resistance to neoliberalism, nationalism, and militarism as networks of power that intersect with racism, sexism, and neo-colonialism to form what they refer to as “empire.” In Laclau and Mouffe’s terminology, “empire” represents the common antagonist for these political theologies. The “we,” or the positive link between black prophetic thought, feminist theology, Latin American liberation theology, and peaceable theology, is established through their commitment to “radical democracy.”
This book offers an intervention in contemporary debates in political theology in three ways. First, on the face of it, it seems that there is more that divides West, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ellacuría/Sobrino, and Hauerwas than unites them. Schüssler Fiorenza famously criticized Latin American liberation theology for its blindness to patriarchy, West has publicly aired his disagreement with Hauerwas on the nature of prophetic Christianity, and if pressed Hauerwas would likely view the projects of Schüssler Fiorenza, Ellacuría/Sobrino, and West as subtle forms of “neo-neo-neo-Constantianism” that relinquish the distinctiveness of Christian witness for the sake of political relevance. Despite these tensions, Against Empire performs the task of drawing together these Christian thinkers as a diverse theo-political assemblage that prioritizes critical resistance to empire alongside a constructive commitment to the politics of radical democracy. In this regard, it fulfills the pluralist mandate of radical democracy by bringing together diverse voices based on shared opposition to oppressive political formations. Thus, while the standard narrative would suggest that the peaceable theology of Hauerwas has little to do with the feminist theology of Schüssler Fiorenza, I demonstrate that they share overlapping and strategic concerns, even as they differ over specific theological and political questions. There exist various ways of stating this point, but the argument made in this book is that ekklesia should aspire to be a site of radical democratic pluralism that affirms difference and seeks to generate commonalities amid these differences. Second, the postsecular turn has been dominated by nonreligious philosophers reflecting on the role of religion in the public sphere. Against Empire focuses on how religious thinkers, specifically political theologians, describe the contribution that Christianity makes to a radical democratic politics. Because of the central role that the Moral Majority and the religious right have played in conservative politics in the United States, it is commonplace to view religion as the exclusive province of the right. However, this judgment is entirely inaccurate, particularly when viewed within the long stretch of American history, in which the religious left played a central role in the abolitionist, suffragist, labor, and civil rights movements. The political theologians examined in subsequent chapters attempt to revive this tradition by occupying the contested ground between secular leftists and the religious right by challenging both those who wish to purge religion from the public sphere and Christians who use the gospel to support the politics of empire.
Finally, this work contributes to the postsecular conversation between political theologians and radical democratic theorists by exploring the distinctively Christian forms of radical democratic politics generated through this engagement. The political theologians examined in this work creatively refigure their approaches to politics based on their dialogue with radical democratic theory. But a productive postsecular dialogue should result in mutual transformation. Accordingly, it is essential to attend to the process by which theologians challenge and reconfigure radical democracy based on their retrieval of the radical politics of the Christian tradition. For example, radical democratic theorists have tended to focus on the economic dimension of empire and have deemphasized or, at the very least, failed to foreground concerns about structural racism and militarism. In relation to these issues, political theologians challenge and supplement secular forms of radical democratic theory. Cornel West develops a distinctive approach to radical democratic politics by challenging secular radical democratic theory based on his extensive retrieval of the antiracist politics of black Christianity and the black prophetic tradition. Similarly, Hauerwas’s retrieval of the peaceable politics of the Christian church serves as a corrective to radical democratic theorists’ failure to confront adequately the political violence of the nation-state. Constructively, each political theologian examined produces a distinctive approach to radical democracy drawn from the resources of the Christian tradition: prophetic-pragmatist (West), feminist-transnational (Schüssler Fiorenza), liberative-populist (Ellacuría, Sobrino), and peaceable-postliberal (Hauerwas).
The argument of Against Empire unfolds in six chapters. The first chapter analyzes two political formations—neoliberalism and neoconservatism. In the introductory comments, we emphasized the unique challenges posed to democracy by the ascendency of authoritarian populism, but it is important to emphasize that the emergence of this political formation was made possible by the antidemocratic effects of the neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony. This chapter aims to analyze the underlying logic of neoliberalism and neoconservatism, to describe the complicated relationship between them, and to trace the mutation of neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony into new forms of populist authoritarianism.
The second chapter provides an overview of significant trajectories in contemporary radical democratic theory by charting how radical democratic theorists have conceptualized their approach to politics. We focus on two dominant approaches in radical democratic theory: an institutional-reformist approach that calls for the need to radicalize existing democratic institutions (Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Jeffrey Stout) and a withdrawal-radicalist approach that advocates for the need to create political movements and communities that exist outside of traditional democratic structures and institutions (Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Sheldon Wolin). The chapter serves two important purposes within the overall argument of Against Empire. First, it offers an introduction to the radical democratic theorists that influence the political theologians examined in subsequent chapters. Wolin is by far the most significant conversation partner for these theologians, but Hardt and Negri, Laclau and Mouffe, Stout, and Coles also influence their approaches to Christian politics. Because the tendency in North American political theology has been to reduce radical democracy to Wolin’s criticisms of liberalism, it is important to broaden our understanding of the politics of radical democracy and the diverse ways in which it has shaped Christian political engagement. This chapter, then, seeks to provide a thicker description than is often offered in theological commentary by contextualizing important currents in contemporary radical democratic theory.
In addition, chapter 2 focuses on the withdrawal-engagement debate in radical democratic theory and traces how it plays out in post-Marxist and postliberal discourse. A central debate in radical democratic theory is whether politics should emerge in civil society at a distance from liberal democratic structures that have been captured by neoliberalism and neoconservatism, or if it should attempt to reform these democratic structures and push them beyond their liberal frame toward a more radical space. This withdrawal-engagement debate plays out among political theologians as well, with some locating their politics at a distance from traditional institutional forms (Latin American liberation theology, feminist theology, peaceable theology) and others advocating for a more direct, but no less critical, engagement with existing political institutions (black prophetic thought).
We organize the next four chapters into two subgroups. The third and fourth chapters examine the relationship between political theology and radical democracy as a pluralist form of coalition building. Black prophetic thought and feminist theology approach ekklesial politics by examining the interconnection between racism, sexism, capitalism, and militarism. Cornel West and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza adopt a pragmatic and praxis-oriented approach to the relation between Christianity and radical democracy that focuses on the retrieval of radical resources in the Christian tradition as a means of cultivating a broad-based, pluralist form of political resistance to empire that includes Christians, members of other religious traditions, as well as nonreligious persons.30
The fifth and sixth chapters examine the more focused confrontation with capitalism and political violence in the work of Latin American liberation and peaceable theologians. Although the primary object of criticism differs, Latin American liberation theology and peaceable theology share the common diagnosis that capitalism (Latin American liberation theology) and political violence (peaceable theology) represent forms of idolatry that demand the sacrifice of victims to subsist. In contrast to the work of West and Schüssler
