Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and the Theology of Freedom
Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and the Theology of Freedom

Author: Gunda Werner

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-22

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1003827985

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This book explores how Judith Butler’s work on gender and the shaping of the human subject and Michel Foucault's notion of parrhesia, ‘speaking the truth’, can be made fruitful for a theology of freedom. The volume illustrates the importance of three concepts - freedom, gender (body) and power (critique) - and how this triad provides the foundational categories and structural elements of a theology of freedom. By starting from an analysis of power and the performative potential of gendered embodiment, freedom can be thought of as the basis of creative and critical human action and thereby implemented in theology. The chapters feature several theological-historical case studies that are representative of topics that continue to shape contemporary Catholic norms and thought. In particular, the author reflects on the 13th century with the idea of personal sin and confession, and the 19th century with a gender ideology that has led to the marginalization of difference and dissent. The book shows how Butler and Foucault can provide essential insights for Catholic theology and is valuable reading for scholars of religion, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies.

Judith Butler and the Theology of Freedom
Judith Butler and the Theology of Freedom

Author: Gunda Werner

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781003435389

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"This book explores how Judith Butler's work on gender and the shaping of the human subject and Michel Foucault's notion of parrhesia, 'speaking the truth', can be made fruitful for a theology of freedom. The volume illustrates the importance of three concepts - freedom, gender (body) and power (critique) - and how this triad provides the foundational categories and structural elements of a theology of freedom. By starting from an analysis of power and the performative potential of gendered embodiment, freedom can be thought of as the basis of creative and critical human action and thereby implemented in theology. The chapters feature several theological-historical case studies that are representative of topics that continue to shape contemporary Catholic norms and thought. In particular, the author reflects on the thirteenth century with the idea of personal sin and confession, and the nineteenth century with a gender ideology that has led to the marginalization of difference and dissent. The book shows how Butler and Foucault can provide essential insights for Catholic theology and is valuable reading for scholars of religion, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies"--

The Church, Authority, and Foucault
The Church, Authority, and Foucault

Author: Steven G. Ogden

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1317038207

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The Church, Authority, and Foucault addresses the problem of the Church’s enmeshment with sovereign power, which can lead to marginalization. Breaking new ground, Ogden uses Foucault’s approach to power and knowledge to interpret the church leader’s significance as the guardian of knowledge. This can become privileged knowledge, under the spell of sovereign power, and with the complicity of clergy and laity in search of sovereigns. Inevitably, such a culture leads to a sense of entitlement for leaders and conformity for followers. All in the name of obedience. The Church needs to change in order to fulfil its vocation. Instead of a monarchy, what about Church as an open space of freedom? This book, then, is a theological enterprise which cultivates practices of freedom for the sake of the other. This involves thinking differently by exploring catalysts for change, which include critique, space, imagination, and wisdom. In the process, Ogden uses a range of sources, analysing discourse, gossip, ritual, territory, masculinity, and pastoral power. In all, the work of Michel Foucault sets the tone for a fresh ecclesiological critique that will appeal to theologians and clergy alike.

Trinity, Freedom and Love
Trinity, Freedom and Love

Author: Piotr Malysz

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-08-02

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0567128830

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By critically engaging Eberhard Jüngel's doctrine of the Trinity, this volume makes a broader, constructive contribution to contemporary trinitarian thought.The argument centers on the question - posed by the inconsistencies uncovered in Jüngel's doctrine of God - of how one can assert both divine freedom and the inter-subjectivity of God's trinitarian self-determination. Can one maintain God's freedom in the interest of divine spontaneity and creativity, while remaining committed to inter-subjective vulnerability which the Cross entails as an event of divine love? Malysz suggests that a resolution to this problem lies in a logic of divine freedom, which, next to the trinitarian logic of love, constitutes a different and simultaneous mode of trinitarian relationality. To develop this logic, Malysz draws on Jüngel's understanding of human freedom as rooted in the "elemental interruption" of the self-securing subject. Malysz thus not only brings Jüngel's view of divine freedom into correspondence with the anthropological effects that Jüngel ascribes to it, but, above all, offers an imaginative, new way of closely integrating the doctrine of God and theological anthropology.

An Analysis of Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation
An Analysis of Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation

Author: Marthe Hesselmans

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 1351351869

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Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez wanted to solve the problem of how the church could conduct itself to improve the lives of the poor, while consistently positioning itself as politically neutral. Despite being a deeply religious man, Gutiérrez was extremely troubled by the lukewarm way in which Christians in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, acknowledged and supported the poor. In A Theology of Liberation, he asked what he knew was an awkward question, and came to an awkward answer: the Church cannot separate itself from economic and political realities. Jesus showed his love for the poor in practical ways – healing the sick, feeding the hungry, liberating the oppressed. His example showed Gutierrez that economic, political, social and spiritual development are all deeply connected. His problem-solving prowess then led him to conclude that the church had to become politically active if it was to confront poverty and oppression across the world. For Gutierrez, the lives of the poor and oppressed directly reflect the divine life of God.

