Badiou,Agamben, Benjamin on St Paul (P. Travis Kroeker)

Abstract:

In recent years several important philosophical studies on the ethical and political
character of Pauline messianism have been published by continental philosophers—such as
Alain Badiou, Stanislaus Breton, Jacob Taubes and Giorgio Agamben. In contrast to the
Weberian “secularization thesis” that interprets Paul’s eschatological messianism as one of
indifference to worldly conditions, these authors, more in keeping with Walter Benjamin and
Karl Barth, interpret it as radically political, a challenge to conventional modern politics of
human and especially national sovereignty. This essay brings these studies of Paul into
conversation with recent critical discussions of Christian political theology in order to consider
how messianic ethics may or may not be relevant to contemporary political theory, particularly
in reformulating a “secularity” that neither excludes nor privileges particular religious voices and
traditions.
Secular Democracy and the Messianic: Stout and Benjamin
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