How can human vulnerability be a platform for community and a potential for political agency? A Political Theology of Vulnerability explores how religious, and in particular Christian, resources may ...inspire a radical precarious politics.
This article discusses an inherent paradox in contemporary conceptualisations of community as a challenge to diaconia. Logics of protection separate insiders from outsiders, producing a fundamental ...antagonism between those who belong to the community and those who threaten it. During pandemics, this logic is exacerbated. When contagion threatens all, even the community needs to be protected from itself. Immunitarian defences are required for the safety of all community members. However, measures implemented to ensure immunity can also harm people’s mental and somatic health. This paradox presents ethical and practical challenges for inclusive justice, including diaconia. Concerning this dilemma, the article draws on Roberto Esposito’s reframing of community and immunitarian defence. Esposito argues that immunitarian mechanisms must promote tolerance of otherness through openness to its presence within. I suggest that this openness can be seen as a fundamental ontological vulnerability shared by all living creatures. Learning from recent contributions within vulnerability studies and feminist and trauma theologies, I employ Tony Addy’s concept of conviviality as a model for diaconal community building, seeking to elucidate the relevance of Esposito’s thinking to postpandemic diaconal practice.
The possible relationship between Latin American populism and liberation theology has received limited scholarly attention. Loris Zanatta, an Italian scholar of populism in Latin America, has ...recently claimed that there is a strong connection between populism and liberation theology. All populisms in Latin America, he states, have profound links not only to Hispanic Christendom, but also, and more specifically, to the influential presence and work of the Jesuit order in the region (Zanatta 2020). For Zanatta, Latin American populisms are all variants of 'Jesuit populism' and liberation theology should be seen as a central part of this populist project in the region. The purpose of this article is to address the possible interconnection by examining the reverse direction of influence or affinity. Focusing on a particular expression coined by Jesuit liberation theologian Ignacio Ellacuría (d. 1989): 'el pueblo crucificado,' I ask to what degree this conceptualization could be seen as a 'populist' soteriology? The study identifies some apparent structural and ideational affinities. However, the closer reading of the Jesuit liberation soteriology of Ellacuría does not reveal any significant historical or conceptual populist influence. Hence, it is inferred that Zanatta's claim that Latin American liberation theology should be seen as an ideology of 'Jesuit populism' lacks substantiation. Keywords: Populism in Latin America, liberation theology, Ignacio Ellacuría, Loris Zanatta, soteriology, Jesuit
Abstract
Naming is a way of exercising power. The practice of designation in diaconia causes
dilemmas. As a contribution to the self-critical examination of language use in
diaconal studies and work, ...this article discusses the ever more common practice of
designating some particular groups as “(the) vulnerable.” Such a designation may
appeal to ethical and diaconal action, but it may also contribute to stigmatization
and paternalism – and undermine the potential of solidarity and resistance inherent
in focusing on the common condition of vulnerability. In its discussion of this
dilemma, the article argues that diaconal practice should make shared vulnerability
its normative basis and accordingly avoid the general designation of “(the)
vulnerable groups.” Rather, it should apply alternative linguistic strategies.
Sammendrag Trossamfunnet Jehovas vitner krever at medlemmene skal være politisk nøytrale og ikke stemme ved valg. Trossamfunnet mottar statsstøtte. Men bør staten finansiere en praksis som i ...virkeligheten undergraver sentrale demokratiske verdier? Hensynet til tros- og livssynsfrihetens vern mot statlig styring av trosinnhold står mot legitimiteten av statlige krav til organisasjoner den støtter økonomisk. Artikkelen viser at verken eksisterende lovgivning eller de foreliggende alternativene (NOU 2013: 1 eller Prop. 130 L) hittil stiller krav om samfunnslojalitet i forbindelse med den statlige støtten til tros- og livssynssamfunn, og ser dette som velbegrunnet. Samtidig argumenteres det for at skadelig eksklusjonspraksis er i konflikt med en annen absolutt betingelse, nemlig at deltakelsen i trossamfunn må være frivillig. Dette bør klargjøres og følges opp tettere av staten, for eksempel gjennom en egen nemnd.
Abstract
In view of recent concrete challenges and creative initiatives arising
in diaconal work related to economics and economic structures, this article
takes human precariousness as its point of ...departure for reflecting on what
might be seen as “diaconal economics.” I suggest a hermeneutical understanding
of diaconia that makes it possible to distinguish between “explicit” and “implicit”
diaconal practices, relating recent thinking on precariousness and precarity in
the fields of political philosophy (Judith Butler) and economy (Guy Standing)
to contemporary theological criticism of the global economic system (e.g., by
Pope Francis, Daniel M. Bell, and William T. Cavanaugh). While appreciating
the ethical commitment and theological relevance of such a critique, I draw
on the contribution of development economists Banerjee and Duflo to suggest
that diaconal economics should resist common tendencies toward very general
and abstract approaches as well as proposals that are overly optimistic about
the critical potential of explicitly faith-based or Christian alternative practices.
But by recognizing the vital role of religiosity in situations of precarity (cf.
Norris and Inglehart), I also suggest that the resources of Christian faith may
be mobilized in multiple ways to foster contextualized and pluriform initiatives
that serve to reform economic structures from the bottom up. They may provide
such practices with motivation and direction in ways that may be seen as both
explicitly and implicitly diaconal in nature.
Recent experiences of terror, violence, and catastrophe, such as the terror attacks in Norway in 2011 or the Peshawar School Massacre leaving 132 children and nine staff dead on December 16, 2014, ...strengthen the sense of the fundamental vulnerability in human existence. In this article, it is argued that political theology, in responding to such experiences, should aim at perceiving and protecting vulnerability as a value. For this purpose, basic propositions for a theological anthropology of vulnerability are put forward. Likewise, propositions for interpreting God as vulnerable are presented, criticizing the traditional theistic concept of God as immutable and hence unable to suffer. The relevance of these propositions for political theology is finally addressed.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
There is an ambiguity inherent in vulnerability as a part of human life. Beyond mere limitation, recent interdisciplinary research shows that the condition of vulnerability also contains essential ...life-sustaining resources. This ambiguity is particularly interesting in the context of embodied competition, such as sports. The present study of Christian sermons held on the occasion of international sporting events explores to what degree and in what way the homilies mobilize religious resources to shed light on this ambivalence of vulnerability. The study shows that the sermons in general tend to confirm rather than challenge a conventional conceptualization of vulnerability as limitation. However, it also shows a critical potential, explicitly present in some of the sermons, of mobilizing theological and religious resources for providing a more multi-faceted and even affirmative interpretation of vulnerability in the context of competitive sports.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Globalization strengthens mutual interdependency between persons, nations and peoples. Such dependency implies exposed and experienced vulnerability. The significance of religion in people's lives ...seems to increase with their experience of insecurity. Whereas secularization continues where people enjoy a basic level of welfare and security, the perceived importance and impact of religion is generally increasing around the globe, due to globalized experiences of precariousness and vulnerability affecting the majority. This situation raises the question of how different forms of religiosity relate to people’s sense of vulnerability. In this article I explore in what ways a Lutheran and ecumenical theological approach inspired by liberation and feminist theologies may provide resources that make it possible to see human vulnerability as a value and strength that should be protected, not removed. Might vulnerability even be perceived as sacred? Can God be seen as a deus vulnerabilis? I also ask in what ways liturgical practice may visualize and operationalize such a theology of vulnerability.
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