Search Results (18)

“Moral shocks” are unexpected events or pieces of information that so deeply challenge one’s basic values and sense of the world that they profoundly reorient a person’s understanding of life and even self. Yet those who experience significant moral shocks rarely participate in related activism and instead experience grief as highly privatized and apolitical, a reality that serves the status quo and most powerful. This article considers how religious resources can help metabolize private grief into public lament and catalyze political grievance. Analyzing the rise of gun control activism after an elementary school mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, I argue religious resources help metabolize moral shocks into social change in five significant ways: (1) cultivating practiced, purposeful pathos, (2) offering collective lament, (3) building networked resiliency materially and theologically, (4) risking new alliances of accompaniment, and (5) storying hope. This case analysis contributes to a broader claim for political theology: Christianity can be understood as a movement based on a moral shock. This framing then animates practices of care to accompany those in moral distress and help disciple grief into a movement of faith that resists death-dealing political and social policy. Full article

Just war theory, significantly shaped by Christian moral theology, has provided a prominent ethical framework for discussions on the justice of war. Numerous works have been published on classical Chinese counterparts, including passages from the Mengzi, Mozi, Xunzi, and Huangdi Sijing. Although the Zhuangzi frequently discusses warfare, it has been largely overlooked in this field of research because its war ethics do not revolve around any concept similar to that of justice. Based on Zhuangzian critiques of Confucian and Mohist views on justice, this paper tentatively reconstructs Zhuangzian war ethics. This reconstruction reveals a perspective that the concept of just war or justified war is inherently problematic, and promoting such ideas can be perilous and even morally questionable. The belief that just war theory can help us identify a “just side” to morally condemn or legally restrain aggressors is a dangerous illusion. In practice, this approach fails to prevent wars and often exacerbates conflict. According to the Zhuangzian perspective, during wars, states do not operate as traditional political entities with universal jurisdiction and centralized authority. Instead, they resemble rivers and lakes with indistinct boundaries, rendering the concepts of justice and punishment largely irrelevant. A practical peace strategy, therefore, must abandon the pursuit of administering justice and punishing wrongdoers. Instead, it should focus on strategies that facilitate the involved parties to “forget” their grudges and start their peaceful relationship anew. Full article

The essay explores the theme of suffering from an Eastern Patristic perspective, focusing on its spiritual and communal dimensions. It draws on the works of Maximos the Confessor, a famous 7th-century Byzantine theologian, particularly on his Amiguum 8. Maximos presents suffering not only as an inevitable consequence of the lapsarian human condition but also as a providential opportunity for moral and spiritual growth. Through suffering, individuals can reorient themselves towards God, fostering virtues like compassion and gratitude. This kenotic love, modeled after Christ’s sacrificial love, reveals the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings. Maximos’ perspective is at odds with the modern technological and political systems, which often depersonalize care and diminish the role of spiritual transformation, especially in the end-of-life context. The essay suggests that, while technological advancements address suffering, they may overlook the spiritual truth that suffering reveals—a truth central to human dignity and salvation. This perspective invites further exploration into the interplay between Christian theology, suffering, and modern biopolitics. Full article

Political advocacy is an important religious practice. But social activism can be discouraging. This paper integrates moral theology, virtue ethics, positive psychology and spiritual formation to highlight the importance of resilient hope for social justice advocates. Part 1 describes an important justice issue—public services for disabled people. Part 2 defines transformational advocacy and outlines an advocacy theology. Part 3 analyzes despair and hope. Part 4 summarizes spiritual practices for building resilient hope. Full article

There are numerous approaches and conclusions regarding church and state relations and how Christianity affects public policy. Yet the purpose of this study is to question some of the philosophical assumptions and biblical interpretations that Christians hold to which support the state as a morally legitimate authoritative institution in the first place. This article will argue that various presuppositions regarding the state’s moral legitimacy are untenable, if not self-refuting. The philosophical commitments of a form of Christian Conservatism exemplified by Norman L. Geisler will be analyzed and critiqued by the Christian Libertarian Anarchist school of thought, represented by Gerard Casey. Geisler’s views on first principles, God’s moral law, social contracts, consent, anarchy, the distinction between vices and crimes, preconditions for virtue, and the common good will be examined. Then, Geisler’s interpretation of classic biblical texts supporting the alleged moral legitimacy of the state will also be assessed. This article will contend that if one were to consistently apply some pertinent principles found in Geisler’s prolegomena to theology when reasoning from natural revelation and the relevant biblical data, one will find that the conclusions are more compatible with the political theology of Christian Libertarian Anarchism. Hence the one who questions how Christianity affects public policy should take into consideration the reasons to deny that divine revelation affirms the state as a morally legitimate authoritative institution. If this is the case, the question ought to be reframed to determine how Christianity affects public policy within a state that has no legitimate moral grounds for authority. Full article

