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The Problem with Grace: Reconfiguring Political Theology
This book develops a post-secular, post-sectarian political theology, taking that burgeoning field in a new direction. With his bold suggestion that political philosophy must begin with political theology, Vincent Lloyd investigates a series of religious concepts such as love, faith, liturgy, and revelation and explores their political relevance by extracting them from their Christian theological context while refusing to reduce them to secular terms. He assembles an unusual canon of thinkers "too Jewish to be Christian and too Christian to be Jewish"―Simone Weil, James Baldwin, Franz Kafka, and Gillian Rose―to aid him in his explorations.
Unique in its serious attention to both theological writing about politics and the work of academic philosophers and theorists, The Problem with Grace deepens our understanding of political theological vocabulary as a way back to the everyday world. Politics is not about redemption, but about grappling with the ever-present difficulties, tragedies, and comedies of ordinary life.
Unique in its serious attention to both theological writing about politics and the work of academic philosophers and theorists, The Problem with Grace deepens our understanding of political theological vocabulary as a way back to the everyday world. Politics is not about redemption, but about grappling with the ever-present difficulties, tragedies, and comedies of ordinary life.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 2011
About the author
Vincent W. Lloyd
20 books3 followersVincent W. Lloyd is associate professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University.
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November 9, 2019
There are a lot of strengths to this book, as well as a handful of weaknesses. Lloyd's assessment of political theology as "supersessionist" strikes me as pertinent, especially in the ways that it has the tendency to distract from the difficult work of navigating the rewards and failures of the ordinary (of the broken and sometimes violent relationship between norms and practices). The present, the ordinary, is not something that needs to be merely transcended.
That said, the alternative he provides is interesting but, ultimately, not theological enough. For a book about the reconfiguration of political theology, the lack of theology is troubling. The reason for this, of course, is Lloyd's presupposition that theological concepts tend to supersede the ordinary. He fails, however, to interrogate the ways that theology, done properly, brings us back more radically into the ordinary. At the end of the day, Lloyd's "political theology" is really not a theology at all. His fear of supersession lands him in a paralyzing state that seemingly refuses to take theology on its own terms. Theology, for Lloyd, is only purposeful insofar as it aids his own anti-conceptual scheme of norms and practices.
That said, the alternative he provides is interesting but, ultimately, not theological enough. For a book about the reconfiguration of political theology, the lack of theology is troubling. The reason for this, of course, is Lloyd's presupposition that theological concepts tend to supersede the ordinary. He fails, however, to interrogate the ways that theology, done properly, brings us back more radically into the ordinary. At the end of the day, Lloyd's "political theology" is really not a theology at all. His fear of supersession lands him in a paralyzing state that seemingly refuses to take theology on its own terms. Theology, for Lloyd, is only purposeful insofar as it aids his own anti-conceptual scheme of norms and practices.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review