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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universitaet van Amsterdam, 2008. / Description based on print version record; title from e-book title screen (viewed Aug. 4, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. [266]-289) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [266]-289) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Aberdeen University, 2009. / Title from web page (viewed on July 20, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 503-544).

The theologies of Robert W. Jenson and James H. Cone have not been interpreted together. This thesis argues that the two theologians are profoundly similar. The study argues that Jenson's and Cone's theologies converge in such manner that they may be described as sharing a common task; namely, the development of a theology of revolution. 'Theology of revolution' denotes both a doctrine of God that is metaphysically revolutionary, and a theology that enables revolutionary politics. Specifically, both theologians diagnose a problem with Christian theology, and their diagnoses are finally the same: theology has inherited from Greek theology assumptions about deity that construe eternity and time as contradictory, resulting in an abstraction from historical life, and a denigration of historical particularity, contingency, and concreteness. In Cone's analysis, white supremacy, as well as a heretical Christology, emerges from this theological assumption; in Jenson's analysis, oppressive political ideologies and inadequately orthodox Christology emerges from this inherited Hellenistic assumption. For both theologians, at stake is Christian eschatology, which, for both, is determinative of political life. Jenson and Cone alike argue that the God of Jesus is the God of history, and is therefore the God of eschatological revolution who enables and inspires revolutionary politics in history. Cone's theology has extensively developed a politics of this eschatology, but has insufficiently developed its corresponding metaphysics; Jenson has devoted enormous energy to developing the revisionary metaphysics of the gospel, arguing that the gospel's God is revolutionary, but has only occasionally addressed politics, and has largely neglected the implications of his theology for the problem of white supremacy. This study argues that just as Jenson's and Cone's theological programmes converge, their theologies are also mutually corrective for one another, enabling one another to better articulate a theology of revolution. Chapter One will address the theological and political context out of which Cone's theology arises, clarifying the theological and political programmes to which Cone is reacting in order to identify the revolutionary intentions of his theology. Chapter Two argues that political concerns partially occasion Jenson's theology, and that his occasional political writings that propose a revolutionary politics are constitutive of his effort to develop a revisionary metaphysics. Chapter Three explicates Cone's eschatological doctrine of God, in which God is the eschatological revolution, by means of analysing Cone's Christology. Chapter Four develops Jenson's proposal for a revolutionary politics, analysing how this proposal arises from his eschatological doctrine of God. Chapter Five analyses how Cone's proposal for a revolutionary 'Black Power' politics is a broader proposal for a revolutionary eschatology, in which eternity is the revolutionary fulfilment of time in the future. Chapter Six elaborates Jenson's revisionary metaphysics by explicating his Christology, showing how this Christology results in a revolutionary, eschatological doctrine of God. The Conclusion of the study restates and clarifies the argument of the study, that Jenson and Cone have developed a mutually corrective theology of revolution.

This thesis takes as its starting point recent variations on the old narrative that seeks to make the Reformation, and Calvinism in particular, the catalyst for generating modern liberal politics. Using David VanDrunen’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms as an example, I show how these narratives often involve attempting to accomplish a “transfer” from the realm of spiritual liberty to that of civil liberty, a transfer against which John Calvin warns in his famous discussion of Christian liberty. In making such a transfer, such narratives are often insufficiently attentive to the theological complexities of the Reformation doctrine of Christian liberty, and the tensions that could lie concealed in various appeals to the doctrine. Accordingly, adopting as a lens John Perry’s concept of the “clash of loyalties,” (the conflict of religious and civil commitments which helped give rise to liberalism), I attempt to trace how different understandings of Christian liberty, and its accompanying concept of “things indifferent,” served both to mitigate and to exacerbate the clash of loyalties in the sixteenth century. This narrative culminates in the attempt of English puritans in the reign of Elizabeth to resolve the conflict by subjecting all ecclesiastical, political, and moral matters to the bar of Scriptural law, thus undermining earlier understandings of what Christian liberty entailed. Against this backdrop, I survey the work of Richard Hooker as an attempt to recover and clarify the doctrine of Christian liberty. This involves a careful distinction of individual and institutional liberty, and different senses of the concept “things indifferent,” a rehabilitation of the role of reason in moral determinations, and a harmonization of the believer’s loyalties by clarifying the relation of divine and human law. The result is a vision of a Christian commonwealth free to render corporate obedience to Christ while at the same time enabling the freedom of its citizens.