This article argues that the leading article, or leader, of a newspaper played a role in the ‘secular’ society of colonial Australia not unlike that of the sermon in the religious sphere. One of its primary objectives was moral exhortation to encourage Australian colonists to follow a path that would enable the colony to fulfil providence and create an appropriate moral order. Their celebration of the British political order was a form of civil theology that matched the more dogmatic theology to be found in church sermons. This similarity was also assisted by the fact that a significant number of clergy either edited newspapers or wrote for them. This article considers several expressions of this civil theology, and then concentrates on the Rev John West who edited the Sydney Morning Herald and who used his leading articles to castigate his fellow colonists for their failure to live up to the ideals of their British political heritage. He was particularly harsh on the workings of colonial democracy which led him into conflict with another cleric, the Rev John Dunmore Lang. Full article

The current article has several aims. First, it seeks to underscore the importance of Hugo Bergman’s and Gershom Scholem’s late critiques of Zionism, and to argue that they should be understood as politico-theological commentaries on the Israeli political reality in which they lived. Second, it argues for the relevance of approaching these critiques through the theoretical prism of political theology. Third, it aims to chart the overlaps and differences between the Bergmanesque and Scholemian theological interpretations of Zionism by charting their common premises and differences. I argue that the former derive from their shared view of Zionism as a religious project, and the latter derive from their arrival at polar conclusions: Bergman seeking a positive potential; Scholem identifying a destructive potential. Hence, their political theologies of Zionism are understood as a “dialectic of feeling”. Full article

From the late thirteenth through late seventeenth centuries, a single three-word Latin phrase—sapiens dominabitur astris, or “the wise man will be master of the stars”—proliferated in astrological, theological, philosophical, and literary texts. It became a convenient marker denoting orthodox positions on free will and defining the boundaries of the scientifically and morally legitimate practice of astrology. By combining the methodology of a diachronic historical survey with a microhistorical focus on evolving phraseology, this study argues that closely examining the use of this phrase reveals how debates about the meanings of wisdom, free will, determinism, and the interpretation of stellar influence on human events changed radically across four centuries of Western European cultural and intellectual history. The first half of this article charts the scholastic response to theological criticisms of astrology and the reconciliation of Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology with Catholic theology, paying special attention to its implications for astrology as viewed through scholarly uses of the phrase. The second half of the article shows how the phrase developed a multitude of idiosyncratic meanings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fracturing its late medieval scholastic unity, as new forms of philosophical, socio-political, religious, and scientific critiques upended astrological beliefs and practices. Ultimately, this paper argues that examining the theory and praxis of astrology through the changing phraseological meanings of “sapiens dominabitur astris” allows historians and cultural anthropologists to better discern the dialectical (as opposed to binary) relationships between free will and determinism in the West. Full article

Across the globe, governments restricted social life to slow the spread of COVID-19. Several conservative Protestant sects resisted these policies in the United States. We do not yet know if theology shaped the resistance or if it was more a product of a polarized national political context. We argue that the country context likely shapes how conservative Protestants’ moral worldview affects their perceptions of the pandemic and government restrictions. Countries implementing more regulations, those with limited access to healthcare, food, and other essential services, and those with past histories of epidemics may all shape residents’ perceptions. Drawing on the case of American Amish and Mennonite missionaries stationed abroad, we content-analyzed accounts of the pandemic from an international Amish and Mennonite correspondence newspaper. We found that the missionaries’ perceptions of the pandemic and governmental restrictions differ from those of their U.S. counterparts, which suggests that context likely shapes how religious moral worldviews express themselves concerning public health interventions. Full article

Public moral discourse encompasses open discussions in which moral concepts of good and right are brought to bear on questions of public policy and on broader issues of basic rights and the goals and rules that guide social institutions. These public questions also raise practical, apologetic, and political concerns that are central to Christian ethics and moral theology. Public discourse frames legal and political understandings of religious freedom, and Christian ethics has a practical interest in ensuring that these choices do not limit Christian worship and formation or unduly restrict the institutional life of the church. Public discourse also engages apologetic theology in a moral task because the questions raised in public discourse involve conceptions of human good, human nature, and human community that have been discussed in Christian theology across the centuries. Christians have a distinctive understanding of persons in society that they hope to make effective, or at least to make understood, in a wider public discussion. Finally, public moral discourse gives rise to a moral responsibility for Christian participation in politics to create a public consensus on the creation of shared human goods. Full article

The Bangorian controversy has been described as ‘the most bitter ideological conflict of the [eighteenth] century’ (J.C.D. Clark). However, while its impact is widely recognised, there are few studies dedicated to the controversy itself. Moreover, the figure at the centre of it all—Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor—has not always been taken seriously. Such scholars as Norman Sykes, G.R. Cragg, and B.W. Young have dismissed Hoadly as an opportunistic ‘political bishop’, rather than an adept theological thinker. By contrast, this article demonstrates that Hoadly’s Bangorian writings were embedded within the ethical rationalist moral theology of Isaac Newton’s friend, and defender against Gottfried Leibniz, Samuel Clarke. As a follower of Clarke, Hoadly objected to the doctrine of apostolic succession, and to the existence of religious conformity laws in Church and state, because they prevented Christianity from being what he thought it ought to be: a religion of conscience. Full article

