Calvin D. Ullrich
Calvin D. Ullrich (1990), PhD (Systematic Theology, Stellenbosch University) Currently Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Theology, in the Department of Historical and Constructive Theology, University of the Free State.
Former Research Fellow (Wiss. Mitarbeiter) at the Ecumenical Institute, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum Germany.
Academic interests in Continental Philosophy of Religion, Political Theology, Phenomenology, Embodied Cognition, and Affect Theory.
Other affiliations:
Research Associate, Department of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Current Research:
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) / German Research Foundation funded project (2021–2024): "A Critical Phenomenology of Christian Bodily Affect"
Supervisors: Robert Vosloo and Rebekka Klein
Former Research Fellow (Wiss. Mitarbeiter) at the Ecumenical Institute, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum Germany.
Academic interests in Continental Philosophy of Religion, Political Theology, Phenomenology, Embodied Cognition, and Affect Theory.
Other affiliations:
Research Associate, Department of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Current Research:
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) / German Research Foundation funded project (2021–2024): "A Critical Phenomenology of Christian Bodily Affect"
Supervisors: Robert Vosloo and Rebekka Klein
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The modus operandi for this chapter consists in outlining four contours of political theology: (1) first, the origins of political theology are introduced at length with respect to the twentieth century German constitutional lawyer, Carl Schmitt, a figure to which most references in contemporary political theology begin and continue to proliferate. Schmitt’s normative account of politics and theology are deeply problematic, but his ‘descriptive’ account of political theology has been highly influential, though in South Africa this has been indirect or even marginal. (2) The second contour engages the so-called German alternatives, where a group of post-war theologians, namely Jürgen Moltmann, Johann-Baptist Metz, and Dorothee Sölle, are seen in part as an implicit reaction to Schmitt’s political theology and post-War German Protestantism, but whose projects are also inflected by other contemporary political concerns, and which eventually migrate from the North to the Southern hemisphere. (3) The third contour most recognizable in South Africa is explored under the title of “Reformed political theology.” This term covers a variety of theological approaches born out of theological responses to apartheid. This section, however, first focuses on its problematic sense in the mode of neo-Kuyperian Calvinism and then on an alternative rendering that ‘revitalized’ Calvin’s political thought to subvert and offer a new ‘positive’ political theology. (4) The fourth and final contour suggests that reformed political theology developed into an umbrella term known as ‘public theology’. This mode has dominated theological discourse before and after the transition to democracy in 1994, and while it can rightly be said to conform to a modality of political theology, it will also need to be distinguished from it. Including public theology then, the section traces two other trajectories of political theology as possible futures for this discourse. Both share a conviction in moving beyond secular sensibilities, but while the former argues for the Christian liturgy and the church as the source for a counter-politics, the latter fashions a post-secular political theology that takes the absence of authority as constitutive of the political as such.
Critchley presented an ‘atheistic’ formulation of faith as an ‘experiment’
in ‘political theology.’ This work, as part of the so-called
‘turn to religion’ in continental political philosophy, gave an
account of what Critchley had formerly articulated as ‘atheistic
transcendence.’ Tracing the genesis of the latter and then linking
to his notion of the supreme fiction, the paper seeks to account for
Critchley’s ‘a/theological’ shift. Through a close reading, the paper
argues that Critchley’s ‘faith of the faithless’ depends on the
Christian hermeneutic tradition – or radical theology – for its
articulation. Finally, using John D. Caputo’s radical theology as
the principal proponent in this regard, the paper demonstrates a
necessary symmetry with Critchley’s faith of the faithless. Such a
claim leads to the conclusion that while symmetrical, Critchley and
Caputo are also inversely related. That is: a Critchlean radical
politics nourished by radical theology opens up the possibility
for a Caputoian radical political theology nourished by Critchlean
radical politics.
Book Chapters by Calvin D. Ullrich
Book Reviews by Calvin D. Ullrich