ABSTRACT This article introduces the special issue “Marx and Revolution” and situates its contributions at the intersection of Marxism, political theology, and the question of revolution. It traces how Karl Marx's critique of religion developed into a critique of the modern state and political economy, and reconstructs the different figures of revolution that emerged from this trajectory. The article then introduces the contributions collected in the first part of the special issue, showing how they engage questions of emancipation, historical possibility, political theology, and revolutionary transformation from a range of Marxist and critical perspectives.

ABSTRACT Although Israel justifies the mass violence it unleashed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, as necessary for ensuring the security of its citizens, a closer examination of Israeli society reveals a mindset that extends beyond the desire for safety—one that might be characterized as genuine excitement and elation. This indicates that Israel's significant casualties have not prompted a renewed appreciation for the value of life, but rather enthusiasm for war. In attributing value to that which transcends life, this mindset embodies a distinct theological dimension. In this article, I argue that the political theology characterizing a significant part of Israeli society views war not only as a means to an external end that follow total victory, but as a good in itself. I show that for many Israelis victory is not a goal to be achieved through war—rather, war itself is the goal, war is the ultimate victory.

ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of B.R. Ambedkar’s 1935 Yeola Declaration on Baptist churches in princely Hyderabad, particularly in Gadwal Samasthan. The Declaration’s call for Dalits to convert outside the Hindu fold marked a political rupture with Brahmanical sovereignty and reimagined religion as a site of political action. Drawing on Ambedkar’s contemporaneous writings on Christianity, this article shows how his social action paradigm enabled a critique of the political inaction embedded in dominant Protestant theological frameworks. It traces how the Declaration inspired Dalit mass conversions and spurred Dalit Christian leaders to challenge Protestant missiology and reframe theology through anti-caste praxis. Using the framework of “Ambedkarite Dialectics,” the article argues that the religious imaginaries sparked by the Yeola Declaration shaped political movements and contributed significantly to the emergence of Dalit theology, in colonial and postcolonial India, marking a key chapter in the global history of political theology.

ABSTRACT Since Hamas's attack on October 7th, 2023, the Israeli narrative was based on three main images that created its self-consciousness as the civilized victim – Palestinians as barbarians, or “human animals”; Palestinians as Antisemites, or Nazis, and Palestinians as the biblical archetype of the aggressor, Amalek. It was the decontextualization of Hamas's violence and its representation as non-political, a priori theological (Muslim) violence that stood at the foundations of the ability to instrumentalize the catastrophe as a tool to fulfill settler-colonial aspirations, and reflected in the sacralization of military power. This article analyzes the crystallization of this political theology of sacred cruelty and its roots. Instead of simply relating to this political theology through the vague term of “messianism,” it seeks to analyze what this messianism looks like, or which present and future it pictures. It seeks to challenge the notion of religious messianic violence, which became a prominent lens through which both Hamas's attack and Israel's genocide were discussed.

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper examines the intersections of decolonial political theology and the decolonization of higher education, arguing that Enrique Dussel’s liberation theology and pedagogics provide a critical framework for productively addressing the tensions arising from essentialist binaries and rigid secular framings in decolonial discourse. Specifically, the paper explores how theological and spiritual imaginaries – particularly liberation theology and Indigenous spiritual epistemologies – shape struggles against coloniality. Drawing on Dussel’s critique of Eurocentric political theology, the paper highlights how his work reconfigures decoloniality as an ethical and political process grounded in solidarity and the lived experiences of the oppressed. The paper contends that discussions on the decolonization of higher education can benefit from engaging with the tensions and contradictions embedded in different understandings of decolonization. By drawing on insights from Dussel’s liberation theology and pedagogics, the paper contributes to a more nuanced and expansive conceptualization of decolonization in higher education.

