Political Theology: The Continental Shift (published by Equinox)

I am excited about editing a special issue for the Equinox journal, Political Theology . The journal takes seriously the thesis that Political Theology need not submit to Carl Schmitt's anti-Christian distinction between friend and enemy, but is rather radically open to debate; indeed this issue opens the doors of debate about the very nature of Political Theology post Schmitt. Not only does Schmitt's political theology not make sense in our world today, but this issue argues that it never fully made sense ever! Schmitt's indebtedness to Hobbesian demonic version of what constitutes the theoretical space called "the sovereign" needs to be rejected because of its appeal to un-checked violence in the name of state security. By contrast, this issue asks us to re-think the very nature of political theology not in the guise of state security vis-a-vis its threat/enemy etc., but rather by the radical notion of love, of belonging (prior to autonomy), of risk! Thus the thesis of this issue is that there is no one version that defines Political Theology as such, but a debate that resists a vulgar reduction down to a singular and absolutist view of "the Political" or "the Theological". Political Theology is thus an inherently dynamic process and not a status boring reruns of the same episode called "the State".

In this issue we have contributions from some of the most brilliant philosophers, theologians, and critics alive today.


Toni Negri contributes a piece he wrote in prison in 1999 on Jacob Taubes's view of Political Theology.

The Article is entitled: "The Eclipse of Eschatology: Conversing with Taubes’s Messianism and the Common Body" and adds to the already very active debate between Taubes and Schmitt on the meaning of St. Paul and Political Theology

Mary-Jane Rubenstein, considered by some to be the best theorist on religion in her generation challenges the very logic of Christianity and how this relates to the political in our time. Her essay is entitled, "Capital Shares: The Way Back into the With of Christianity."

Clayton Crockett & Jacques Derrida's brilliant student, Catherine Malabou team up to discuss the need to re-think the nature of theology and its future in order to outthink the deadlocks of capitalist ideologies (and its supplement fundamentalism). Their article entitled, "Plasticity and the Future of Philosophy and Theology" extends Crockett and Malabou's thinking beyond Christian orthodox versions of theology and politics.

Dan Bell's article "The Fragile Brilliance of Glass: Empire, Multitude, and the Coming Community" extends his radical version of theology by engaging Negri's political ontology.

Ken Reinhard contributes an article called "There is Something of One (God): Lacan and Political Theology" which show without a doubt that Lacan (and psychoanalysis) is a leading actor in the new political theology debate.

Chad Pecknold's essay "Migrations of the Host: Fugitive Democracy and the Corpus Mysticum" brings the brilliance of Sheldon Wolin into the heart of the debate.

And if that were not enough, we have another round of the Zizek/Milbank debate. In two never before published pieces, this issue will print the most intense moments of the Zizek/Milbank debate, which I edited for The MIT Press released earlier this year.

Milbank picks up the debate where it left off... He continues the debate with the title:

"Without Heaven there is only Hell on Earth: 15 verdicts on Zizek’s response"

and Zizek's responds with: "An Atheist Wager" which puts the debate in overdrive.


Here is a foretaste: (please do not distribute or reproduce the following):

Milbank:

2. Moreover, Zize also confirms my thesis that without a realist belief in a transcendent God and heaven, the ontological ground for hope for a transformed human future is removed. This is shown in the fact that the consequence of removing the ‘naively’ dramatic character of Orthodox Christianity – whereby one really proceeds from cross to resurrection, from sorrow to joy, from tragedy to resolution, from life to death – is that the significance of human historicity is abolished also. Hence Zizek in his own way proclaims an Hegelian ‘end of history’ by saying that the hell of human history cannot be transformed, but can nevertheless be seen from an altogether different and ‘rosier’ perspective which does not remove, entirely overlaps with and yet does not touch its crucified aspect.


Zizek:

The only appropriate way for me to conclude the exchange is to add a footnote on Pascal’s notion of wager, confronting (Milbank’s) theist wager and (my) atheist wager. The first thing that strikes the eye is that Pascal rejects all attempts to demonstrate the existence of God: he concedes that "we do not know if He is," so he seeks to provide prudential reasons for believing in God: we should wager that God exists because it is the best bet:


In the Book Review section we will have reviews of The Monstrosity of Christ, Marcus Pound's book on Zizek: A (Very) Critical Introduction, a review of William Connolly's book Capitalism and Christianity: American Style by Dan Barber (with a response by Connolly) and a roundtable discussion by Alex Andrews, Sarah Azaransky, and Floyd Dunphy on Charles Taylor's book A Secular Age.