Modern Christian Pol. Thought

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Across the globe, vigorous political expression of impassioned belief has emerged within contemporary political orders. This surge of political religion comes at a time when forces of globalization and capital and advances in knowledge and technology have spread, forces that were supposed to quell religious piety and make faith increasingly benign. Religion has not become a domesticated sphere, separated from politics and other sectors of human society. As religious thinkers in the Western Christian tradition of the past 200 years grappled with the meaning of tradition and the impact of modernity, they had to rethink how religious belief and practice could shape politics, if at all. Along the way, many came to a new understanding of the limits of power politics and the role of religion in shaping the collective order. This seminar will examine—through close readings and discussion—key texts in the modern development of Christian political theology. Among the topics to be discussed: the secularization of political and legal authority; the rise of liberalism (political and theological) as a theo-political phenomenon; the role and limits of revelation and tradition as a source of meaning and authority for political formation and the impact of historical consciousness on the claims of religious authority in modern moral and political thought; the limits of political messianism and prophetic stances; the enduring religious sources—if any—of legitimating liberal democratic politics; and how liberal democratic political communities, shaped by enlightenment ideals, can accommodate—or cabin—political theologies.