Political Theologies : Public Religions in a Post-Secular World

Abstract

What has happened to religion in its present manifestations? In recent years, Enlightenment secularization, as it appeared in the global spread of structures that relegate the sacred to a private sphere, seems suddenly to have foundered. Unexpectedly, it has discovered its own parochialism-has discovered, indeed, that secularization may never have taken place at all. With the return of the religious, in all aspects of contemporary social, political, and life, the question of theology-of the relation between political and religious domains-takes on new meaning and new urgency. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished scholars from many disciplines-philosophy, theory, anthropology, classics, and studies-seek to take the full measure of this question in today's world. This book begins with the place of the gods in the Greek polis, then moves through Augustine's two cities and early modern debates, to classic statements about theology by such thinkers as Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. Essays also consider the centrality of tolerance to liberal democracy, the recent French controversy over wearing the Muslim headscarf, and Bush's God talk. The volume includes a historic discussion between Jurgen Habermas and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, concerning the prepolitical moral foundations of a republic, and it concludes with explorations of new, more open ways of conceptualizing society.

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