The Political Theology of Paul

The Political Theology of Paul PDF Author: Jacob Taubes
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804733458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This highly original interpretation of Paul by the Jewish philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes was presented in a number of lectures held in Heidelberg toward the end of his life, and was regarded by him as his "spiritual testament.” Taubes engages with classic Paul commentators, including Karl Barth, but also situates the Pauline text in the context of Freud, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, and Rosenzweig. In his distinctive argument for the apocalyptic-revolutionary potential of Romans, Taubes also takes issue with the "political theology” advanced by the conservative Catholic jurist Carl Schmitt. Taubes’s reading has been crucial for a number of interpretations of political theology and of Paul--including those of Jan Assmann and Giorgio Agamben--and it belongs to a wave of fresh considerations of Paul’s legacy (Boyarin, Lyotard, Badiou, Zîzêk). Finally, Taubes’s far-ranging lectures provide important insights into the singular experiences and views of this unconventional Jewish intellectual living in post-Holocaust Germany.

The Political Theology of Paul

The Political Theology of Paul PDF Author: Jacob Taubes
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804733458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
This highly original interpretation of Paul by the Jewish philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes was presented in a number of lectures held in Heidelberg toward the end of his life, and was regarded by him as his "spiritual testament.” Taubes engages with classic Paul commentators, including Karl Barth, but also situates the Pauline text in the context of Freud, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, and Rosenzweig. In his distinctive argument for the apocalyptic-revolutionary potential of Romans, Taubes also takes issue with the "political theology” advanced by the conservative Catholic jurist Carl Schmitt. Taubes’s reading has been crucial for a number of interpretations of political theology and of Paul--including those of Jan Assmann and Giorgio Agamben--and it belongs to a wave of fresh considerations of Paul’s legacy (Boyarin, Lyotard, Badiou, Zîzêk). Finally, Taubes’s far-ranging lectures provide important insights into the singular experiences and views of this unconventional Jewish intellectual living in post-Holocaust Germany.

Political Theology

Political Theology PDF Author: Paul W. Kahn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153414
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Annotation In a text innovative in both form and substance, Kahn forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary.

Paul's Summons to Messianic Life

Paul's Summons to Messianic Life PDF Author: L. L. Welborn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539150
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Taubes, Badiou, Agamben, i ek, Reinhard, and Santner have found in the Apostle Paul's emphasis on neighbor-love a positive paradigm for politics. By thoroughly reexamining Pauline eschatology, L. L. Welborn suggests that neighbor-love depends upon an orientation toward the messianic event, which Paul describes as the "now time" and which he imagines as "awakening." Welborn compares the Pauline dialectic of awakening to attempts by Hellenistic philosophers to rouse their contemporaries from moral lethargy and to the Marxist idea of class consciousness, emphasizing the apostle's radical spirit and moral relevance.

Hermeneutic Humility and the Political Theology of Cinema

Hermeneutic Humility and the Political Theology of Cinema PDF Author: Sean Desilets
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354702
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
This book revisits the tradition of Western religious cinema in light of scholarship on St. Paul’s political theology. The book’s subtitle derives from the account in the Book of Acts that St. Paul was temporarily blinded in the wake of his conversion on the road to Damascus. In imitation of Paul, the films on which Sean Desilets’s analysis hinges (including those of Carl-Th. Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Carlos Reygadas) place a god-blind mechanism, the camera, between themselves and the divine. Desilets calls the posture they adopt "hermeneutic humility": hermeneutic in that it interprets the world, but humble in that it pays particular—even obsessive—attention to its own limits. Though these films may not consciously reflect Pauline theology, Desilets argues that they participate in a messianic-hermeneutic tradition that runs from Paul through St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, Karl Barth, and Walter Benjamin, and which contributes significantly to contemporary discussions in poststructuralist literary theory, political theology, and religious studies. Desilets’s insightful explication of Jean-Luc Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity and Georgio Agamben’s recent work on religion makes a substantial contribution to film philosophy and emerging critical trends in the study of religion and film. This book puts forward a nuanced theoretical framework that will be useful for film scholars, students of contemporary political theology, and scholars interested in the intersections of religion and media.

