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Book Reviews / Pneuma 31 (2009) 105-160
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Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds., Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post- Secular World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006). xii + 796 pp. Paper, $32.00.
T ia Cooper, Controversies in Political T eology (London: SCM Pres, 2007). ix + 208 pp. Paper, $26.99.
Karen L. Bloomquist, ed., Being the Church in the Midst of Empire: Trinitarian Refl ections , T eology in the Life of the Church 1 (Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2007). 284 pp. Paper, $18.00.
“I am pentecostal, I am not political!” This self-understanding is still prominent among many sectors of pentecostalism’s laity; however, pentecostal scholars have long come to recognize the inseparability of religion and politics. The books under review here provide resources for pentecostal scholars and theologians to pursue the analysis of the political dimension of global pentecostalism in fresh ways.
Political T eologies presents a spectrum of views (thus the plural in the book title) in four parts: on various types of political theologies (ten essays); on tolerance, pluralism, and ago- nistic reason (as opposed to bland or politically correct pluralism) (eight essays); on demo- cratic republicanism and the variety of secularisms (also ten essays); and on human rights vis-à-vis open societies (six essays). Most of the essays were written post-9/11 and refl ect the tenor of the discussion following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and editor de Vries does a fi ne job of setting out the issues regarding the relationship of religion and politics in his almost a 100-page introduction. For the most part the essayists and their contributions represent a diverse set of political, religious, cultural, and disciplinary per- spectives — e.g., recognized philosophers like Jean Luc Nancy, Jürgen Habermas, and Judith Butler; anthropologists like Talal Asad; religion scholars like editor Sullivan and Bruce Lincoln; political scientists like William E. Connelly, etc. — although with the exception of an essay by Pope Benedict XVI (on the moral foundations of a free republic), there are no formally trained theological voices present (ironic in a book titled Political T eologies !). While there are some fairly concrete case studies, they are by and large limited to the Euroamerican world, and then used as springboards for theoretical analysis. T us the discussion throughout this fairly long book remains at a high level of (especially philo- sophical) abstraction. Nevertheless, those looking for a sense of the major issues currently being debated in the academy will fi nd in Political T eologies a status quaestiones of the kinds of thinking taking place at the vanguard of the discussion.
Focused specifi cally on the economic aspects of political theology, T ia Cooper’s book evaluates the fortunes of liberation and development approaches since the 1960s.
Whereas development proceeds from the North to the South (the latter viewed as where the problem of poverty lies), liberation is more the response of the South to the North (the latter identifi ed as the source from which the structures of problematic economic relations emanate). Cooper details the morphing of the development approach into globalization since the 1990s even while providing concrete case studies of both approaches. A libera- tionist political theology is defended based on opting ultimately for conscientization and prophetic empowerment over advocacy approaches and the tendency to maintain the status
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/157007409X418428
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 31 (2009) 105-160
quo. Since the popular saying that, “liberation theology opted for the poor but the poor have opted for Pentecostalism” has now made its way around the pentecostal academy, this suggests even another reason that pentecostal scholars need to take up issues in political theology and economy: that they might provide important perspectives to contribute to the overcoming the divisions of right-left often found in the existing debate.
But how might pentecostal scholarship proceed? The collection of essays in Being the Church in the Midst of Empire: Trinitarian Refl ections might be suggestive of one way for- ward. The fi fteen essays here originated at a meeting of theologians of the Lutheran World Fellowship (LWF) — in June 2007 at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota — on the topic of the church and empire, and have been revised for publication. So while theologians of the LWF as members of mainline Protestant denominations are more generally to the left of the theological and political spectrum, yet in many cases the contributors have sought to mine, retrieve, and reappropriate the specifi cally confessional resources of the Lutheran tradition to address the question of how the church is to be faithful today in the midst of the forces of globalization, transnationalism, consumerism, world citizenship, etc. Inevita- bly, Lutheran themes like theology of the cross, kenosis and the hiddenness of God, public vocation, and the distinction between the spiritual and the secular domains are drawn upon to discuss issues like prosperity theology, church-state relations, and the nature and practice of democracy. Yet pentecostal scholars will also be interested in the specifi cally trinitarian and pneumatological motifs in many of these essays which provide the depth theological grammar for constructive thinking about the church in relationship to empire.
Global pentecostalism now cuts across national, ethnic, religious, political, economic, and class lines. The many faces of world pentecostalism beg for pentecostal scholarly refl ec- tion on the political, economic, and social dimensions of the global movement. Traditional notions of “apolitical pentecostalism” require rethinking not only in terms of the growing politicizing of North American pentecostal-evangelical alliances but also in terms of the present realization that even sectarian groups are political precisely in the outworking of their world-rejecting beliefs and practices. In these and other cases, much more political, economic, and social analysis can illuminate contemporary pentecostal movements and their interfaces with the late modern world. At the same time, pentecostal theologians will need to grapple in their own thinking with the complexity of the global movement as a whole even while being informed about the details within its various domains. For these and other reasons, the three books under review as well as a host of other studies in these various genres will become increasingly important for the future of Pentecostal Theology.
Reviewed by Amos Yong
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