Theodore R. Weber, founding member and past president of the Society of Christian Ethics, developed a distinctive political theology based on John Wesley’s soteriology. Weber argued that a fully developed concept of the political image of God, which humans reflect in their social and institutional contexts, would move beyond the individualistic focus of Wesley’s ordo salutis, allowing Wesleyans a shared language to talk about political institutions and social ethics distinct from the order of preservation and order of creation approaches. Weber’s understanding of political sanctification, in which individuals and institutions contribute to God’s redemptive work of reconciliation, is a unique contribution to political theology. Weber argued that politics is part of discipleship but cautioned against attempts to Christianize society. His Wesleyan political theology provides parameters for faithful political action in refuting and working against a Christian Nationalist agenda in the United States of America. This article offers an appraisal of Weber’s Wesleyan political theology through an extensive review of his writings on the topic. The method engages in close textual readings of Weber’s publications, providing a clear synthesis of the major themes in his scholarly writings spanning over four decades. The purpose is to provide a cogent overview of Weber’s perspective and approach so that his legacy of writings may continue to inform new scholarly audiences.

In an article published in 1965, Carl Schmitt discusses political theology in the context of Protestant legal theories and calls for more political theological reflection on Calvinist thought. In this paper, I intend to answer Schmitt’s call and adopt his political theological method as a ‘sociology of juristic concepts’, and apply it to the concept of ‘sphere sovereignty’ that was developed by Dutch Neo-Calvinist thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In contrast to the decisionist concept of sovereignty that Schmitt derived from Catholic authors, the Neo-Calvinist concept of sphere sovereignty is intended to limit the power of the sovereign and secure the independence of other institutions, primarily that of the church. A political theology of sphere sovereignty simultaneously contributes to Max Weber’s study of Calvinist economic influence on modernity. On this basis, some preliminary conclusions are provided about the relationship between Calvinism and secular modernity.

ABSTRACT This article conceptualizes the Shia clerical institution (al-ḥawza al-ʿilmiyya) as a resilient, transnational non-state authority that has shaped Shia political theology and practice. Far from an exclusively theological guild, it operates as a normative—political order whose apex, the marjaʿiyya (source of emulation), derives legitimacy from recognized ijtihād, taqlīd, and authoritative fatwas rather than state sanction. Bringing New Institutionalism, Religious Transnationalism, and Critical Geopolitics into conversation, the article theorizes the clerical establishment as an institutionalized religious transnational sustained by four pillars: fatwa politics, strategic political engagement, network-based legitimacy forged through pedagogical and representative ties, and a self-financing religious economy based on khums, zakāt, awqāf, and diaspora contributions. Methodologically, it uses process tracing of the pre-revolutionary period, with Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s leadership (1945–1961) treated as a critical juncture. The case shows how the clerical establishment developed equivalents to state roles in law, representation, and welfare, yet preserved its autonomy through calibrated cooperation, competition, and withdrawal vis-à-vis political regimes. In so doing, it projected authority across multiple regions and diasporas without territorial sovereignty or coercive power—an instance of authority without territory. The article thereby challenges state-centric assumptions in International Relations and offers a framework for analysing long-lived religious authorities in global politics.

ABSTRACT This article argues that the devatas of Kinnaur function as sovereign, non-human political agents whose agency is ritually and materially constituted, forming a living political theology that not only endures within but actively reshapes modern democratic governance. It examines how divine sovereignty is agentially produced through ritual practice, kinship, territoriality and institutional negotiation, revealing the devata system as an adaptive administrative formation rather than a mere pre-modern order. By analysing mythology, oral tradition and ritual performance as constitutive, rather than representational, forms of history, the study shows how territorial sovereignty, social hierarchy and moral order are continuously generated. Attention to the material mediation of divine authority further exposes how power is contested and unevenly reproduced across caste, gender and patronage structures. This article’s central contribution lies in conceptualising devata agency as a coexistent and dynamic modality of governance within democratic modernity.

Abstract The paper analyzes the structural unity between Wissenschaftslehre and Staatslehre in Fichte’s late works, emphasizing their convergence in a philosophical project that integrates speculative insight and political transformation. The multiplicity of expositions of the Wissenschaftslehre is interpreted as an essential feature of its identity, grounded in the dynamic self-manifestation of the Absolute through consciousness. Philosophical insight ( Einsicht ) becomes the medium through which theory is transfigured into life and action. The Staatslehre introduces Christ as the absolute historical fact that enables a shift from a pre-modern political theology based on miracles and coercion to a post-Christian order grounded in freedom and rational self-determination. Sovereignty, traditionally legitimized by revelation or contract, is reconfigured as the unfolding of transcendental intelligence within a community. The dissolution of theological–political authority culminates in a constitutional model in which reason itself governs. In this framework, the Wissenschaftslehre emerges as both speculative doctrine and political constitution, replacing faith with self-conscious insight as the foundation of political legitimacy.

