This thesis for the first time critically and comparatively examines contemporary Christian and philosophical ethics of war. Thus it contributes to an investigation of current possibilities of moral-political action. Exploring various combinations of political ethics and the tenets of faith, it compares three Christian with two secular thinkers. Each chapter first shows how Just War ethics are constructed between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’. The former prioritizes individual or national self-defence and power; the latter the universal value of each individual. Each analytical section reconstructs the author’s moral understanding of political authority, violent force and political reality. These foci are investigated in terms of how they understand, envision or reject the mediation between politics and Christian morality. As the inner logic of each Just War proposal is thus brought out, continuities and differences between authors can be explained. Part I looks at Christian authors. Jean Bethke Elshtain’s realistic, ‘naturalistic’ Just War ethic of the sovereign state rejects humanist idealism. For Paul Ramsey Christian agape provides a transformative ethic between idealism and realism. Developing this, Oliver O’Donovan’s evangelical approach practically fuses idealism and realism. Dogmatically, this is conditioned by moving from Elshtain’s modern theological dualism to Ramsey’s Christ-transforming the world, though still indebted to philosophical idealism. O’Donovan, however, suggests that after the singular mediation of the Christ event, moral-political categories disclose the divine order. Part II investigates the idealism-realism divide amongst philosophers. Both David Rodin’s idealist demand for a global state and Uwe Steinhoff’s individualist Machiavellianism seek to protect human rights. After Kant, they presuppose an unbridgeable division between politics and ‘religious’ morality. Theology, having become anthropology, replaces the mediation of Christ with immanent mediators: legal, statist or individualist moral agents. But this echoes and intensifies the Christian tradition. Whereas Rodin introduces a renewed, violent papacy, Steinhoff seeks to renew the liberal-democratic status quo through a secular ‘radical reformation’. It is concluded that both modern Christian and philosophical ethics of war can oscillate between impractical triumphant justice and the failure of tragic antagonism. If the singular mediation between Is and Ought in Christ is recognized as a universal paradox, doing justice effectively becomes possible.

This thesis, called The Relationship between Redemption and Emancipation in the Political Theology of J. B. Metz, concerns the political theology of J. B. Metz. The first part summarizes the influences, which shaped his theological thinking and it presents his concept of political theology. The next part asks a question about the relationship between the ideas of redemption and emancipation in Metz's theology. This is based on the interpretation of a chapter from his book, Glaube in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, which concerns the topic. But before the interpretation of Metz's text, the problems of relationship between the two terms and of their origin are described. The extent of the field of meaning of the term "emancipation" is illustrated by the examples of the thinking of Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx and Jürgen Habermas. A large part is dedicated to the figures of the Frankfurt school, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, and their specific approach to the idea of emancipation and the Enlightenment tradition. The final thesis rejects the opinion, that the ideas of emancipation and redemption in Metz's theology coincide too much and it puts stress on the importance of the term "history of suffering" for solving this problem of Metz's theology. Keywords political theology, J. B. Metz, emancipation,...

This thesis is a critical analysis of the theology and ethics of dispensationalist Christian Zionism in America. Chapter One introduces the thesis and its method, which draws constructively from history, sociology, and anthropology while remaining substantively theological. Chapter Two describes dispensationalism's origins in nineteenth-century Britain and its dissemination and development in America. Chapter Three moves from broad, historical description to the contemporary and particular through an introduction to Faith Bible Chapel (FBC), an American Christian Zionist congregation. This description arises from an academic term spent at FBC observing congregational life and conducting extensive interviews, as well as fieldwork undertaken in FBC's "adopted settlement" in the West Bank, including interviews with Israeli settlers about partnerships with American Christians. The remaining chapters move to more explicitly doctrinal analysis. Chapters Four through Six are shaped by William Cavanaugh's concept of 'theopolitics' (Theopolitical Imagination, 2002): a disciplined, community-gathering common imagination of time and space. Through the exploration of a key historical text (The Scofield Reference Bible, 1917) and its continuing legacies in the life and thought of FBC, these chapters examine the theopolitics of dispensationalist Christian Zionism, demonstrating that it is a complex system of convictions and practices in which the disciplines of biblicism and biblical literalism form an eschatology which subordinates ecclesiology and Christology, nurturing an imagination of the roles of Christ and the church in time and space which sever social ethics from necessary Christological and ecclesiological sources. John Howard Yoder's work is used to bring this system into relief, and to establish that eschatology per se is not inimical to Christian social ethics. Chapter Seven concludes the thesis with a summary of its findings, as well as a discussion of the positive functions of apocalyptic in Christian social ethics, pointing toward the possibility of alternative ecclesial enactments of apocalyptic theopolitics.

