Apocalyptic Political Theology
Apocalyptic Political Theology

Author: Thomas Lynch

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1350064750

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Hegel's philosophy of religion contains an implicit political theology. When viewed in connection with his wider work on subjectivity, history and politics, this political theology is a resource for apocalyptic thinking. In a world of climate change, inequality, oppressive gender roles and racism, Hegel can be used to theorise the hope found in the end of that world. Histories of apocalyptic thinking draw a line connecting the medieval prophet Joachim of Fiore and Marx. This line passes through Hegel, who transforms the relationship between philosophy and theology by philosophically employing theological concepts to critique the world. Jacob Taubes provides an example of this Hegelian political theology, weaving Christianity, Judaism and philosophy to develop an apocalypticism that is not invested in the world. Taubes awaits the end of the world knowing that apocalyptic destruction is also a form of creation. Catherine Malabou discusses this relationship between destruction and creation in terms of plasticity. Using plasticity to reformulate apocalypticism allows for a form of apocalyptic thinking that is immanent and materialist. Together Hegel, Taubes and Malabou provide the resources for thinking about why the world should end. The resulting apocalyptic pessimism is not passive, but requires an active refusal of the world.

Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times
Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times

Author: Alison McQueen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1107152399

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From climate change to nuclear war to the rise of demagogic populists, our world is shaped by doomsday expectations. In this path-breaking book, Alison McQueen shows why three of history's greatest political realists feared apocalyptic politics. Niccol- Machiavelli in the midst of Italy's vicious power struggles, Thomas Hobbes during England's bloody civil war, and Hans Morgenthau at the dawn of the thermonuclear age all saw the temptation to prophesy the end of days. Each engaged in subtle and surprising strategies to oppose apocalypticism, from using its own rhetoric to neutralize its worst effects to insisting on a clear-eyed, tragic acceptance of the human condition. Scholarly yet accessible, this book is at once an ambitious contribution to the history of political thought and a work that speaks to our times.

The Just and Loving Gaze of God with Us, Second Edition
The Just and Loving Gaze of God with Us, Second Edition

Author: Henry Walter Spaulding III

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2024-08-01

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1666773239

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In recent years, Paul has become the subject of renewed interest among political philosophers. These philosophers deploy Paul as a means to deconstruct late modern political issues such as liberalism, biopolitics, and sovereignty. However, these philosophers ultimately truncate Paul's message to fit nontheistic, materialist ends. Such an approach polarizes interpreters, often leading either to a full endorsement or full rejection. In this work, Spaulding adds a needed voice in this conversation. By neither fully endorsing or fully rejecting the new approach to Paul, Spaulding argues that Paul's message is both materialist and faithful to the Christian tradition. Spaulding critically utilizes both the new approach and recent studies in apocalyptic interpretations of Paul in order to articulate a Pauline political theology for our time. Pauline apocalyptic emphasizes the already disruptive nature of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that wrests humanity from under the sovereignty of the fallen powers and places them under the Lordship of Christ. Apocalyptic is nourished by the promise of the eschatological hope of the not-yet-finished work of Christ. The church that follows the Lordship of Christ is called forth into being in the tension of the present Lordship of Christ and the not-yet transformation of the cosmos. Such a tension begets practices that form the political commitment of what philosopher Iris Murdoch calls the just and loving gaze, namely the central conviction that, in order to live good (political) lives, one must be taught to see.

Politics and Apocalypse
Politics and Apocalypse

Author: Robert Hamerton-Kelly

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2007-11-30

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 1609170415

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Apocalypse. To most, the word signifies destruction, death, the end of the world, but the literal definition is "revelation" or "unveiling," the basis from which renowned theologian René Girard builds his own view of Biblical apocalypse. Properly understood, Girard explains, Biblical apocalypse has nothing to do with a wrathful or vengeful God punishing his unworthy children, and everything to do with a foretelling of what future humans are making for themselves now that they have devised the instruments of global self-destruction. In this volume, some of the major thinkers about the interpretation of politics and religion— including Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and Carl Schmitt— are scrutinized by some of today's most qualified scholars, all of whom are thoroughly versed in Girard’s groundbreaking work. Including an important new essay by Girard, this volume enters into a philosophical debate that challenges the bona fides of philosophy itself by examining three supremely important philosopher of the twentieth century. It asks how we might think about politics now that the attacks of 9/11 have shifted our intellectual foundations and what the outbreak of rabid religion might signify for international politics.

Augustine’s Apocalyptic Political Theology in the Evil Saeculum
Augustine’s Apocalyptic Political Theology in the Evil Saeculum

Author: Pung Ryong Kim

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2024-09-16

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1978716001

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Augustine’s Apocalyptic Political Theology in the Evil Saeculum investigates Augustine’s apocalyptic political theology under the premise that he perceived the saeculum, or this age, as evil. Augustine views the saeculum as wicked because of the activity of the devil and demons. For Augustine, the devil perverted our social life and politics by mediating the false collective memory of the created world, social life, and politics through media, such as various religio-cultural liturgies and literary works. In particular, the demons reinforced Roman citizens’ amor sui, amor laudis, and libido dominandi by employing pagan rituals and literature that mediated the collective memory of the imperial period, justifying the existence and expansion of the empire. As such, this book explores the socio-political implications of Augustine’s demonology.

