Political Theology and the Politics of Time

Abstract

Chapter 2 develops the notion that periodizations of time and history are best characterized as theopolitical economizations of temporal and historical terms. Drawing from recent works in political theology that conceive of power as something concealed in and performed by economizing gestures of management, mediation, and apportioning, I show how theological and political categories combine in powerful periodizing gestures that reflect decisions about what belongs to the past, present, and future. Chapter 2 connects recent works in political theology with several thinkers who theorize the politics of time, and then extends their analyses to show how the prefix ‘post’ that defines the postsecular is itself an act of theopolitical periodization. Periodization shows itself to be theopolitical when it powerfully and persuasively economizes, apportions, and manages divisions of time and history through simultaneously theological and political strategies of legitimation. This chapter concludes with an analysis of Massimo Cacciari’s study of the withholding power of the katechon, and points to possessive, controlling, and potentially abusive ways that temporal and historical terms are used.