Theology and the Political: The New Debate, sic v: 5 ([sic] Series)

"This volume is . . . . a welcome and much-needed wake-up call- if not a call to arms, then no less radically because it is a scandal to the postmodern mind, at least a call to truth and its consequences." -- Jeffrey W. Robbins * Political Theology * "This book is another `deliberate kick against the tide of the times.'" -- Stephen Webb * Insights * "The new debate referenced in this rich, lengthy, and important collection is a desperately urgent debate. . . . [T]he work itself functions as a symphony, building between and among chapters to orchestrate a complex and fruitful investigation of some of the most crucial theoretical issues we face in our contemporary world and includes some of the most influential contemporary philosophers and theologians working today." -- Clayton Crockett * Journal of the American Academy of Religion * "[T]hat there is no majority discourse in the book is to the credit of the editors for it has increased the depth and variance of the analyses presented, allowing the book to become more fully a `debate.' Though this format often leads the reader to feel as if the book is somewhat schizophrenic, this is ultimately its greatest strength and precisely why it is worth reading." -- Anthony Paul Smith * Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory * "[A] patient reader will be rewarded with some intriguing perspectives and insights that take seriously the difficult challenge confronting political action in the context of global capitalism." -- Christopher Craig Brittain * The Dalhousie Review * "[A] collection of this caliber on such a timely subject is to be welcomed." -- D. W. Congdon * Princeton Theological Review * "Theology and the Political is a helpful book because it gathers in one volume a representative sample of very serious theologians. . . ." -- Stephen H. Webb * First Things * "Underlying all the very varied essays in this volume is a set of issues about how we understand human action. And what the essays have in common, I believe, is a conviction that the fundamental requirement of a politics worth the name is that we have an account of human action that decisively marks its distance from assumptions about action as the successful assertion of will. If there is no hinterland to human acting except the contest of private and momentary desire, meaningful action is successful action, an event in which a particular will has imprinted its agenda on the `external' world. Or, in plainer terms, meaning is power . . . and any discourse of justice is illusory."--Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, from the introduction

The essays in Theology and the Political-written by some of the world's foremost theologians, philosophers, and literary critics-analyze the ethics and consequences of human action. They explore the spiritual dimensions of ontology, considering the relationship between ontology and the political in light of the thought of figures ranging from Plato to Marx, Levinas to Derrida, and Augustine to Lacan. Together, the contributors challenge the belief that meaningful action is simply the successful assertion of will, that politics is ultimately reducible to "might makes right." From a variety of perspectives, they suggest that grounding human action and politics in materialist critique offers revolutionary possibilities that transcend the nihilism inherent in both contemporary liberal democratic theory and neoconservative ideology.Contributors. Anthony Baker, Daniel M. Bell Jr., Phillip Blond, Simon Critchley, Conor Cunningham, Creston Davis, William Desmond, Hent de Vries, Terry Eagleton, Rocco Gangle, Philip Goodchild, Karl Hefty, Eleanor Kaufman, Tom McCarthy, John Milbank, Antonio Negri, Catherine Pickstock, Patrick Aaron Riches, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Regina Mara Schwartz, Kenneth Surin, Graham Ward, Rowan Williams, Slavoj Zizek