, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"  He intends to gain legitimacy to his argument by citing the beliefs of his opponents, when he says, "You profess to believe 'that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth.'"  This paper will look at receptions of Acts 17:26 by abolitionists, multiculturalists, and segregationists. Abolitionists, even with good intentions, divide humans into races that elide racial differences and mask power dynamics.  Likewise, multiculturalists equate all races as same and fail to address systemic issues.  Segregationists demonstrate the proximity of racial exclusion made possible by abolitionists and multiculturalists. Through this analysis this paper will consider race, like Kotsko's neoliberalism, as its own legitimizing political theology.  Race legitimates all into a sameness that erases difference.

“Only the thought-wave which emanates from the spiritual plane will save humanity from the devastating influence of dogma, which separates humans from humans, which creates hindrances in the remolding of human society into a single existence. This process of rationalization should be developed through the intrinsic human potential of remodeling every aspect of mind. We must do this in the near future. The problem is a peculiar one, but we must solve it, because it has created so many troubles, so many divisions in human society – so many sanguinary battles, so much warfare,” explains Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. “So we will have to solve this problem and create a new world in all the three emanations of life – physical, psychic and spiritual. I hope you boys and girls, by your collective effort, will do something concrete in this respect. You are not insignificant beings; you are the glorified expressions of the Supreme Lord. So you will have to do something concrete immediately. The problem brooks no delay.” This is the fourth of several discourses (the first is “Dogma and Human Intellect”, the second is “Dogma—No More” and the third is “The Liberation of Intellect”) for all intellectuals about dogma, mental expansion and the liberation of intellect.  P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual guru (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded Renaissance Universal to promote a new global renaissance, and who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 7, 2021.

The What Does Theology Do, Actually? project aims not to do theology, but to observe what theologies do, around the world today, in and for the communi- ties in which they circulate and hold meaning. How is theology understood and practiced as a semantics of global society? What kinds of problems do theologies solve and how? These questions are pursued, moreover, with specif- ic attention given to the “transcultural”. Much might be learned both about the role of Christian religion in public life and about evolving trends in theological understanding or praxis by examining comparatively the ways Christian communities encode transcultural experiences of irritation coming from the social environment (for example, climate change, protest movements, digitali- zation, mass migration, or global pandemics) into their self-understanding (for example, in engagement with received tradition) and self-formation (for ex- ample, in liturgy and community ethics). This requires theoretical open mindedness and methodological agility. The project therefore follows a two-step logic. First, the project seeks to observe theological work as itself a set of social discourses or objects contingently particular to certain contexts. A focus on answering the question “What is theology?” privileges those who already possess the resources and power to shape what counts as being “really” theology or not. By contrast, the descrip- tive approach preferred by the question “What does theology do?” objectifies “theologies” as a kind of social artifact and recognizes a variety of reflected religious communications as communicating theology. Second, in this way, the project aims to disrupt dominant paradigms in academic theological re- search, to expand the category of theological work(s) beyond textual formats and classroom or conference situations to include a variety of spaces, symbols, practices, and artifacts that function as transmitters of reflected religious communications, and to contribute to work diversifying theological methodologies to include empirical, qualitative, and quantitative research methods. The What Does Theology Do, Actually? project consists of symposia and a limited book series. An international community of theologians, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, scholars of religion, and practitioners, from widely differing contexts, and at all career stages are invited to disruptive dialogue with one another in the context of symposia devoted to comparative study of theolo … View full abstract

During the years in which France succumbed to nazi ideology and was occupied by German forces, Henri de Lubac, a French cardinal and one of the great contemporary thinkers the Catholic Church can boast of, played a decisive role in the French resistance to anti-Semitism. Active as a priest, de Lubac collaborated in the composition of ''official'' proclamations such as the famous 1941 ''Chaine Declaration" and also arranged conferences, wrote books, and participated in various resistance activities. One of de Lubac’s most intimate friends, Yves de Montcheuil α student companion among others, was shot to death in July 1944 by the Gestapo. De Lubac made clear his commitment to oppose what he termed Europe's "collective apostasy" under Nazism in α confidential letter to his religious superiors in April 1941. The commitment is amply demonstrated in a 260-page book of de Lubac's memoirs published in France, entitled Résistance Chrétienne et l'Antisémitisme: Souvenirs 1940-1944.