Critical Theology Research Articles

FEDERALISM, SUBSIDIARITY, AND VOTING RIGHTS: CRITIQUING THESHELBY COUNTYDECISION THROUGH JOHANNES ALTHUSIUS AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

AbstractThis article develops a legal and theological critique of theShelby County, Alabama v. Holderdecision that dismantled portions of the Voting Rights Act. Defending the Voting Rights Act in light of four basic features of voting rights—access, participation, empowerment, and expression of conscience—I refute theShelbydecision in terms of its oversimplified notions of discrimination and its overly narrow construal of federalism as state sovereignty and equality. I draw upon Catholic social teaching's subsidiarity and Johannes Althusius's federalism to defend the individual and communal dimensions of voting rights. I examine post-Shelbydevelopments, including voter-identification laws, and I argue that such laws are unfounded and have deleterious effects. I conclude by offering modest recommendations for a post-Shelbyworld, including continued roles for Congress and the Department of Justice, the use of intermediary organizations, and the rescinding of felon disenfranchisement laws.

There is only one Church! Albert Geyser’s ecclesiology in Delayed Action

A.S. (Albert) Geyser was professor of New Testament at the University of Pretoria from 1946 to 1961, when he accepted an appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was one of the most active and outspoken critics of apartheid and played a leading role in the establishment of the Christian Institute and the appointment of Beyers Naude as the first director of the Institute. However, Geyser received very little attention either in church history or in the history of South Africa. This contribution, presented as the Third A.S. Geyser Commemorative Lecture at the University of Pretoria, reflects on Geyser’s ecclesiology. It is quite remarkable that Geyser chose ecclesiology as point of entry into the discourse on apartheid. He engaged in fundamental theological criticism of segregation in church and state based on his understanding of the unity of the church in Christ and a humanity unified under the kingship of Christ.

Between a Saint and a Phenomenologist: Hart’s Theological Criticism of Marion

In 2013, the first reader of Jean-Luc Marion’s works appeared, Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings, meticulously edited by his friend and colleague Kevin Hart. Yet, if the appearance of volume marked Marion’s status as France’s most influential living philosopher, Hart’s Kingdoms of God marks the beginning of a systematic theology long in the making. In addition to serving as the prologemenon to his planned systematics, the work also serves to differentiate Hart’s phenomenological theology from Marion’s phenomenology of revelation and doctrine of revelation through the rendering of what Hart calls the basilaic reduction, on the basis of which Hart builds a twofold theological criticism of Marion. He first criticizes Marion’s claim that revelation can gain phenomenological status like ordinary phenomena, and second contests the notion that revelation is always characterized by a saturation that bedazzles its receiver. I explore each thinker’s approach to the relationship between philosophy and theology, using their engagements with the works of Jacques Derrida and Karl Barth as points of comparison in order to contextualize Hart’s theological criticisms of Marion. I conclude by arguing that Hart’s, rather than Marion’s, approach to the relationship between philosophy and theology corresponds to the core concerns of the second generation of the “theological turn” of French phenomenology.

Capitalism and the Fall of Market Morality: How Piketty, Sandel, and the Skidelskys Vindicate R. H. Tawney's Economic Ethic

This article reappraises the thought of the British economic historian, writer on political economy, Christian socialist, and great intellectual of the Labour Party, R. H. Tawney on market morality. It extracts and synthesizes moral insights from Tawney's two most influential books Religion and the Rise of Capitalism and Equality in order to present his economic ethic, its political implications, and Christian theological roots. Tawney's ethic, which holds that market morality, social ethics, and politics are inseparably linked, is then evaluated in the light of contemporary economists and philosophers, including Thomas Piketty, Michael Sandel, Robert and Edward Skidelsky, and Harry Frankfurt. Tawney's ideas are found to be insightful and useful, particularly in linking unrestrained capitalism with inequality, exploring capitalism's opposition to market morality, finding synergies between theological and secular humanist critiques of capitalism, and in addressing criticisms of the moral significance of equality itself.

The theological anthropology of Simon Maimela: Democratisation of power and being human in relationship

The lacuna around race in (white) Christian theological anthropology has often been pointed out. The canon of academic systematic theology seldom reflects on the implication of modern race and racism for our theological anthropologies and, therefore, fails to provide adequate resources for dealing with one of the most fundamental problems of modern theological anthropology � that the modern human was conceived through a white racial lens. Black theology, in its various streams, has responded with a theological anthropology that consciously disrupted a modern anthropology which thought of �man� as white (and male). This article analyses the sustained work around theological anthropology of South African Black Theologian Simon Maimela. Maimela over a number of years attempted to articulate the theological problem of white anthropology, or the anthropological problem of white theology, in South Africa. Two dominant pillars are identified in Maimela�s theological anthropology and these are connected to the influence of Black theology and African theology on his work, and his attempt at drawing these traditions together. Maimela�s theological critique on whiteness will be discussed and key contemporary implications noted.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: While the article is most explicitly situated in the discipline of systematic theology, it challenges dominant narratives on what the theological problem with apartheid was, which also has implications for the broader fields of whiteness studies and critical race studies in South Africa.

