Political Theology: Three trials – Antigone, Socrates, Jesus

Abstract

Political Theology: Three trials – Antigone, Socrates, Jesus Paul Corcoran (bio) A traveling circus in Denmark had caught fire [in front of a numerous public]. The manager thereupon sent the clown, who was already dressed and made-up for the performance, into the neighboring villageto fetch help. … The clown hurried into the village and requested the inhabitants to come as quickly as possible to the blazing circus and help to put the fire out. But the villagers took the clown’s shouts simply for an excellent piece of advertising, meant to attract as many people as possible to the performance; they applauded the clown and laughed till they cried.1 Kierkegaard’s vignette of the clown and the fire was related by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his Introduction to Christianity as an attempt to elucidate the role of the Church in a modern society. This metaphor offers a useful and lively starting point for an exploration of the nature of political theology – the concern of this essay. The implications are clear enough: the beleaguered clown, with his futile warnings, offers an admonitory tale for a Church endeavouring to deliver on its prophetic mission in the world. Theology, it could be concluded, risks misapprehension, ridicule, and even destruction by its engagement with the unheeding world of the polis. Ratzinger, in relating this tale, acknowledged its limitations. It was, he admitted, too simplistic and too pessimistic a reading of the Church’s role in society. The communication and dissemination of faith today cannot be merely the interaction of an omniscient prophet with a hopelessly ignorant multitude. Something more of a personal encounter is at stake, and something more profound than a change of clothes is required. Likewise, a definition of political theology cannot proceed on the basis that theology is anti-political, that dialogue with the world of the polis is doomed to failure, ridicule and distortion. Neither, this essay will argue, can theology afford to consider itself apolitical: above and beyond the everyday human concerns that make up political life. Proceeding on the basis that interaction between the theological and the political is too [End Page 185] important to abandon, this essay will undertake to explore the exact nature of that interaction – named political theology. This exploration will proceed by an investigation of three trials of particular historical, political, and religious significance: Antigone, Socrates and Jesus Christ. The work of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt will act as a reference point throughout. Arendt casts doubt on whether either side of the political/theological divide can ever be willing or able to speak to the other on their terms. Politics, it is supposed, cannot afford to entertain the absolute truths that make a mockery of the ever-changing political power struggle. Theology, meanwhile, cannot enter the political marketplace without compromising on its own convictions and risking the misapprehension, ridicule and destruction of Kierkegaard’s tale. Section One of this essay will test this hypothesis against the ancient trials of Antigone and Socrates. These trials will emerge as a fateful rupture of the old order in which the political and theological life of the state were one and the same. The religious and philosophical convictions of Antigone and Socrates, pursued even to the point of death, marked a high-profile challenge to the classical precept that to be a pious human, a good human, and a good citizen were one and the same thing. From the convicted stand of these two figures emerged the very premise of political theology: that the polis would have to reckon with individuals and communities whose beliefs lay outside the boundaries of the political order. The three trials are confined to their own historical and literary contexts. However, all three can be interpreted in the political-theological tradition of ‘Kairos moments’,2 moments of crisis, of truth, out of which emerges some decisive action. As Section Two will demonstrate, Jesus’ own trial is history’s ultimate Kairos moment. In his encounter with Pilate and the Jews, Jesus’s heavenly kingdom is drawn into sharp contrast with the earthly kingdom at whose hands he is put to death. In these moments, Pilate’s fateful remark, ‘Truth, what is...