The current war is not a sacred war, per se, and yet it grows into a myth: the crueler the struggle, the stronger the impression that the gods fight alongside men and women. On the one hand, the extreme and radical nature of wartime events begs for an eschatological frame, depending on the scale of awe and destruction. Violence renders the world thin. On the other hand, yet another descent of politicians into evildoing brings forth the question of theodicy. Where is the almighty God and what is this thing he has about tolerating radical evil? But if there is no God to offend, the question remains as to why humans would engage in such senseless evil? As Slavoj Žižek once noted, it is the Shoah’s scale that, if not functioning as proof of God’s existence, re-actualizes theology. Can a god still save us?

Against this backdrop, we would like to return to the problems of political theology that we already addressed in a previous issue (Vol 3 No 2, 2015, “Political Theology”). Our goal is to criticize the politico-theological structures that underline subjects’ seemingly rational behavior, to respond to the militarist sublimation generated by the crisis,  and to study the theological logic of critique itself (since the concept of criticism is deeply rooted in the protestant worldview).

Published: 2023-12-31