Paul Among the Postliberals

Paul Among the Postliberals PDF Author: Douglas Harink
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725233347
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
"This book is changing my mind on more themes...than any publication since Hans Frei's The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative." -George LIndbeck, Yale University "Harink brings several postliberal theologians - mainly Yoder and Hauerwas - into genuine conversation with the church's original apocalyptic theologian, the Apostle Paul. The engaging result is a call for the church to return to its true vocation as an uncompromising critic of the state's omnivorous appetite for our loayalties. But that is the vocation found in the politics of the cross, in which the suffering and victorious God has redemptively invaded the captive world, thus calling into being the community that Paul speaks of as 'the new creation.'... The attentive reader of Harink's book will come away, then, with an energized hope for the whole of humanity, a hope focused on the corporate, political nature of God's apocalyptic invasion in Christ." -J. Louis Martyn, Union Theological Seminary "Sets new standards for all who dare to aspire to theological engagement with Scripture." -Michael Cartwright, University of Indianapolis "Doug Harink has knocked a hole in the artificial wall separating the theological disciplines and has established a working coalition between two scholarly enterprises--the various 'new perspectives' that seek to supplant older reformational models of interpreting Paul, and the work of various theologians who seek to subvert the established theological strategy of accommodating the gospel to the canons and criteria of modernity...A unique and highly significant contribution." -Terence L. Donaldson, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto "One of the most creative and exciting books that I have read in years. Instead of decrying the gap between theology and biblical studies, ...Harink simply closes the gap by bringing together the best in recent biblical and theological studies. In its direct reading of the biblical text, this book represents a new stage in the development of postliberal theology." -Jonathan R. Wilson, Westmont College

Saint Paul and Philosophy

Saint Paul and Philosophy PDF Author: Gert Jan van der Heiden
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110547465
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
The much-acclaimed present-day philosophical turn to the letters of Saint Paul points to a profound consonance between ancient and modern thought. Such is the bold claim of this study in which scholars from contemporary continental philosophy, new testamentary studies and ancient philosophy discuss with each other the meaning Paul's terms pistis, faith. In this volume, this theme discusses in detail the threefold relation between Paul and (1) continental thought, (2) the Graeco-Roman world, and (3) political theology. It is shown that pistis does not only concern a mode of knowing, but rather concerns the human ethos or mode of existence as a whole. Moreover, it is shown that the present-day political theological interest in Paul can be seen as an attempt to recuperate Paul’s pistis in this comprehensive sense. Finally, an important discussion concerning the specific ontological implications and background of this reinterpretation of pistis is examined by comparing the ancient ontological commitments to those of the present-day philosophers. Thus, the volume offers an insight in a crucial consonance of ancient and modern thought concerning the question of pistis in Paul while not forgetting to stipulate important differences.

