Between Rome and Tübingen

Contemporary Western societies owe a great debt to modernity and the growth of secularism. Yet these movements, indelibly linked to the Enlightenment, have also led to confrontation and seemingly intractable standoff between ecclesial and secular institutions. As historians, political scientists, and scholars of religion have continued to reflect on these conflicts, theologians have also attempted to understand the standoff by drawing from the aforementioned disciplines and also by using theological categories. In particular, political theology has created a space for theologians to engage critically the political implications of certain theologies and the theological assumptions undergirding political arrangements. In modernity especially, political theology questions the truce, itself dependent on theological assumptions, that circumscribes how Christianity orders itself to political communities. It attempts to provide a theology of history, as well as a grammar and syntax to understand how churches have ordered themselves to political entities. When done well, such efforts embody the self-criticism needed for any discipline to remain rigorous and also permit external critique that questions its own first principles.

Criticism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Modernity · Political science · Political theology · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies