Political theology’s encounter with modern culture

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant professor of Religious Studies – Semnan University;

Abstract

The new political theology was emerged in the second half of twentieth century by prominent figures like Jurgen Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz, and Dorothee Soelle. It is known usually for its political aspect. This article surveys the encounter of political theology with modern thinking and culture with a descriptive and analytic method. In this encounter, political theology has a critical attitude to some aspects of modern thinking and culture. In the epistemological aspect, there are criticisms to Death of God theology and so-called Secular Theology and insisting on some theological doctrines like Christian eschatology for redefining God and taking it to the end of history for the sake of releasing it from the impasse of here and now’s abstract reason. In addition, it insists on narrative and prayer language and its capacity in presenting an accurate idea of theological concepts in comparison with modern abstract and intellectual language. In the cultural aspect, political theologians object to bourgeois culture’s influences on Christian theology. They think that it causes bourgeois indifference to suffering. Theoretical theodicy of Christianity also attempts to present the situation as usual and calm, though these theologians believe that casting the tragic sufferings such as Auschwitz in the realm of theology can give us a more proper idea of God, and also the Bible and noncontemporaneity of Christianity with bourgeois culture can give us a basis for criticism of contemporary situation and continuing the enlightenment project.

Keywords

References

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Religions and Mysticism
Volume 55, Issue 1
September 2022
Pages 206-187

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