In Search Of Radical Theology

This sparkling collection of essays invites readers to join a seasoned scholar on his journey to catch “radical theology” in action, both in the Church and our culture at large. Capturing a career’s worth of thought and erudition, this rich volume treats readers to creative thought, careful argumentation, and sophisticated analysis transmitted through the lucid, accessible prose that has earned the author a wide readership of academics and non-academics alike. In tackling “radical theology,” John D. Caputo has in mind the deeper stream that courses its way through various historical and confessional theologies, upon which these theologies draw even while it disturbs them from within. They are well served by this disturbance because it keeps them on their toes. When we read about professional theologians’ losing their jobs in confessional institutions, the chances are that, by earnestly digging into what is going on in their tradition, they have hit upon radical theological rock. Unlike modernist dismissals of religion, radical theology does not debunk but re-invents the theological tradition. Radical theology, Caputo says, is a double deconstruction—of supernatural theology on the one hand and of transcendental reason on the other, and therefore of the settled distinctions between the religious and the secular. Caputo also addresses the challenge for radical theology to earn a spot in the curriculum, given that the “radical” makes it suspect among the confessional seminaries while the “theology” renders it suspect among university seminars. Journeying from the academy to contemporary American culture, In Search of Radical Theology includes a captivating presentation of radical political theology for the time of Trump. This utterly unique volume not only brings readers on an enlightening tour of Caputo’s thought but also invites us to accompany the author as he travels into intriguing new territories.

If you no longer “believe in God,” the Supreme Being of classical theology, or you never did in the first place, is there anything you still ought to believe, anything you should cherish unconditionally, no matter what? In this lively and accessible book, addressed to believers, “recovering” believers, disbelievers, nonbelievers, and “nones” alike—to anyone in search of what they really do believe—the acclaimed philosopher and theologian John D. Caputo seeks out what there is to believe, with or without religion. Writing in a lucid and witty style, Caputo offers a bold account of a “radical theology” that is anything but what the word theology suggests to most people. His point of departure is autobiographical, describing growing up in the world of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, serving as an altar boy, and spending four years in a Catholic religious order after high school. Caputo places Augustine’s Confessions, Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, and Jacques Derrida and postmodern theory in conversation in the service of what he calls the “mystical sense of life.” He argues that radical theology is not simply an academic exercise but describes a concrete practice immediately relevant to the daily lives of believers and nonbelievers alike. What to Believe? is an engaging introduction to radical theology for all readers curious about what religion can mean today.

"Radical theology" and "political theology" are terms that have gained a lot of currency among philosophers of religion today. In this visionary new book, Jeffrey W. Robbins explores the contemporary direction of these movements as he charts a course for their future. Robbins claims that radical theology is no longer bound by earlier thinking about God and that it must be conceived of as postsecular and postliberal. As he engages with themes of liberation, gender, and race, Robbins moves beyond the usual canon of death-of-God thinkers, thinking "against" them as much as "with" them. He presents revolutionary thinking in the face of changing theological concepts, from reformation to transformation, transcendence to immanence, messianism to metamorphosis, and from the proclamation of the death of God to the notion of God’s plasticity.

Ingolf U. Dalferth develops a “radical theology” that unfolds the orienting strength of faith for human life from the event of God’s presence to every present. In a concise and clear manner, Dalferth outlines the theological and philosophical approaches to hermeneutics in the modern era, in order to promote a convincing and defensible theology for the twenty-first century, critically carrying on Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann, without forgetting Karl Barth. The result of his reconstruction is a “radical theology” that neither glorifies premodern theology in an antimodern attitude nor seeks a mystical deepening of the secular, but argues for a radical change in theological perspective of the possible. In doing so, theology unfolds “limit concepts” that restrict the claims of science and philosophy critically, and develops “ideas of orientation” that illumine the ways in which human life is understood and lived in radically new ways in faith. From here, Dalferth unfolds the reality of revelation and the Christian sense of an unconditional hope that fundamentally transcends all beliefs based on mundane realities and orients the world on something beyond its own temporal horizon—its loving Creator.

The major death-of-God theologian explores the meaning and purpose of radical theology.

The difficulty in realizing that a truth beyond culture exists is perhaps the greatest single barrier to the life of love. Our culture is permeated by violence, militarism, materialism, patriotism to nation right or wrong, the supremancy of force, racism, sexism. Most people, seeking approval of their peers, never see how destructive these false values are. Here you are challenged to be dissatisfied with this cultural reality; to resist custom, habit, tradition, mores, social environment, even heredity; to act on your own conscience, to reform reality, to return good for evil, to love your enemy, to serve the oppressed.

This book puts radical theology and political theology into an interdisciplinary conversation with sustained and serious readings of resistance. Using an anthropology of ritual as a common thread, Jordan E. Miller explores the reality of the relationship between political theology, radical theology, and political theory, action, and power without cynicism in a creative, forward-moving way. The first half of the book develops a radical political theology and the second half applies that theory to a series of social movements, including The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Occupy Wall Street, and #BlackLivesMatter, and includes reflections on the events at Standing Rock, ND.