The Difference of Conversion examines theologically the possibilities for a religious minority group to maintain its own corporate identity while contributing as a member of the greater society. The research centers on the Swedish Baptist denomination, Örebromissionen, and focuses on its youth ministry. The research material is the weekly newspaper Missionsbaneret. This examination is twofold: part one is a historical analysis, and the second, a Diaspora-theological analysis that results in the development of a Diaspora ecclesiology. The historical analysis is influenced by a discursive approach and emphasize two areas of focus; what makes something visible, or problematic, and which steering techniques that are used. The study covers three different periods – 1930s, 1950s and 1980s. The research shows that it has been a great challenge for Örebromissionen to maintain a corporate identity in Sweden, both during the Folk Church period as well as in the Folkhemmet period. The examination suggests that this depends on two coexisting processes; first, the understanding of personal conversion primarily as an emotional, datable, and complete experience within the denomination and secondly the strong emphasis of a shared identity in society. The theological analysis begins with a description of the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder’s Diaspora theology. Using Diaspora-theological analysis shows that the strong emphasis of a shared identity in Swedish society has changed the theology concerning personal conversion in relationship to moral values; where once conversion preceded moral change to later when moral development preceded conversion. This shift in understanding was brought about by new practices introduced in Youth Ministry. In conclusion it is suggested that a Diaspora ecclesiology that both wants to maintain a corporate identity as well as to contribute to a good society must emphasize a multi-cultural society, accentuate the individual as a part of a specific religious social body, and understand the religious corporate identity borders as porous, and therefore constantly re-negotiated.

Univ., Diss.--Bamberg, 1997. / Bibliographie S. 393 - 416.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met samenvatting in het Engels, lit.opg. en index.

Zugl.: Erfurt, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

This thesis seeks to explore two fundamental theological questions: first, what does it mean for the Christian community to conceive of itself as a community defined by the covenant of grace; and second, what are the implications of this distinctiveness for its socio-political mission in an age of globalization. The project is interdisciplinary in its approach, and seeks to integrate biblical and theological inquiry together with the specific opportunities and challenges found in a globalized world. Our way of organizing this thesis is attuned to the demands of argument and method of research employed. Divided into three parts, the thesis derives from a critical examination of a theology of grace and its ramifications for the mission of the church in addressing contemporary issues. Part 1 commences by surveying broadly Reformational theological scholarship from the turn of the twentieth century, and explores how this thesis will make a distinctive contribution to scholarly discussion of the church's socio-political mission through focusing on the central doctrine of grace. Part 2 constitutes a comparative analysis of three leading contemporary theologians evaluating to what extent a theology of grace is evident in their theological political theories. Part 3 is where we seek to apply our theological investigation with the phenomenon of globalization, and engage with international political theory through concentrating on the concepts of power and justice in an interdependent world. The conclusion reached in this thesis is that the doctrine of grace, by virtue of its theocentric and trinitarian emphasis on revelation, reconciliation, election, and creation, directs the Christian community in an age of globalization to be an agent of God's justice in the socio-political arena through demonstrating servant-leadership to contribute in enabling the world's poorest and weakest citizens to share in the benefits brought by a globalized world.

This essay analyses the temporal structure that Rosenzweig develops mainly in his work The Star of Redemption in order to locate, on one hand, a messianic principle that organizes a specific theologico-political realm, and on the other, to understand the way in which certain terms from the judaic prophetic tradition are refunctionalized to activate in a concrete form a system of thought based on the premise of otherness. / Este ensayo hace un análisis de la estructura de la temporalidad que Rosenzweig desarrolla sobre todo en su obra La estrella de la redención con el fin de ubicar, por una parte, un principio mesiánico con el que se organiza un ámbito teológico-político específico, y por otra, comprender la manera en que se refuncionalizan ciertos términos de la tradición profética judía para activar de manera concreta un sistema de pensamiento filosófico basado en la premisa de la otredad.

博士（社会学） / 108p / 一橋大学