Post-Prostanstanism: Contemporary Exclusions, Critical Theology and Reformation 500 in the Context of the Phenomenon of the "Emerging Church"

Post-Prostanstanism: Contemporary Exclusions, Critical Theology and Reformation 500 in the Context of the Phenomenon of the "Emerging Church"

William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson. Theology without Borders: An Introduction to Global Conversations Robert S. Heaney. From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of John S. Mbiti and Jesse N. K. Mugambi

William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson. Theology without Borders: An Introduction to Global Conversations Robert S. Heaney. From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of John S. Mbiti and Jesse N. K. Mugambi

Humility: Empirical Psychological Research in Dialogue with Practical Theology – Part II

Abstract This article reports on the current status and key findings of a growing body of empirical research on humility; argues for further interdisciplinary, collaborative research between empirical psychology and practical theology; and outlines several generative future research trajectories. Scientific studies of humility could be quite relevant to practical theology, particularly informing research on spiritual formation, intercultural competence, theological education, leadership development, and clinical care. At the same time, we argue for increased attention to theology and spirituality in psychological research on humility, particularly given the strong role of religious and spiritual traditions/communities in promoting humility as a virtue and recent feminist practical theological critiques of humility constructions. Engagement between social scientists and theologians enables sharper reflection upon the moral values implicit in the expanding body of empirical research on humility. Such collaborative, interdisciplinary work is essential in shaping research-based interventions in clinical and religious practice.

Political Philology

Written at the height of the Greek/German economic standoff of July 2015, this review article finds in Stathis Gourgouris's Lessons in Secular Criticism a powerful critique of some of the legacies of Europe's attachment to Greece as well as a reactivation of some of its potentials. Arguing for a newly articulated referentiality between the classical tradition and the streets of contemporary Athens, Gourgouris provides a kind of political philology, a sense of every generation's potential emancipatory activation of language. Political philology might be understood to operate as a frontal critique of political theology and partner to the secular humanism proposed by Edward Said. The political and aesthetic activation of secular criticism involves a practical poetics as well as a critique of the conceits of the postsecular, of the notion of a political theology, and the claims of heteronomy.

What kind of person is the state? The pilgrim as a processual metaphor beyond the Leviathan

Based on the debates on metaphors in IR and on the debate about Wendt’s claim that ‘States are persons, too’ (1999/2004), this paper discusses what kind of person we can imagine when we talk about states and other actors of world politics. Following approaches like Jackson’s (2004) suggestion of ‘personation’, Kustermans’ (2011) argument for states as citizens, Luoma-aho’s (2009, 2012) critique of the political theology of the divine state, and Drulak’s (2006) take on the metaphors of motion in the EU discourse, the paper draws on religious semantics to introduce the pilgrim as a new processual metaphor for actors. The metaphor of the homo viator is brought into the debates of constructivism to qualify the homo sociologicus for Aristotelian constructivism in contrast to the legacy of the homo economicus and the Leviathan. The EU serves as a test of the analytical validity of the pilgrimage metaphor.

Bakunin i Feuerbach o naturalizmie

In the article, Feuerbach’s naturalism is analyzed and compared with Bakunin’s thought. Unlike Bakunin, Feuerbach suggests a distinction between the natural and the human. He excludes human activity and thought from the natural realm, and implies that while man is the product of nature and is dependent on it, he is somehow distinct from it and merely enclosed by it. Thus, despite Feuerbach’s naturalism, a certain dualism persists — a dualism Bakunin was to reject. Feuerbach’s political ideas are essentially Hegelian, that is, statist, and Bakunin has nothing but contempt for such a position. Feuerbach uncovers the ground of religious authority and establishes, at least provisionally, the relation between religious authority — divine and ecclesiastical — and political authority. Bakunin would maintain, however, that Feuerbach — following Hegel — misunderstands or mystifies political authority in “rationalizing” it, and this mystification of political authority is something Bakunin deplores. This mystification occurs with the claim that the State exists over and above “the strictly political state” as “the actuality of the ethical Idea”, that is, as an ethical community, or as “the actuality of concrete freedom”. The notion that the political and the ethical are in any way related, that the State is anything other than political, or that the State is the domain of concrete freedom, is unacceptable to Bakunin. While Feuerbach’s achievement lies, therefore, in exposing the mystification of religious authority, Bakunin’s lies in exposing the mystification of political authority and, by extension, scientific authority. As such Bakunin’s thought represents the culmination of the Left Hegelian project. Among all the proponents of this project (such as Bruno Bauer, Ruge, and Marx) Bakunin was the only one to hold that just as the conclusion of the critique of theology is anti-theologistic, that is, naturalistic and atheistic, so the conclusion of the critique of politics is anti-political, that is, anarchistic. Bakunin is the sole Left Hegelian to bring the project to its logical conclusion.