Pope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) is a complex thinker whose political and theological views range from the illiberal to the radical, defying easy categorization within the binaries of contemporary politics. In this article, I examine the influence of theological debates in the post-Vatican II Latin American church on his development, especially la teología del pueblo, which was, ‘to some extent’, an Argentine variant of liberation theology. This article presents a critical analysis of four ‘Bergoglian principles’—which Francis says are derived from the pillars of Catholic social teaching—first developed when he was the leader of the Jesuits in Argentina during the period of the ‘Dirty War’: time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part. While Francis’ work draws from a variety of theological roots and employs a range of ethical theories and methods of moral reasoning, it is these principles, with their dialectical and constructive approach to political theology, that remain constant in his work and find expression in his papal writings, including Evangelii Gaudium and Laudato Si’. They clarify his operative priorities in political conflict, pluralistic dialogue, pastoral practice, and theological analysis. Full article

Despite twenty-first century research advances regarding the role of Islam in Shakespeare’s plays, questions remain concerning the extent of William Shakespeare’s knowledge of Muslim culture and his use of that knowledge in writing Othello. I suggest that the playwright had access to numerous sources that informed his depiction of Othello as a man divided between Christian faith and Islamic duty, a division which resulted in the Moor’s destruction. Sharia, a code of moral and legal conduct for Muslims based on the Qur’an’s teachings, appears to be a guiding force in Othello’s ultimate quest for honor. The advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe with the threat of conquest and forced conversion to Islam was a source of fascination and fear to Elizabethan audiences. Yet, as knowledge increased, so did tolerance to a certain degree. But the defining line between Christian and Muslim remained a firm one that could not be breached without risking the loss of personal identity and spiritual sanctity. Denizens of the Middle East and followers of the Islamic faith, as well as travel encounters between eastern and western cultures, influenced Shakespeare’s treatment of this theme. His play Othello is possibly the only drama of this time period to feature a Moor protagonist who wavers between Christian and Muslim beliefs. To better understand the impetus for Othello’s murder of his wife, the influence of Islamic culture is considered, and in particular, the system of Sharia that governs social, political, and religious conventions of Muslim life, as well as Othello’s conflicting loyalties between Islam as the religion of his youth, and Christianity, the faith to which he had been converted. From Act I celebrating his marriage through Act V recording his death, Othello is overshadowed by fears of who he really is—uncertainty bred of his conversion to Christian faith and his potential to revert to Islamic duty. Without indicating Sharia directly, Shakespeare hints at its subtle influence as Othello struggles between two faiths and two theologies. In killing Desdemona and orchestrating Michael Cassio’s death in response to their alleged adultery, Othello obeys the Old Testament injunction for personal sanctification. But in reverting to Muslim beliefs, he attempts to follow potential Sharia influence to reclaim personal and societal honor. Full article

In this paper, we are interested in extending out the dialectical models of religious ethics and political theology that Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas began by enacting a conversation between these two theorists. We do this by presenting and critically comparing Niebuhr’s and Levinas’s thought as concerns three key issues in moral and political theory: (1) the nature of persons, (2) the source and content of the moral ideal of love and the political ideal of justice, and (3) the impossibility and yet continued practical relevance of ideals for social life. Ultimately, we conclude that they mutually offer reasons to find hope in the face of political cynicism. Full article

On February 8, 1971, Michel Foucault announced the formation of Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (the Prisons Information Group [GIP]), a group of activist intellectuals who worked to amplify the voices of those with firsthand knowledge of the prison—reflected in their motto, “Speech to the detainees!” In highlighting and circulating subjugated knowledges from within prisons, the GIP not only pursued political and material interventions, but also called for epistemological and methodological shift within intellectual labor about prisons. This essay turns to the work of the GIP, and philosophical reflection on that work, as a resource for contemporary theological methodology. Counter to the optimistic and positive trend in theological turn to practices, this essay draws on Foucault’s work with and reflection on the GIP to argue for a negative theology of practice, which centers on practice (those concrete narratives found in any lived theological context) while, at the same time, sustaining its place in the critical moment of self-reflection; this means theology exposes itself to the risk of reimagining, in the double-movement of self-critique and other-reponse, what theology is. In order to harness and tap into its own moral, abolitionist imagination, this essay argues that theology must risk (paradoxically) and pursue (ideally) its own abolition—it must consider practices outside of its own theological and ecclesial frameworks as potential sources, and it must attend closely, critically, and continually to the ways that Christian practices, and accounts of them, perpetuate and produce harm. Full article