Political Theology of Vulnerability

Sturla J. Stålsett, Ph.D. (1998), is Professor of Religion, Society and Diaconal Studies at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. He has published monographs, edited compilations, and written numerous research articles in English, Norwegian and Spanish on Liberation, Political and Contextual Theology, Globalization and Religion, Politics of Faith and Belief, Human Rights, Ethics and Diaconal work, including The crucified and the Crucified: A Study in the Liberation Christology of Jon Sobrino (Peter Lang, 2003), Spirits of Globalisation. The Growth of Pentecostalism and Experiential Spiritualities in a Global Age. (SCM Press, 2006), and Religion in a Globalised Age: Transfers and Transformations, Integration and Resistance (Novus Press, 2008).

Taking vulnerability as starting point for constructive agency and community radically transforms political theology. The author’s powerful global experience and intellectual depth make this book essential reading for anybody concerned with theological attention to lived religion, emancipation, justice, love, and peace in the pressing conflicts of our world. - Werner G. Jeanrond, Em. Professor of Theology, University of Oslo.

• Preface: Fires in Paradise1 Project: A Political Theology of Vulnerability1 Questions2 Definitions3 Contribution4 Procedure2 Precarity: Political Agency and Community in Crisis1 Precariat2 Multitude3 Bare life4 Immunity5 Necropolitics6 Precarity3 Precarious: Reconsidering Vulnerability1 Provocation2 Grievability3 Differentiation4 Agency5 Relationality6 Responsibility7 Community8 Recognition9 Dispossession10 Resilience11 Resistance12 Performativity13 Affirmation14 Framing4 Precious: Religion in Precarious Times1 Secularization2 Security3 Deprivation4 Responses5 Ultimacy6 Wrongness7 ‘Handling’5 Preaching: Sacralizing Vulnerability1 Birthdays2 San Jorge3 Divine Dispossession4 Vulnerable God5 Sacralizing Vulnerability6 Subversive Salvation7 Community-in-Vulnerability8 Infrapolitics6 Prayer: Spirituals Confronting Crucifixion1 Spirituals2 Community3 Strange Fruit4 Recrucifixions5 Wounds6 Healing Sub Contrario7 Amnesty8 Love7 Promise: The Vulnerable Basis of Political Agency and CommunityReferencesIndex