From a Neo-Patristic Legacy of Georges Florovsky to the Radical Theological Commitment in the Dialogue with Science

The article discusses the possible ways of the dialogue between science and theology in the context of modern atheism and secularism. It is argued that the dialogue cannot be symmetric and that the task of a theological critique of secularism is extended to the critical analysis of modern scientific theories in the context of existential problems of humankind, as well as of any particular person. As a matter of a historical precedent one discusses an idea of a neopatristic synthesis in theology advanced by a famous Russian philosopher and theologian Fr. George Florovsky. The paper discusses a possibility of extending of a neopatristic ethos towards the dialogue between theology and science. One then accentuates the main problems of the dialogue such as the centrality of human person and primacy of existential faith as being the basis for a scientific creativity. Any tension between theology and science is destined to disappear if they both are seen as flourishing from the same human experience of existence-communion. Science thus cannot be detached from theology and it is in a complex with theology that it can be properly understood and treated.

“Playing Hide-and-Seek with the Frosty Monster”

Abstract This essay traces the major contentions of Postmodern theology and analyzes Paul Tillich’s theological concepts and demonstrates that his theology is still relevant in the ongoing debate in current religious philosophy. Analyzing the onto-theological concerns of Heidegger, Jean-Luc Marion’s comparison of the concepts of icon, idol and the gift, as well the ethics of Levinas, Tillich’s concept of the “Unconditioned” can be interpreted as a bridge between modernity and postmodernity. In addition, Tillich’s notions of the “Protestant Principle” and the “Gestalt of grace” are reminders that his theological critiques parallel the contemporary concerns of the limitations of human concepts of God.

From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of John S. Mbiti and Jesse N.K. Mugambi, written by Robert S. Heaney

From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of John S. Mbiti and Jesse N.K. Mugambi, written by Robert S. Heaney

Post-Racial, Post-Apocalyptic Love: Octavia Butler as Political Theologian

The African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler (1947–2006) wrote explicitly about the relationship between religion and politics in her books Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998). On the surface, Butler dramatizes the catastrophes that she anticipates will result from an alignment between American evangelicalism and neoliberalism, including climate change, mass incarceration, totalitarian politics, and corporate capture of political institutions. In her pair of novels, Butler proposes New Age spirituality aligned with community-based, ecology-minded politics as a necessary response. I argue that Butler's attempt to make a literary intervention in political theological critique ultimately fails because it grows out of unacknowledged commitments to the same neoliberal cultural forces that it ostensibly rejects. This failure is particularly evident when we focus on how race and love are represented in Butler's work.

Muhammad Iqbal, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy

Purohit's essay discusses the polemical writings of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) against Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), the founder of the Ahmadi movement. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's vision of Islam was in many ways similar to Iqbal's: both figures were modernist and promoted renewal and reform through the idea of Muslim unity. However, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's religious authority was charismatic: he was not only recognized as a mujaddid (renewer) but also claimed to be the masih-i-mawud (promised messiah). This article analyzes the arguments through which Iqbal denounced Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's religious authority and branded his teachings heretical. Using the work of sociologists such as Georg Simmel and Pierre Bourdieu, this piece reflects on the idea of heresy as a sociological rather than theological phenomenon—thereby calling into question entrenched theological critiques of the Ahmadis. The intra-Muslim criticisms against the Ahmadis that continue today must be examined, Purohit argues, in light of the modernist polemic against Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, exemplified in the writings of Iqbal.

Refreshing Philology: James Barr, Supersessionism, and the State of Biblical Words

This article considers the legacy of James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language. Ideally, his criticisms of theology’s use of philology would have been assimilated already into the field. But the kinds of abuses that Barr so clearly identified and critiqued are still commonly found. As a way of exploring this state of affairs, the case of μετάνοια (“repentance”) in New Testament studies is taken up in the first part of this article. The second part of the article considers the ways in which Barr’s thoroughgoing critique of its specious appropriation for theology has left many justifiably skittish about employing it to any significant effect and has contributed, perhaps, to a sense that ongoing engagement with the original languages of biblical literature is not a necessity and, certainly, not an avenue to creative scholarship. Examples will be adduced from biblical Hebrew ידע (“know”), לב (“heart”), and אהב (“love”) for how we might approach language and its deployment as a way of engaging difference, in this case, in and through ancient Israelite thinking about “mind” and “emotions.” The article concludes with the suggestion that we might move the practice of philology forward in biblical studies by attending more fully to the positionality of its practitioners. In particular, what emerges throughout the study is the dominance of a certain interiorizing language of the self, whereby biblical Hebrew terms are made to conform to a modern dichotomy of mind and body.

