John Calvin and the New Libya
As we in the West celebrate their accomplishments and support their efforts, it is important to temper our expectations and widen our conception of responsible government. The heritage of most...
View ArticleFrom Bricklayers to Cleaning the Yard: On Lenin’s Writing of Parables
Jesus, the disciples, the sower, the harvester, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the travellers on the road, guests at the wedding banquet, shepherds, sheep, Philistines, Pharisees, Judas Iscariot, Moses,...
View ArticleLetters from the Road: Lenin on Miracles
‘In certain respects, a revolution is a miracle’ (Lenin 1921 [1965]-a: 153). Revolution = miracle; революция = чудо: this is the arresting formula I wish to explore. This formula is by no means an...
View ArticleHosanna!
This procession down to Jerusalem is one of those very public moments in Jesus’ ministry. It could be called his most brilliant act of political theatre. Jesus proceeds toward Jerusalem, with a crowd...
View ArticleWhy I am Against “Ethics” (or Why We Need Unethical Politics)
Picture the following situation. It may be a discussion over global warming or environmental politics and someone will say, ‘ethically speaking …’ Or it may the question of asylum seekers and refugees...
View ArticleDemocratic revolutions and gun rights – forging a more global perspective on...
Everyone is familliar with Mao Tse-Tung’s famous dictum, first formulated during the Long March in the 1930s, that “all power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The saying often has gushily romantic...
View ArticleBook Preview – Towards a Post-Sovereign Foundational Politics: On Critical...
[Enrique Peruzzotti, Di Tella University, and Martín Plot, California Institute of the Arts, introduce their recently published collection on the work of Andrew Arato, Critical Theory and Democracy:...
View ArticleThe revolution against the state – something to celebrate this Fourth of July
As the Fourth of July, the 237th anniversary of America’s famous epoch-staging revolution against Britain arrives, the world is gripped by the strangest of ironies in this strangest of times. The...
View ArticlePolitical Theology and Islamic Studies Symposium: Legitimacy, Revolution and...
Can a people, after having duly consented to the formation of its government, remove that government using procedures not authorized by law? To put the question differently: can the formal legitimacy...
View ArticleNudging: Can Reform Make a Better Society? A Response to Charles Mathewes and...
. . . It all sounds so beneficial, benignly urging us towards a better life and perhaps even a better society. The problems with ‘nudging’, however, are significant, although I restrict myself to the...
View ArticleAnnouncing Political Theology 15.2 — Religion and Radicalism
This issue of Political Theology focuses on the theme of “religion and radicalism.” It is one of the fruits of an international research network of the same name, a network that has members from nearly...
View ArticleUkraine: Prospects for a Just Revolution – Anna Floerke Scheid
Having spent the last several years researching and writing on the ethics of revolution, I listened to initial reports about the protests in Kiev with hopeful, empathic interest. Ukrainians seemed to...
View ArticleThe Politics of Plots & Pilgrimage—John 12:12-17
One plots and schemes in order to exert control. One embarks upon a pilgrimage in order to relinquish control. Entering Jerusalem as a lowly king, Jesus foils both the plots of those who would capture...
View ArticleThe Revolutionary Poverty of Arnold of Brescia
The Middle Ages were filled with strange, passionate, and fascinating figures, often hidden from our view by the long shadows of the likes of Anselm, Francis, Aquinas, or Ockham. The great theologians...
View ArticleCalvin’s Institutes: A Primer for Militants?
Parts of the world tremble again at religiously inspired revolutionary activity. Too easily do we forget that very similar forms of such activity have appeared in earlier periods of time, even if the...
View ArticleThe Middle East and the Unintended Consequences of Our “Willful Ignorance”
The words that may turn out over time to have many of the same ominous undertones as Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” was uttered this past week by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the...
View ArticleThe Politics of the War on Christmas—Luke 1: 46b-55 (Robert Williamson)
In the incarnation of Jesus, all our systems of social stratification—all our means of exploiting, oppressing, and humiliating one another—are revealed to be lies. Mary expresses a 'Christmas...
View ArticleSomething’s Happening Here…And Fifty Years Later Perhaps We Ought To Beware...
As I watched Berkeley burn on February 1 in protest against the speaking engagement of right-wing political provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, the feeling of deja vous suddenly turned vivid and...
View ArticleThe Politics of Divine Disruption—Luke 1:46b-55 (Fritz Wendt)
The Magnificat is a song of divine disruption, the song of God's revolution.
View ArticleNudging: Can Reform Make a Better Society? A Response to Charles Mathewes and...
. . . It all sounds so beneficial, benignly urging us towards a better life and perhaps even a better society. The problems with ‘nudging’, however, are significant, although I restrict myself to the...
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