Foucault and Theology
Foucault and Theology

Author: Jonathan Tran

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2011-06-16

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0567510395

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Near the end of his life, Michel Foucault turned his attention to the early church Fathers. He did so not for anything like a return to God but rather because he found in those sources alternatives for re-imaging the self. And though Foucault never seriously entertained Christianity beyond theorizing its aesthetic style one might argue that Christian practices like confession or Eucharist share family resemblances to Foucaultian sensibilities. This book will explain how to do theology in light of Foucault, or more precisely, to read Foucault as if God mattered. Therefore, it will seek to articulate practices like confession, prayer, and so on as techniques for the self, situate "the church as politics" within present constellations of power, disclose theological knowledges as modes of critical intervention, or what Foucault called archaeology, and conceptualize Christian existence in time through mnemonic practices of genealogy.

A Theology of Liberation
A Theology of Liberation

Author: Marthe Hesselmans

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 1351350072

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Gutiérrez’s 1971 book provides an inspiring argument as to how Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should support the poor. The Catholic Church had traditionally seen itself as politically neutral but in the 1960s and 70s reformers, such as Gutiérrez, urged it to seriously address real-world issues such as poverty and oppression.

An Analysis of Hamid Dabashi's Theology of Discontent
An Analysis of Hamid Dabashi's Theology of Discontent

Author: Magdalena C. Delgado

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 1351351737

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Hamid Dabashi’s 1997 work Theology of Discontent reveals a creative thinker capable not only of understanding how an argument is built, but also of redefining old issues in new ways. The Iranian Revolution of 1978–9 was front-page news in the West, and in some ways remains so today. Though it was an uprising against authoritarian royal rule, with a coalition of modernisers and Islamists, the revolution saw the birth of a new Islamic Republic that seemed to reject pro-Western democracy. Dabashi wanted to analyze the real reasons for this change, while examining how Islamic ideologies contributed to the revolution and the republic that followed. Theology of Discontent examines different Islamic thinkers, analyzing how views with seemingly little in common contributed to the modern Iranian belief system. Beyond its insightful analytical dissection of these eight thinkers, Theology of Discontent also shows Dabashi’s creative thinking skills. Reframing the debates about Iran’s relationship with the West, he traced the ways in which Iranian identity formed in reactive opposition to Western ideas. In many ways, Dabashi suggested, Iran was trapped in a cycle of deliberately asserting its difference from the West, a process that was fundamental to the development of its own unique brand of revolutionary Islamism.

Remaking Humanity
Remaking Humanity

Author: Adam Beyt

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-08-22

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0567714187

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Drawing upon Edward Schillebeeckx's theology and Judith Butler's philosophy, Adam Beyt uses the framework of nonviolent hope to construct a Catholic political theology responding to dehumanizing violence. Dehumanizing violence names words, institutions, or acts violating the inherent dignity of being made in the image and likeness of God. Theology can participate in dehumanizing violence by claiming an uninterrogated universality that marginalizes bodies due to their perceived differences such as gender, race, sexuality, or ability. The book's constructive project integrates Schillebeeckx's and Butler's thought with queer theory and phenomenology to model embodiment as an “enfleshing dynamism” between bodies and signification. The text then posits Catholic discipleship as incarnating hope by defending the humanum, the new humanity announced through God's Reign. Combining reflections from Schillebeeckx and Butler, this hope centers discipleship as nonviolent world building. Concluding with a sustained reflection with the writings of Franz Fanon and Walter Benjamin, the final chapter sketches a Catholic solidaristic response to contemporary struggles against the necropolitics of colonizing and state violence through assemblies of hope.

Transforming Bodies and Religions
Transforming Bodies and Religions

Author: Mariecke van den Berg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1000195813

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This book sheds an interdisciplinary light on ‘transforming bodies’: bodies that have been subjected to, contributed to, or have resisted social transformations within religious or secular contexts in contemporary Europe. It explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion that underpin embodied transformations. Using post-secularist, postcolonial and gender/queer perspectives, it aims to gain a better understanding of the orchestrations and effects of larger social transitions related to religion. This volume is the outcome of the intensive collaboration of the authors, who for years have been meeting regularly in Utrecht, the Netherlands, to discuss themes related to religion and ‘the challenge of difference’, with an added afterword by Prof. Pamela Klassen from the University of Toronto. The book is divided in three subsections that focus on particular types of embodiment: body politics in governmental and NGO organisations; the role of the body in literary and/or autobiographical narratives; and ethnographic case studies of bodies in daily life. Doing so, it provides an innovative exploration of contemporary religion and the body. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Theology, and Philosophy.