Politics after Christendom

Politics after Christendom PDF Author: David VanDrunen
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310108853
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
For more than a millennium, beginning in the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians lived in societies that sought to be comprehensively Christian--ecclesiastically, economically, legally, and politically. That is to say, most Western Christians lived in Christendom. But in a gradual process beginning a few hundred years ago, Christendom weakened and finally crumbled. Today, most Christians in the world live in pluralistic political communities. And Christians themselves have very different opinions about what to make of the demise of Christendom and how to understand their status and responsibilities in a post-Christendom world. Politics After Christendom argues that Scripture leaves Christians well-equipped for living in a world such as this. Scripture gives no indication that Christians should strive to establish some version of Christendom. Instead, it prepares them to live in societies that are indifferent or hostile to Christianity, societies in which believers must live faithful lives as sojourners and exiles. Politics After Christendom explains what Scripture teaches about political community and about Christians' responsibilities within their own communities. As it pursues this task, Politics After Christendom makes use of several important theological ideas that Christian thinkers have developed over the centuries. These ideas include Augustine's Two-Cities concept, the Reformation Two-Kingdoms category, natural law, and a theology of the biblical covenants. Politics After Christendom brings these ideas together in a distinctive way to present a model for Christian political engagement. In doing so, it interacts with many important thinkers, including older theologians (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin), recent secular political theorists (e.g., Rawls, Hayek, and Dworkin), contemporary political-theologians (e.g., Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Wolterstorff), and contemporary Christian cultural commentators (e.g., MacIntyre, Hunter, and Dreher). Part 1 presents a political theology through a careful study of the biblical story, giving special attention to the covenants God has established with his creation and how these covenants inform a proper view of political community. Part 1 argues that civil governments are legitimate but penultimate, and common but not neutral. It concludes that Christians should understand themselves as sojourners and exiles in their political communities. They ought to pursue justice, peace, and excellence in these communities, but remember that these communities are temporary and thus not confuse them with the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians' ultimate citizenship is in this new-creation kingdom. Part 2 reflects on how the political theology developed in Part 1 provides Christians with a framework for thinking about perennial issues of political and legal theory. Part 2 does not set out a detailed public policy or promote a particular political ideology. Rather, it suggests how Christians might think about important social issues in a wise and theologically sound way, so that they might be better equipped to respond well to the specific controversies they face today. These issues include race, religious liberty, family, economics, justice, rights, authority, and civil resistance. After considering these matters, Part 2 concludes by reflecting on the classical liberal and conservative traditions, as well as recent challenges to them by nationalist and progressivist movements.

Saint Paul

Saint Paul PDF Author: Alain Badiou
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804744713
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
This book revisits and revises some of the most basic concepts of time in the Judeo-Christian tradition, drawing on St. Paul's writings to rethink a new kind of radical faith in truth as an event, as the advent of the incalculable, a modality that remakes the pairing religious/secular.

Political Theology and Early Modernity

Political Theology and Early Modernity PDF Author: Graham Hammill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226314979
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Political theology is a distinctly modern problem, one that takes shape in some of the most important theoretical writings of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But its origins stem from the early modern period, in medieval iconographies of sacred kinship and the critique of traditional sovereignty mounted by Hobbes and Spinoza. In this book, Graham Hammill and Julia Reinhard Lupton assemble established and emerging scholars in early modern studies to examine the role played by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature and thought in modern conceptions of political theology. Political Theology and Early Modernity explores texts by Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Milton, and others that have served as points of departure for such thinkers as Schmitt, Strauss, Benjamin, and Arendt. Written from a spectrum of positions ranging from renewed defenses of secularism to attempts to reconceive the religious character of collective life and literary experience, these essays probe moments of productive conflict, disavowal, and entanglement in politics and religion as they pass between early modern and modern scenes of thought. This stimulating collection is the first to answer not only how Renaissance and baroque literature help explain the persistence of political theology in modernity and postmodernity, but also how the reemergence of political theology as an intellectual and political problem deepens our understanding of the early modern period.--Publisher description.

The Faith of the Faithless

The Faith of the Faithless PDF Author: Simon Critchley
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844677370
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
The return to religion has perhaps become the dominant cliché of contemporary theory, which rarely offers anything more than an exaggerated echo of a political reality dominated by religious war. Somehow, the secular age seems to have been replaced by a new era, where political action flows directly from metaphysical conflict. The Faith of the Faithless asks how we might respond. Following Critchley’s Infinitely Demanding, this new book builds on its philosophical and political framework, also venturing into the questions of faith, love, religion and violence. Should we defend a version of secularism and quietly accept the slide into a form of theism—or is there another way? From Rousseau’s politics and religion to the return to St. Paul in Taubes, Agamben and Badiou, via explorations of politics and original sin in the work of Schmitt and John Gray, Critchley examines whether there can be a faith of the faithless, a belief for unbelievers. Expanding on his debate with Slavoj Žižek, Critchley concludes with a meditation on the question of violence, and the limits of non-violence.