Political Theology: A guide for the
perplexed
Elizabeth Phillips
T & T Clark £14.99
(978-0-567-26354-4)
Church Times Bookshop £13.50 (use code CT559
)
ELIZABETH PHILLIPS, who is Tutor in Theology and Ethics at
Westcott House, Cambridge, has written an excellent introductory
text to political theology. This book does everything it ought to
do.
Drawing on William Cavanaugh and Peter Scott, she defines
political theology as "the analysis and criticism of political
arrangements (including cultural-psychological, social and economic
aspects) from the perspective of differing interpretations of God's
ways with the world" (The Blackwell Companion to Political
Theology, Blackwell Publishing, 2004). In response to those
who might say that mixing theology and politics is a bad idea,
Phillips argues, quite rightly, that it is "entirely
unavoidable".
The book is divided into two parts: "Defining Political
Theology" and "Issues in Political Theology". In the former part,
we learn of the roots of political theology in scrip- ture and
Augustine's City of God, but also how it emerged as a
distinct theological discipline in the 20th century, as theologians
sought to make sense of the Holocaust and respond to
secularisation.
In the book's second part, there are stimulating chapters on
"The Politics of Jesus", "Liberalism and Democracy", and "Creation,
History and Eschatology", to name just a few. I am a political
scientist, and my antenna is usually up when theologians write
about politics. Phillips is, however, accomplished in both
disciplines. It was only when she appeared to dismiss all
non-liberal regimes as totalitarian that I winced somewhat.
While Phillips suggests ways of distinguishing between different
approaches to political theology ("optimism versus pessimism or
Covenant versus Leviathan", differing "theological and ecclesial
traditions"), it is in her distinction between "first-" and
"second-" generation political theologies that we come closest to
contemporary debates about how the Church should engage with the
political.
First-generation political theo- logians, who include liberation
theologians, can appear rather conservative by today's standards,
and, while it would be mistaken to dismiss them entirely, the
second generation, which includes writers such as Stanley Hauerwas
and John Milbank, is surely right to emphas-ise the very
strangeness of God's word in respect of the world, and the
importance of the Church's looking critically at liberalism's
truisms. Nevertheless, as ever, the devil (or is that God?) is in
the detail.
The Revd Martin Gainsborough is Professor of Development
Politics at the University of Bristol, and Priest-in-Charge of St
Luke with Christ Church, Barton Hill, and St Matthew Moorfields,
Bristol.