Satan and Apocalypse
Satan and Apocalypse

Author: Thomas J. J. Altizer

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2017-11-09

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 1438466730

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Offers a profound vision of the Christian epic as the site of the modern apocalyptic reenactment of the original apocalypse. In this series of essays, Thomas J. J. Altizer explores the Christian epic as the site of modern revolutionary apocalyptic reenactments and renewals of the original apocalypse enacted by Jesus Christ and primitive Christianity. Beginning with the pivotal seventeenth-century figures Milton and Spinoza, Altizer analyzes the apocalyptic visions of key figures of modernity, including Blake, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Joyce, often juxtaposing them to surprising and illuminating effect. These revolutionary moments stand in opposition to what Altizer calls the pathological modern counterrevolution that dominates the world today, which is an effect of a new postmodernity and of a progressive dissolution of historical consciousness. Through his analysis of modern apocalyptic moments and thinkers, this book becomes an elegant and accessible guide to Altizer’s own apocalyptic vision and his ultimate project of the total and comprehensive reconstruction of theology. “This is an indispensable work of closure coming from one of contemporary theology’s most lucid, original, rebellious, provocative, and passionate voices. Altizer’s most central and tenaciously held convictions are distilled into this essential testament.” — William Franke, author of Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the Wake of Dante “This book is vintage Altizer: a vast and profound vision of the transformations of interiority, conceptions of the world, and the idea/image of God throughout the time of Western culture. Altizer is an incredible and amazing writer and thinker. I found myself stopped dead in my tracks, left to ponder anew everything that I thought I knew. His intuitions and insights are so penetrating and enlightening that they evoke sheer wonder at the marvel of his accomplishment.” — David E. Klemm, coauthor of Religion and the Human Future: An Essay on Theological Humanism

The Political Theology of Paul
The Political Theology of Paul

Author: Jacob Taubes

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9780804733458

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This highly original interpretation of Paul by the Jewish philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes was presented in a number of lectures held in Heidelberg toward the end of his life, and was regarded by him as his "spiritual testament.” Taubes engages with classic Paul commentators, including Karl Barth, but also situates the Pauline text in the context of Freud, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, and Rosenzweig. In his distinctive argument for the apocalyptic-revolutionary potential of Romans, Taubes also takes issue with the "political theology” advanced by the conservative Catholic jurist Carl Schmitt. Taubes’s reading has been crucial for a number of interpretations of political theology and of Paul--including those of Jan Assmann and Giorgio Agamben--and it belongs to a wave of fresh considerations of Paul’s legacy (Boyarin, Lyotard, Badiou, Zîzêk). Finally, Taubes’s far-ranging lectures provide important insights into the singular experiences and views of this unconventional Jewish intellectual living in post-Holocaust Germany.

God and Power
God and Power

Author: Catherine Keller

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published:

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781451404982

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Keller traces America's response to the current national, international, and religious situation to the deeply fraught legacy of Christian apocalypticism. After diving deeply into the multiple and conflicting political and religious meanings of the Book of Revelation, she proposes a counter-apocalypse, an anti-imperial political theology of love.

To Carl Schmitt
To Carl Schmitt

Author: Jacob Taubes

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 0231154127

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A philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, and Gnostic, Jacob Taubes was for many years a correspondent and interlocutor of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, law professor--and self-professed Nazi. Despite their unlikely association, Taubes and Schmitt shared an abiding interest in the fundamental problems of political theology, believing the great challenges of modern political theory were ancient in pedigree and, in many cases, anticipated the works of Judeo-Christian eschatologists. In this collection of Taubes's writings on Schmitt, the two intellectuals work through ideas of the apocalypse and other central concepts of political theology. Taubes acknowledges Schmitt's reservations about the weakness of liberal democracy yet distances himself from his prescription to rectify it, arguing the apocalyptic worldview requires less of a rigid hierarchical social ordering than a community committed to the importance of decision making. In these writings, a sharper and more nuanced portrait of Schmitt's thought emerges, as well as a more complicated understanding of Taubes, who has shaped the work of Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, and other major twentieth-century theorists.

Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology
Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology

Author: Joshua B. Davis

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2012-11-07

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1620320878

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Ernst Kasemann famously claimed that apocalyptic is the mother of Christian theology. J. Louis Martyn's radical interpretation of the overarching significance of apocalyptic in Paul's theology has pushed Kasemann's claim further and deeper. Still, despite the recognition that apocalyptic is at the core of New Testament and Pauline theology, modern theology has often dismissed, domesticated, or demythologized early Christian apocalyptic. A renewed interest in taking apocalyptic seriously is one of the most exciting developments in recent theology. The essays in this volume, taking their point of departure from the work of Martyn (and Kasemann), wrestle critically with the promise (and possible peril) of the apocalyptic transformation of Christian theology. With original contributions from established scholars (including Beverly Gaventa, Stanley Hauerwas, Robert Jenson, Walter Lowe, Joseph Mangina, Christopher Morse, and Fleming Rutledge) as well as younger voices, this volume makes a substantial contribution to the discussion of apocalyptic and theology today. A unique feature of the book is a personal reflection on Ernst Kasemann by J. Louis Martyn himself.