ABSTRACT The current Balkan political theology primarily deals with the criticism and deconstruction of strongly rooted religion-national and religio-ethnic configurations in the region. The past decade saw many publications that primarily deal with this topic. However, notwithstanding the rootedness of the connection of ethnic and religious identities, the future task of political theology in the Balkans should be a constructive attempt to overcome the ethnic-religious bond through the development of theology that focuses on solidarity. In this paper, we aim to do that by focusing on social movements and campaigns that do not neglect ethnic and national identities but offer an exit from the consequences of that linkage, such as religious nationalism.

This issue of the American Journal of Islam and Society comprises three research articles that, taken together, explore the many ethical, historical, and conceptual resources through which Muslim thinkers and communities negotiate modernity, power, and knowledge across a wide range of diverse contexts. Whilst the articles differ in method and focus, ranging from decolonial philosophy and social history to political theology and metaphysical reflection, they are united by a shared concern with mediation: between spirit and politics, memory and archive, reform and tradition, and human and more-than-human worlds. Alongside these research articles, the issue also includes a wide-ranging selection of book reviews that include reviews of works discussing covenantal ethics in Islam, Islamic media and revolutionary subjectivities in Egypt, comparative theology and missionary encounters, and much more besides. It also includes a forum piece discussing Filip Ćorlukić’s Hermeneutics and Exegesis in his Translation of the Qurʾān and an in memoriam obituary of Dr. M. Yaqub Mirza (1946-2025) written by his son, Dr. Younus Y. Mirza.

This article analyzes the democratic crisis in Latin America, focusing on the paradox of the emergence of antidemocratic voices acting from within the democratic regime and proposing some reflections on the notion of radical democracy to analyze the challenges of this context. It then examines the role played by religion in these dynamics, not only as a space of symbolic dispute, but also as an agent of political resignification. It provides a theological re-reading of democracy, in which the question of the divine is configured as a device that drives openness, conflict, and pluralization of the political space. Finally, the article considers the role of Christian universities as offering space for the re-enchantment of democratic imagination, a place of critical reflection and creative transformation in a time of political uncertainty and ethical urgency.

The article presents an analysis of the transformation of medieval legal thought on “mythical violence” into a new interpretation of law-establishing violence — into the idea of “divine violence.” The problem was introduced into the field of political theology by the German philosopher and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin in the 1920s.

John Locke and Thomas Paine represent two distinct yet related efforts to respond to the theological-political problem. Though the thought of Thomas Paine has often been juxtaposed against John Locke with respect to issues such as limited government, democratic ideals, and constitutional principles, the theological-political thought of these two early modern political thinkers has not often been connected. This essay argues that, while Paine and Locke essentially agree about the inadequacy of traditional and orthodox forms of Christianity to accommodate the needs of a modern and liberal political order, Paine deepens and radicalizes Locke’s critique of Christianity by calling not for its redefinition in accordance with Enlightenment precepts but for its complete abolition. While Locke believed that Christianity, if stripped of its dogmas and liberalized, could be made to coexist with his vision of political order, Paine insisted that any such compromises with Christianity endangered fundamental democratic and liberal principles. Deism, as Paine understood it, represented the only acceptable political theology for a modern, liberal, and democratic society. By comparing the theological and political ideas of John Locke and Thomas Paine, this essay reveals important points of continuity within the thought of these two very different early modern political theorists. And yet, by outlining Paine’s challenge not only to traditional Christianity but even to Locke’s “enlightened” conception of Christianity, this essay also raises important questions about the internal consistency of Locke’s approach to the theological-political problem. Paine’s radical critique of Christianity in all its forms—orthodox or “enlightened”—suggests the presence within early modern political thought of influential voices whose liberal political philosophy required more than merely freedom of religion but instead demanded freedom from religion itself.

