A short history of political theology.

Last weekend a friend sent me a link to a long piece in the New York Times titled "The Politics of God", written by Columbia University humanities professor Mark Lilla. It was a difficult week here for me, so I didn't get around to reading the full article until this morning. I recommend you do so at your first opportunity, since the meat of the thing will help you to understand a fundamental threat that we face...it's just not the fundamental threat that the author of the piece talks about.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main thrust of the author's argument is framed in terms of the West's relations with Islam. This topic tends to dominate the news and what passes for foreign affairs these days, so that in itself is to be expected - it's how you get published. And he has some valuable perspective to offer on the subject. But it is in his outline of the history of political theology in the West that the real value (and the more important threat) is contained.

In a few quick paragraphs Lilla sets out the basic paradigm of how politics and religion were intertwined in European history, how that lead to the Wars of Religion, then the political theories of Thomas Hobbes and on into the Enlightenment. One nice passage from this:

Fresh from the Wars of Religion, Hobbes’s readers knew all about fear. Their lives had become, as he put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And when he announced that a new political philosophy could release them from fear, they listened. Hobbes planted a seed, a thought that it might be possible to build legitimate political institutions without grounding them on divine revelation. He knew it was impossible to refute belief in divine revelation; the most one can hope to do is cast suspicion on prophets claiming to speak about politics in God’s name. The new political thinking would no longer concern itself with God’s politics; it would concentrate on men as believers in God and try to keep them from harming one another. It would set its sights lower than Christian political theology had, but secure what mattered most, which was peace.

Lilla calls this "the Great Separation". Another relevant bit:

Though there was great reluctance to adopt Hobbes’s most radical views on religion, in the English-speaking world the intellectual principles of the Great Separation began to take hold in the 18th century. Debate would continue over where exactly to place the line between religious and political institutions, but arguments about the legitimacy of theocracy petered out in all but the most forsaken corners of the public square. There was no longer serious controversy about the relation between the political order and the divine nexus; it ceased to be a question. No one in modern Britain or the United States argued for a bicameral legislature on the basis of divine revelation.

OK, that passage about theocracy is where Lilla hangs his argument about the differences between the West and Islam. But it is precisely where I see the real threat: that within our own country there has been a growing movement to once again merge belief with political power. It carries more subtle names now, and is moving slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to alarm the bulk of the populace, but "arguments about the legitimacy of theocracy" are no longer confined to "all but the most forsaken corners of the public square."

I think Lilla knows this, and it is implicit in his argument, however it may be positioned towards Islam. After tracing how a renewed liberal theology developed in Germany in the 19th century, and lead directly to the horrors of Nazism, the central threat of his piece is set forth:

All of which served to confirm Hobbes’s iron law: Messianic theology eventually breeds messianic politics. The idea of redemption is among the most powerful forces shaping human existence in all those societies touched by the biblical tradition. It has inspired people to endure suffering, overcome suffering and inflict suffering on others. It has offered hope and inspiration in times of darkness; it has also added to the darkness by arousing unrealistic expectations and justifying those who spill blood to satisfy them. All the biblical religions cultivate the idea of redemption, and all fear its power to inflame minds and deafen them to the voice of reason. In the writings of these Weimar figures, we encounter what those orthodox traditions always dreaded: the translation of religious notions of apocalypse and redemption into a justification of political messianism, now under frightening modern conditions. It was as if nothing had changed since the 17th century, when Thomas Hobbes first sat down to write his “Leviathan.”

The revival of political theology in the modern West is a humbling story. It reminds us that this way of thinking is not the preserve of any one culture or religion, nor does it belong solely to the past. It is an age-old habit of mind that can be reacquired by anyone who begins looking to the divine nexus of God, man and world to reveal the legitimate political order. This story also reminds us how political theology can be adapted to circumstances and reassert itself, even in the face of seemingly irresistible forces like modernization, secularization and democratization. Rousseau was on to something: we seem to be theotropic creatures, yearning to connect our mundane lives, in some way, to the beyond. That urge can be suppressed, new habits learned, but the challenge of political theology will never fully disappear so long as the urge to connect survives.

So we are heirs to the Great Separation only if we wish to be, if we make a conscious effort to separate basic principles of political legitimacy from divine revelation. Yet more is required still. Since the challenge of political theology is enduring, we need to remain aware of its logic and the threat it poses. This means vigilance, but even more it means self-awareness. We must never forget that there was nothing historically inevitable about our Great Separation, that it was and remains an experiment.

A grand experiment, and the basis for our Republic. But those who wish to turn this into a "Christian Nation" seek to undo it all, to plunge back into the messianic madness of a unified polity and church. They may not admit it, except amongst their fellows. And their followers probably do not fully understand the risk. But it is there, a yawning chasm in the darkness, into which we will fall if we turn from the light of reason.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted, with a slight bit of additional material, to my blog.)