Political Theology Revisited

Faith, for J.B. Metz, is "a praxis in history and society that is to be understood as hope in solidarity in the God of Jesus as a God of the living and the dead who calls all men to be subjects in his presence".(1) That is, Metz sees Christian praxis, meaning faith, as social praxis which in turn is ethically determined, is accompanied by a making present of a collective historical memory, and is characterised by its pathic structure. This, then, is Metz's understanding of Christian faith in the light of his political theology as a "practical fundamental theology ".

Moltmann, on the other hand, has never claimed to have a "political theology" of his own. Faith for him is "the foundation upon which hope rests,…Without faith's knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia…But without hope, faith falls to pieces".(2) Theology, and in particular political theology, to be responsible, is public. It stands "consciously between the Christian, eschatological message of freedom and the socio-political reality'. (3) Political theology for Moltmann, then, is a "hermeneutical category" defining the context and the medium in which Christian theology is to be articulated today. This is further understood in the assertion that "the new criterion of theology and of faith is to be found in praxis". (4)

Despite the similarity between Metz and Moltmann in their approach to the subject, there are crucial differences in their later developments. We shall return to this point in the fifth section of this paper.

The term "political" theology itself is not without ambiguity and misunderstandings. The traditional usage in Greek philosophy arises from the tripartite division of theology into mythic, natural, and political. Each of the three addresses itself to different gods with the political as inferior to the other two. Roman theology took up this division but with a reversal of priorities. That is, political theology took precedence over the metaphysical and became no more than a theological justification of the primacy of politics. Augustine, in The City of God, criticizes this all too immanent process at the expense of the transcendent. He emphazises the dependence of the political on the mythic and the metaphysical, the three being distinct but interrelated ways of speaking about God. Yet the Roman conception of political theology was revived from the Renaissance onwards to offer support to the uneasy 'marriage' between the church and the state. Political theology thus became, once again, the tool of those in power to justify a "Christendom" from “the right”.

A new political theology for today will have to dissociate itself from any conception of a "Christendom", either of the "Right" or of the “Left”. Political theology, a truly human endeavour, will necessarily be rooted in the world. And yet, as theology, it is at the same time always pointing to that which is beyond the world. A credible political theology will have to maintain a unity between the identity and non-identity of faith and culture, between redemption and human history; that the resurrection hope will not be swallowed up by history as it makes death and guilt transitory. Nor will it swallow up history because a hope based on the cross is fulfilled only when the dead and all creation are returned to the full lordship of God. (5)

While Moltmann sees political theology as no more than a hermeneutical horizon. Metz locates it firmly in the arena of fundamental theology. For Metz, fundamental theology today can no longer simply be a rational justification of faith that is narrowly apologetic in nature. That is, it must not be reduced to a "theological meta-theory" of existing world theories. Rather, it must justify itself as theology by "a return to subjects and the praxis of subjects''…"As such, its task is to evoke and describe a praxis which will resist all evolutionary attempts at reconstruction and any attempt to do away with religious practice as an independent entity or the religious subject as an authentic element in the process of a historical and materialist dialectical system".(6) In other words , the practical fundamental theology devised by Metz is always bound to the act of opposing any attempt to condition religion socially or to reconstruct it theoretically.

1)J. B. Metz, Faith in History and Society, Burns & Oates, London, 1980, p. 73. The term “praxis” implies the activity of the whole person, intellectual as well as physical. It is more than what is understood by the term “practice”. Henceforth, the former will be preferred to the latter in this essay. See also Metz’s article, “Political Theology”, in Sacramentum Mundi.

2)J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, SCM Press, London, 1970, p. 20.

3)Moltmann, "Political Theology", in The Experiment Hope, SCM Press, London, 1975, p. 102.

4)Moltmann, "God in Revolution", in Religion, Revolution and the Future, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY 1969, p.138.

5)Moltmann, "The End of History", in Hope and Planning, SCM Press, London, 1971, p.167f.

6)Metz, 1980, p.7.