ABSTRACT This article seeks to move the conversations about religions and nationalisms beyond methodological nationalism – most specifically, its conflation of the nation-state, nation, and the concept of society – to appreciate the democratizing and pluralizing force of religion-nationalism connections in civil society. After tracing the multiple iterations of methodological nationalism and its critiques across social theory, critical secularism studies, decolonial thought, and political theology, the author situates the concept of civil society with regard to György Konrád’s framework of antipolitics, which he understands as a rejection of the hegemony of state ideology as well as a constructive alternative to it. By examining the Croatian NGO Erasmus Guild and the religious-secular solidarities it fostered, the author probes the meanings of religio-national phenomenology as antipolitics – as a critique of the state nationalist politics and as a vision of ethical nationalism that steers societies toward the more expansive forms of belonging.

ABSTRACT Political theology, as a means of legitimizing power structures, persists in contemporary Liberal systems. Liberalism can be seen as a civil religion committed to supposedly universal values and ideals (e.g., human rights, democracy, rule of law) while in reality producing inequality, suppressing genuine democracy and human rights, and masking power structures and their operations. The paper focuses on what appears as a paradox: the proclaimed Liberal opposition to autocracy, authoritarianism, and colonialism, alongside Liberal elites' support for colonial rule and the concentration of virtually absolute power in a single office – of the “High Representative” in Bosnia and Herzegovina – lacking any democratic legitimacy. Liberalism turns out to be an ideology hostile both to autocracy and democracy, sacralizing private property, promoting capitalism, privileging elites, and favoring technocratic, depoliticized management over democratic deliberation. Liberalism's drive to depoliticize politics fosters recurring calls for “strong leaders,” producing authoritarian decisionism in moments of crisis.

ABSTRACT This special issue explains how political theology, as a field, needs children. One reason is that political theologies, in the world, already have children. As an example, this article shows how schools enlisted living children in producing the figure of the child. In an uncoordinated accident in fall 2001, schools across the United States and world sent gifts to the Manhattan School for Children. I argue that, using theological-nationalist ideas in circulation about American innocence and care for fellow Americans, these gifts allowed children to participate in the rapid construction of a nationalist imaginary where America was a vulnerable innocent and in need of protection through military might. They taught children whose suffering mattered. At the same time, the gifts provided a space where children could say that they were experiencing pain, as they confronted the nationalist figure of the child.

Contemporary law is considered a social science with important positivist features, this image being comforted by the technical nature of judicial procedures and codes of laws of all kinds. Although it recognizes its "relationships" with the philosophy of law and even with the political theology, current legal science prefers to make few references to these areas of reflection, considering them fictional narratives that are not relevant to the functioning of a concrete legal system. Although most branches of law are currently well anchored in the positivist paradigm, recourse to philosophy becomes necessary again when we deal with subjects such as the genesis of the legal order and the state or when the administration of justice is a judgment on competing (even contradictory) societal values. In such areas of reflection and action, law manifests itself as a philosophical approach, and in some places as an ideological one.

Abstract This article examines the poetry of Raïssa Maritain as a distinctive form of theodicy shaped by prayer, suffering, and the catastrophic violence of the twentieth century. Situating Maritain’s poetic work within the context of debates on suffering, this article places her in dialogue with Johann Baptist Metz’s concept of Leiden an Gott (‘suffering unto God’), as well as with the challenges to theodicy articulated by Elie Wiesel and Emmanuel Levinas. While Wiesel’s refusal of theology after Auschwitz and Levinas’s ethical critique of teleological accounts of suffering underscore the crisis of theodicy, Metz offers a theological response that centres on prayer as anguished address to God rather than rational explanation. I argue that Maritain’s poetry anticipates, embodies and extends this insight by functioning as a form of poetic prayer that confronts evil without aestheticising or prematurely redeeming suffering. Through close engagement with poems written before and during the Second World War, I show how Maritain’s poetic language gives voice to accusation, lament, and solidarity with the suffering other, while nonetheless holding open the possibility of redemption. In doing so, her work offers a humane poetic theodicy that both complements and critically deepens Metz’s political theology.