Category Archives: Political Theological Analysis
Against the New Atheism
One of the most remarkable features of the current conjuncture, especially in the United States, is the rise of the New Atheism as a potent ideological force, especially among the Millennial Generation. This has been accompanied by a broader growth … Continue reading
The real meaning of jihadism …
One of the most striking symptoms of our civilization’s current inability to understand itself –and to understand the broader humanity of which it is an expression– is the shock and dismay expressed every time another teen or twenty-something runs off … Continue reading
Class, Mana, and Power: Organized Money
This is the first installment of a series exploring the conditions under which power is built and exercised over both the short and longue duree. Subsequent installments will look at the role of organized people and organized mana or what is … Continue reading
Race, American Civil Religion, and the Endgame of Capital
This season of darkness and of lights is traditionally a time of taking stock, both spiritually and politically, of assessing where we are and asking where we are –and ought to be– going. And we cannot help but enter this … Continue reading
Saecular Hegemony
Humanity now stands at a very specific juncture with respect to the struggle between Sanctuary and the Saeculum. The stalemate between these two forces which dominated the great Silk Road Era from 200 BC-1800 CE has been broken and the … Continue reading
Sanctuary and Saeculum: The Desire to Be God
Humanity is the desire to be God (Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness, 1943: 556). Being finite, we are aware of the infinite and seek it without limit. Being contingent, dependent on other beings for our existence, we seek the … Continue reading
Is Humanistic Secularism Based on a Univocal Metaphysics?
Central to my philosophical and theological work in recent years has been the distinction between a univocal and an analogical metaphysics. The first regards all beings as existing in the same way. If there is a God, then this is … Continue reading
Where Does Univocal Metaphysics Come From?
At the very core of the political theological position I have staked out is the judgment that a univocal metaphysics represents a fundamental and very dangerous error –the error which, I have argued, is at the root of both fundamentalism … Continue reading
The Meaning of the Shutdown: Globalization, Populism, and their Discontents
What, precisely, is the broader significance of the US government shutdown? Is this just an unfortunate side effect of contingent political developments (Republican gerrymandering) which have temporarily magnified the power of a ultimately marginal elements in the society (a racist … Continue reading
Fundamentalism is a Secularism
There are few polemical tactics more annoying than that of trying to demonstrate that one’s adversary in fact upholds the position which s/he most abhors. I would therefore like to begin this essay with a disclaimer. My aim in … Continue reading