Introducing Radical Political Theology

During the last decade the dominant post-modern forms of philosophy have been partially overturned.  The limitations of the linguistic turn and the emphasis on the ‘Other’ have been exposed by a small group of, mostly, continental philosophers. These include, on the one hand, members of the ‘speculative realist’ project such as Graham Harman, Ray Brassier and Quentin Meillassoux who argue for a return to realist philosophy prior to Kant and, most significantly for this seminar, the work of Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek and others whose destruction of postmodern philosophy,  deconstruction of liberal politics and engagement with the Christian religion on a materialist basis may provide us with a platform on which to build a radical political theology.   

This seminar is not a consequence of the postmodernist construct known as the ‘return of religion’, and so does not set out to engage with Public or recent developments in ‘Political Theology’ as such (although a recent conference at the University of Chester hosted by the Centre for Faiths and Public Policy explored the possible outcomes of a meeting between Speculative Philosophy, public policy and Christian practice, the  results of which are published in Political Theology Vol 13 No. 2 (2012)).

Nor do we wish to pursue the debates developed by the coming together of Anglicanism and postmodernist philosophy known as ‘Radical Orthodoxy’ which insists on the primacy of the traditional Christian narrative and seeks to revive the imperial politics of ‘Christendom’.

We do hope to engage with the many disciplines of Contextual Theology and the new debates within Liberation Theology to help formulate a practical politico-theological response to some of the more esoteric debates briefly outlined above. 

In this seminar, we aim to explore the interface between the universal, radical, emancipatory project (however one wishes to name it), the new philosophy and elements of the Christian religion.  Consequently, we invite participants to make contributions outside the thought-framework of liberalism, the nation-state, the capitalist imperium or conservative theocracy - the predominant ideologies of our time - and assist in the project of developing a radical Christian political theology that will usefully challenge them.   

Post by James Bullock