Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism (Radical Theologies)
November 19, 2013
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Many of you asked for it – now you get it! We are excited to announce the release of the paperback edition of The New Materialism.
Cornel West, author of Race Matters, Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary, had this to say about the book:
Many of you asked for it – now you get it! We are excited to announce the release of the paperback edition of The New Materialism.
Cornel West, author of Race Matters, Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary, had this to say about the book:
‘I love the sense of urgency from Crockett and Robbins. By invoking the earth as subject, they have named our emergency situation today. This book is a true manifesto. It is comprehensive and encyclopedic. And as a renewal of radical theology as an insurrectionary political theology, it just might be a new species of liberation theology. Don’t miss this book!’
In celebration of this release, we wanted to have some fun. So here is what the co-authors, Clayton Crockett and Jeffery Robbins came up with.
You Might be a Radical Theologian If
- The idea of the death of God fills you with excitement rather than dismay.
- You are suspicious of priestly authority - whether in its ecclesiastical or academic forms.
- In college your favorite philosopher was Nietzsche, and your favorite aphorism was: ‘be careful when you stare into the abyss, because the abyss is also staring back at you.’
- You disagree with traditional theology’s obsession over individual salvation — and more pointedly, with the theological rendering of death as the prerequisite for life.
- You cried when Thomas J. J. Altizer died. Wait! – he’s not dead? How is that possible that God is dead and Altizer is still alive!?
- You conceive of theology as a creative endeavor - that is, not as a reduplication of an already given, inherited, or predetermined faith, but for its possibility of generating new concepts and different formulations of extremity.
- You have ever tried to deconstruct a sermon by _______ (insert popular evangelical preacher here).
- You have a tattoo of the cover art of Erring - Robert Morris’s labyrinth - somewhere on your body.
- It actually makes sense to think of theology as a ‘discourse formation.’
- You refuse the category of the sacred, or at the very least take more delight in locating the sacred within the profane rather than distinguishing the former from the latter. It is in this sense that radical theology is a secular theology by grounding the sacred/profane distinction in the shared saeculum.
- The first person who comes to mind when you see the initials ‘JC’ is John Caputo, as opposed to - well, you know.
- You also acknowledge radical theology’s own limitations and blindspots - most specifically, radical theology has heretofore remained almost exclusively an academic theology lacking in both a politics and an ecclesiology, its voice of protest has all too often not risen beyond that of white, male frustration, and instead of seeking out common cause with the poor and the oppressed it has all too often remained aloof and self-obsessed.
Please feel free to add your own in the comment section below.
You can also go back the original blog tour and get up to speed while your paperback ships.
Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism (Radical Theologies)
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Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism (Radical Theologies)
Paperback
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1137374217/?tag=homebrechrist-20+politics+and+the+earth
by Clayton Crockett (Author) and Jeffrey W. Robbins (Author)
This book takes its leave with the realization that Western-driven culture is quickly reaching the limits of global capitalism, and that this reality manifests itself not only economically and politically, but that it is at once a cultural, aesthetic, political, religious, ecological, and philosophical problem. While Western capitalism is based upon the assumption of indefinite growth, we have run up against real, physical constraints to growth, and humanity must face the real, physical ramifications of the short-sighted and ultimately counter-productive choices made on behalf of the capitalist machine. While there is widespread angst and numerous scenarios of apocalyptic crisis and collapse, there is little or no comprehension of the problem and a coherent picture of reality is left wanting. Drawing primarily from the discourses of contemporary continental philosophy, cultural theory, and radical theology, the new materialism is being offered up as a redress to this problem by its effort to make sense of the world as an integrated whole.
The book emphasizes three aspects of the current crisis: the ecological crisis, which is often viewed primarily in terms of global warming; the energy crisis, which involves peak oil and the limits of the ability to extract and exploit the cheap energy of fossil fuels; and finally the financial crisis, which involves the de-leveraging and destruction of massive amounts of money and credit. Each of these problems is inter-related, because money is dependent upon energy, and energy is a product of natural physical resources that are finite and diminishing.
Rather than despair or the cynicism that passes for realpolitik, the authors will suggest that this crisis provides an opening for a new kind of orientation to thinking and acting, a new way of being in and of the earth. This opening is an opening onto a new materialism that is neither a crude consumerist materialism nor a reductive atomic materialism, but a materialism that takes seriously the material and physical world in which we live. This materialism counters idealism in its practical and philosophical forms, which constructs an ideal world that we wish to inhabit and then mistakes that world for the real one. Furthermore, in contrast to classical materialism which rejects religion as a form of false consciousness, this new materialism recognizes religion as an effective means of political mobilization and as a genuine source of piety, and thus does not oppose religion per se; instead, it opposes fanaticism and fundamentalism, including the fairy-tale expectations that a God (or gods) will rescue us from our predicament and punish the evil-doers while rewarding the righteous.
by Clayton Crockett (Author) and Jeffrey W. Robbins (Author)
This book takes its leave with the realization that Western-driven culture is quickly reaching the limits of global capitalism, and that this reality manifests itself not only economically and politically, but that it is at once a cultural, aesthetic, political, religious, ecological, and philosophical problem. While Western capitalism is based upon the assumption of indefinite growth, we have run up against real, physical constraints to growth, and humanity must face the real, physical ramifications of the short-sighted and ultimately counter-productive choices made on behalf of the capitalist machine. While there is widespread angst and numerous scenarios of apocalyptic crisis and collapse, there is little or no comprehension of the problem and a coherent picture of reality is left wanting. Drawing primarily from the discourses of contemporary continental philosophy, cultural theory, and radical theology, the new materialism is being offered up as a redress to this problem by its effort to make sense of the world as an integrated whole.
The book emphasizes three aspects of the current crisis: the ecological crisis, which is often viewed primarily in terms of global warming; the energy crisis, which involves peak oil and the limits of the ability to extract and exploit the cheap energy of fossil fuels; and finally the financial crisis, which involves the de-leveraging and destruction of massive amounts of money and credit. Each of these problems is inter-related, because money is dependent upon energy, and energy is a product of natural physical resources that are finite and diminishing.
Rather than despair or the cynicism that passes for realpolitik, the authors will suggest that this crisis provides an opening for a new kind of orientation to thinking and acting, a new way of being in and of the earth. This opening is an opening onto a new materialism that is neither a crude consumerist materialism nor a reductive atomic materialism, but a materialism that takes seriously the material and physical world in which we live. This materialism counters idealism in its practical and philosophical forms, which constructs an ideal world that we wish to inhabit and then mistakes that world for the real one. Furthermore, in contrast to classical materialism which rejects religion as a form of false consciousness, this new materialism recognizes religion as an effective means of political mobilization and as a genuine source of piety, and thus does not oppose religion per se; instead, it opposes fanaticism and fundamentalism, including the fairy-tale expectations that a God (or gods) will rescue us from our predicament and punish the evil-doers while rewarding the righteous.
