Political Theology in Transition

About The Book

Political philosophy and Political theology in the Western tradition, always had a "strange alchemy" in between. The partnership between political philosophy and Christian theology in the Western tradition in promoting the modern notions of sovereign state and democracy has already been exposed by the contemporary post-Continental political thinkers. Giorgio Agamben, the well-known Italian political philosopher and theologian categorically exposes the correlation between the Western concept of sovereign state and the ancient patristic theology of divine sovereignty. This correlation was further legitimized by the Hobbesian (Thomas Hobbes) political philosophy and the Schmittian (Carl Schmitt) political theology in the modern period.

When Johann Baptist Metz and Jurgen Moltmann envisioned a new turn in political theology in the form of a Liberation Theology in the Post-Auschwitz German context, they reclaimed the political content of Christian faith, but never addressed the inherent compromise on the notion of sovereignty. The post-Continental political thinkers such as Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, and Catherine Malabou problematise the legitimisation of sovereignty in the Continental (postmodern) political theology and provoke Christian theology to take a radical turn towards New Materialism. This book tries to engage with those contemporary political philosophies in order to envisage a radical political theology in the immediate Indian context of corporate capitalism.

About the Author

Rev. Dr. Y. T. Vinayaraj is an ordained minister of the Mar Thoma Church. Currently, he serves as the Professor at Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam & Federated Faculty for Research in Religion and Culture (FFRRC), Kottayam. His recent books include Dalit Theology after Continental Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Intercessions: Theology, Liturgy and Politics (ISPCK, 2016); Theology after Spivak (ISPCK, 2016); Re-claiming Manyness: Re- reading M.M. Thomas in the Light of Indian Christian Theologies (Co-editor, SATHRI, 2017); Re-imagining Reformation (Co-editor, ISPCK, 2017); Empire, Multitude and the Church: Theology after Hardt and Negri (ISPCK, 2017), Church and Empire: Detailing Theological Musings (Christian World Imprints, 2019), and Faith in the Age of Empire (ISPCK/CWM, 2020).

Foreword

Y. T. Vinayaraj is one of the few Asian theologians for whom theology is a constant struggle. Despite the general belief that the so-called liberation theology has now more or less come to an end, he continues to see in it a means of thinking through some of the most important issues and problems of contemporary church and society. In this profoundly engaging book, he calls for a church of the multitude, a church without sovereignty- an open network in which all differences can be expressed freely and equally and a platform of hospitality where no one is excluded.

Forty five years ago Paul Lehmann bemoaned the widening gap between biblical and revolutionary politics and called for the transfiguration of politics in response to an environment of growing conflict and violence around issues of racism, capitalism and imperialism. His call was accompanied by a survey of the theory and practice of revolutionaries from Marx to Mao and Ho Chi Minh; from Fidel and Che Guevara to Camillo Torres and Nestor Paz Zamora; from Frantz Fanon to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X. and the Black Panther Party. He wanted political revolutions to reconsider the question of violence and become more spiritual by turning toward the ideals of Jesus. However, his line of thinking seems to be that much must be said on both sides. While reproaching revolutionary politics for its rabid materialism, he overlooked the fact that his own magisterial authority derived from an alliance of the politics of established power and the anti-revolutionary ideology of the church.

Unlike The Tranfiguration of Politics, this book is produced on a different terrain. While Paul Lehmann practiced theology during the time of old imperialism which extended the sovereignty of European nations beyond their very borders with an inside and an outside, the work of Vinayaraj takes place in the context of what Hardt and Negri call Empire, the name they have given to the political form of globalization. Unlike old imperialism. Empire has no borders, no centre, and no limits. It is a decentred and deterritorialized apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the whole globe. This does not mean that the sovereignty of nation states has vanished. We live in a period in which the victory of global capitalism and the defeat of any political alternative to neo- liberalism seem somewhat assured. It is also a period when global as well as national conflicts seem increasingly driven by faith-based politics.

Introduction

Political philosophy and Christian theology in the Western tradition have always had a "strange alchemy" in between and thus, as John D. Caputo and Catherine Keller contend, any renewal of political thinking demands the renewal of Christian theology. The partnership between political philosophy and Christian theology in the Western tradition in promoting the modern notions of sovereign state and democracy has already been exposed by the contemporary post- Continental political thinkers. Giorgio Agamben, the well-known Italian political philosopher and theologian categorically exposes the correlation between the Western concept of sovereign state and the ancient patristic theology of divine sovereignty. This correlation was further legitimized by the Hobbesian (Thomas Hobbes) political philosophy and the Schmittian (Carl Schmitt) political theology in the modern period. When Johann Baptist Metz and Jurgen Moltmann envisioned a new turn in political theology in the form of a Liberation Theology in the Post-Auschwitz German context, they reclaimed the political content of Christian faith, but never addressed the inherent compromise on the notion of sovereignty. The post-Continental political thinkers such as Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, and Catherine Malabou problematise the legitimisation of sovereignty in the Continental (postmodern) political theology and provoke Christian theology to take a radical turn towards new materialism. This book tries to engage with those contemporary political philosophies in order to envisage a radical political theology in the immediate context of neoempire.

Political Theology in Transition

Political theology addresses the questions such as, the relationship between theology and politics; the relationship between church and state; the role of religion in public life; and to what extend religious belief should shape our political discourses. Though it seems like a "strange alchemy between oil and water" (Alistair Kee), theology and politics have had a complex and contestatory alliance in history. The concept of 'political theology' connotes, as Jan Assmann suggests, the 'ever changing relationships between political community and religious order, in short, between power [or authority: Herrschaf and salvation [Heil). Historically, the term political theology dates Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) who speaks of the stoic tripartition of theology, in which a political theology is juxtaposed with mythical and cosmological theologies.

In the City of God, Augustine contrasts the divine city with an earthly city and refuses to sacralize the Roman Empire. However, the conversion of Constantine into Christianity turned up the whole situation upside down and thus opened up a new alliance between the empire and the church. In the medieval period we see the worst impact of the Christendom theology of the ancient church which leads it to the crusades and conflicts, Martin Luther in the reformation period re-signified the Augustinian theology of two kingdoms to challenge the illegitimate relationship between the church and the empire through papacy. It was the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) that marked the collapse of Christendom and gave secular authorities the power to determine matters of religion in their own state. When it comes to the enlightenment period. religion was relegated to a private space and there established a dichotomous relationship between theology and politics.

Political theology in the modern expression began with the emergence of German nationalism in 1920s and 1930s. As a response to the Nazi Governance, it was Carl Schmitt the German professor of constitutional law who initiated a modern discourse on political theology. It was the full expression of the political theology of the civil religion which was initiated by Machiavelli and Hobbes. Carl Schmitt's political theology was a eulogy of German nationalism which encouraged the German Christians in their legitimization of Hitler. Schmitt's political theology was a theology of divine sovereignty. Schmitt argued that "all signified concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts." According to Schmitt, the "sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception." Schmitt defended the dictatorship of Hitler in 1933 as a legitimate act of political sovereignty. Signifying the Christian eschatological thinking, Schmitt argued that the secular history is the realm of the battle between good and evil, friend and foe, God and Satan, state and anarchy. He believed that the reason for the delay of parousia of Christ is the legitimate time of katechon (2 Thess. 2:7)- the evil suppressing sovereign state. The role of the sovereign state is to restrain evil-the political anarchy-from the society. Jurgen Moltmann is extremely right when he finds connection between Schmitt's political theology and the contemporary US' theology of War on Terror.

**Contents and Sample Pages**