Renegotiating Power, Theology, and Politics

Do those in authority wield all the power, or do those who stand before and under authority also exercise power? What kinds of power are available to us? How must we reconfigure how conceptions of authority once we recognize the multiple and various forms that power takes? In this volume, established and rising scholars in theology and ethics respond to these questions in order to revitalize the discipline of political theology. While traditional and recent approaches to political theology focus on issues of sovereignty and presume specific analogies between the divine and the human, the essays here attend to power's variety, offering alternative conceptions of divine and human authority meant to encourage just and humane social practices. Power, it turns out, is entangled in love, revelation, language, cultural creativity, and pluralization. By beginning with such themes, the contributors seek to renegotiate the conceptual terrain between power, theology, and politics.

Joshua Daniel teaches philosophy and religious studies at Saint Xavier University and Elmhurst College. His first book, Transforming Faith: The Dialectic of Individual and Community in H. Richard Neibuhr, is forthcoming.

Rick Elgendy is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary, USA, where he teaches courses in public theology, social ethics, and systematic theology.