Political Theology

Marinos Diamantides is Reader in Law at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of The Ethics of Suffering (Ashgate, 2000) and the editor of Islam, Law and Identity (Routledge-Cavendish, 2011) and Law, Levinas, Politics (Routledge-Cavendish, 2009). Anton Schütz is an Honorary Fellow of Kent Law School, University of Kent. He is co-editor of the book series Encounters in Law and Philosophy (EUP). His current studies focus on right-centred vs. law-centred normative orders

Diamantides and Schütz describe how Western Christian theology has led to a collective sense that has 'little or no relation to reality'. The violence of this system comes from the way that it insists that what it is promoting is real when it is not. For this reason, evoking an alternative sense of reality is no small accomplishment and that is precisely what this book does. If you want a happy ending, read a different book. If you want a brave and insightful glimpse of the way the modern world is continually shaped and reshaped by hidden theologies, then this is the book for you.

• Introduction: Premises and ArgumentsPart 1: Religions R Us1. From Sovereignty to Negeschatology2. Social Systems on the Cross3. The Religion of Progress4. Political Theology beyond SchmittPart 2: Historicised Political Theology5. From Jerusalem to Rome via Constantinople6. The Transition from Secularism to Post-Secularism7. Deeds Without WordsNotesIndex