Contemporary political and public theology is predominantly statist, with a view of the state as the solver of human problems, and with the church urging the state to do more to bring about social justice and peace. This practice of politics as statecraft has been forcefully challenged by a number of recent theologians, such as those within the theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy. Against such a backdrop, this thesis examines the work of two of Radical Orthodoxy’s most political writers: John Milbank and William Cavanaugh. Their characterization of the state, as based in nominalist philosophy and violence, is highly negative. This negative assessment renders statist theologies and the practice of statecraft profane and deeply problematic for Christians. They prefer instead to see the church as the only true politics. Yet this move places their ecclesial and sacramental politics in the overall modern movement of the politicization of Christianity. This thesis argues that the state is neither sacred nor profane, but if accepted as mundane, it is something that can be freely engaged with by the church as part of its overall witness to politics and society. In order to outline and assess the political theology of Milbank and Cavanaugh three biblical and doctrinal lenses – creation, preservation, and redemption – are used to judge their work. From the viewpoint of creation we see where Milbank and Cavanaugh find the origins of the state in comparison with other theological positions. This carries through to the commonly held view that the state is in the order of preservation, as an ordinance of God preserving human society from the chaos caused by human sinfulness. Finally, in redemption we see how in both Milbank and Cavanaugh the state becomes an anti-redeemer in competition with the political salvation found in the church and voluntary associations. The thesis concludes by drawing on the work of Jacques Ellul in advocating the desacralization of the state from being either sacred or profane. Such a perspective enables the Church to freely engage in statecraft as just one tactic in its political advocacy without corrupting itself.

Politics and Church in Saeculum – History and Political Theology in Oliver O’DonovanThis essay explores the relation between church, history and politics in the theology of Oliver O’Donovan. It asks the question of how O’Donovan’s political theology and understanding of the church is shaped by his view of history and how God acts within history. It shows how O’Donovan, following Augustine, stresses the tension between the two cities within history – the City of God and the City of Man – and uses this as a paradigm in which to understand the secular political authority. As a provisional ordering in saeculum, the earthly City of Man has a temporary function, awaiting God’s final reign in eschaton, in which it will hand over its authority to Christ. The church, though being a political community already prefiguring the reign of God in Christ, it still lives, in this age, under the secular rule. Awaiting the coming Kingdom its primary occupation is that of witness, inviting society and its ruler alike to accept the kingship of Christ. As a successful example of this mission O’Donovan gives a significant focus to the era known as Christendom, in which the western civilization, following the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine, is understood as a Christian society with Christian rulers. In discussing O’Donovan’s political theology, the essay asks questions about O’Donovan’s reading and usage of Christendom and tries to reason about the application of O’Donovan’s theology in a situation where Christendom no longer defines the western experience (or what has been called a predominantely post-Christendom context). An important question in the discussion is whether O’Donovan stays true to the heritage of Augustine, or if he, in theory as well as practice, tends to follow other voices within the theology of history.

Thesis advisor: Michael J. Himes / Reinhold Niebuhr is among the most politically and theologically influential--and most misunderstood--American thinkers of the twentieth century. This misunderstanding is the product of a tendency among Niebuhr's admirers and critics alike to overlook the elaborate interplay of the theology and politics in Niebuhr's thought. I argue that Niebuhr understood himself as a preacher to religion's "cultured despisers," and that Niebuhr construed this role in fundamentally theological terms. As a consequence, there is a dynamic theology underlying his political engagement with the broader culture. Chief among the "cultured despisers" drawn to Niebuhr's thought were the political realists who dominated early Cold War politics. They were particularly compelled by the political insights of Niebuhr's Christian Realism, and proceeded to incorporate these insights into own realist visions. I argue that in the act of appropriating Niebuhr the political realists unwittingly absorbed much of his theology; and in neglecting to recognize the theological underpinnings to Niebuhr's political insights, they ended up misconstruing Niebuhr in important ways. I seek to demonstrate that fully appreciating Niebuhr's contributions to political discourse requires an awareness of how theology suffuses even his most overtly political writings. This project consists of two parts. Part One examines the theological formation of the concept at the heart of Niebuhr's Christian Realism: namely, the doctrine of original sin. From the outset, Niebuhr maintained that elaborating the full political implications of original sin required a theological structure. Through sustained conversations with theological contemporaries Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Emil Brunner, and his brother H. Richard Niebuhr, Reinhold elaborated the distinctive theological anthropology, understanding of grace and redemption, and account of the dynamic interplay between faith and history underlying his exploration of original sin and its political implications. Niebuhr's Christian Realism, I suggest, is inextricably theological. Part Two analyses Niebuhr's reception among three of the most prominent midcentury political realists: Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Arthur Schlesinger. Although they were among Niebuhr's most astute interpreters, all three figures wrongly presumed that they could extricate the political elements of Niebuhr's thinking on original sin from the theological structure in which this thinking was embedded, and import only these political elements into their own realist visions. Their uses of the concept of original sin indicate that they both adopt far more of Niebuhr's theology than they ever intended to, and misconstrue some of his most profound insights. I close by considering what a theologically grounded Christian Realism has to offer political discourse. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.