A Reflection on the Question of God from the Perspective of Contextual Theology

Contemporary Theology of God faces many challenges. Secularism, which means the retreat of religion from the public space and the decline in religious belief, atheism that denies the existence of God, agnosticism, which focuses on the impossibility of knowledge of God, and materialistic hedonism, which stresses the pursuit of materialistic achievement and the realization of desires, have made people far away from the concern for God. The traditional theological discourses about God, which was mainly based upon metaphysical thoughts, are becoming irrelevant to contemporary thoughtful people. This new awareness of the conditions of God-talk calls for a new understanding of God in a different way. In response, contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians try to construct in a new way their discourses about God from the perspective of post-metaphysics. They stress not only reason but also emotion in their doing theology. They try to recover experience as an integral element in doing theology and stress the centrality of experience in understanding God. They focus on the limitation of human language for describing God, and are concerned with the metaphorical, analogical, symbolical characteristic of religious language. Contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians focus not on the existence of God but on the identity of God. They stress God’s powerlessness or kenosis. They reject a sovereign God in favor of a suffering God. God is not the immutable, all-powerful, completed perfection Christianity has often worshipped. God is an ineffable mystery, weak God, and the hidden-revealed God of history. They attempt to think in a new way about and imagine God in the face of ideological distortions of the image of God. It is the healthy role of critical theology to free the distorted images of God. And then, how do we speak about God in our context? What attribute of God do we stress in our context? To answer the questions, first of all we have to analyze our contexts. But until now we do not analyze properly our contexts, and we do not have our own theology to perform the task. The questions are still in progress.

Book Review: Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy

Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy. By Jacob Holsinger Sherman. Emerging Scholars. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2014. xiii + 283 pp. $39.00 (paper).In this provocative and erudite study, Jacob Sherman seeks to recover ancient and medieval Christian contemplative philosophy. In contrast to mainstream modern philosophical methodologies, Christian contemplative philosophy integrates intellectual theory with a rich praxis of contemplation, of theoria. Theoria involves delight and self-transformation in the presence of the divine and includes the whole life of passionate devotion, prayer, study, devotion, and charity. Contemplative philosophy affirms the intellect, the mutual transformation of both and reason. As Nicholas of Cusa declared in the fifteenth century, The mind without cannot understand; the mind without intelligence cannot love (p. 49). Ultimately, Sherman poses a deeply significant question: Is such a holistic union of philosophy and contemplation, of thinking and thanking (p. ix) viable in our present philosophical and theological world (pp. 32-33)?In the introduction, Sherman traces the historical roots of contemplative philosophy in both ancient pagan and Christian philosophy. Of crucial importance to his analysis is the impact of the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection on both the path and the goal of the contemplative mind. Following 2 Peter 1:4, ancient church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and Augustine revolutionized the Platonic vision of ascent by acknowledging that theosis, or participation in the divine nature, is possible only because of the transforming power of divine grace. In the words of Athanasius, The Son of became human in order that we might become God (p. 16). For Christian thinkers in this contemplative tradition, the intellectual pursuit of wisdom, transformed and enriched by divine grace and contemplative practices, is the culmination of the philosophical life, not its elimination.In chapter 1, Sherman examines forms of contemporary philosophy of religion that, for all their insight, fail to achieve the richness and depth of the contemplative philosophical tradition. He considers, among other contributions, the work of the analytic philosopher William Alston and that of the continental thinker Jean-Luc Marion. While affirming Alston s rigor and insight in defending the rationality of belief in God, Sherman argues that Alston overlooks the role of contemplative practices in transforming our most basic philosophical intuitions and beliefs. Sherman then offers a sensitive and probing critique of the phenomenological theology of Marion. Unfortunately, given Marions axiomatic conviction of the death of all metaphysics, his theology, saturated with a mysticism of ineffability, lacks any coherent, even approximate language or clarity with which to speak of or yearn to commune with a personal God. In their veiy different ways, argues Sherman, Alston and Marion provide us with works of elegance and brilliance that fail to understand the holistic nature of the adorative intellect and to appreciate its superior philosophical potential.By way of contrast, chapters 2 and 3 present two compelling examples of contemplative philosophy, Anselm s Proslogion and Nicholas of Cusas De Visione Dei. Sherman argues brilliantly that the fundamental argumentum of the Proslogion is not merely an intellectual construction that hinges on the much-debated ontological argument. …

Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology Joseph C. Mudd

Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology <i>Joseph C. Mudd</i>