The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice

by Kathryn Tanner

How is it that the same Christian beliefs can be used both to bolster an oppressive regime and rally opposition to it? Are there any norms intrinsic to Christian belief that dictate its political import?Delving into the complex aspects of Christian beliefs in their historical, theological, and social diversity, Tanner here offers a rigorous and sustained analysis of the relations of belief to attitudes and action. She centers her analysis on God and Creation and brings a much-needed clarity to notions of hierarchy, transcendence, dualism, and oppression. She constructs a typology of how doctrines can relate to each other, to social systems, and to ethical behavior. In arguing that Christian beliefs about God and the world can be disengaged from complicity with social forces of reaction and oppression, Tanner discloses the radical potential of Christian beliefs and realigns them with efforts to bring about a just society.

Genres: Theology, Religion

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Professor Tanner joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 2010 after teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School for sixteen years and in Yale’s Department of Religious Studies for ten. Her research relates the history of Christian thought to contemporary issues of theological concern using social, cultural, and feminist theory. She is the author of God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Blackwell, 1988); The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice (Fortress, 1992); Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Fortress, 1997); Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Fortress, 2001); Economy of Grace (Fortress, 2005); Christ the Key (Cambridge, 2010); and scores of scholarly articles and chapters in books that include The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, which she edited with John Webster and Iain Torrance. She serves on the editorial boards of Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and Scottish Journal of Theology, and is a former coeditor of the Journal of Religion. Active in many professional societies, Professor Tanner is a past president of the American Theological Society, the oldest theological society in the United States. For eight years she has been a member of the Theology Committee that advises the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. In the academic year 2010–11, she had a Luce Fellowship to research financial markets and the critical perspectives that Christian theology can bring to bear on them. In 2015–16, she will deliver the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.