Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access

Volume 9 Issue 1

January 2023

Issue of Open Theology

Submit manuscript

Contents
Journal Overview

Topical issue: Political Theology and the State of Exception: Critical Readings on the Centenary of “Political Theology” and “Roman Catholicism and Political Form” by Carl Schmitt, edited by Guillermo Andrés Duque Silva

Open Access January 31, 2023

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology of Revolution

Montserrat Herrero

Article number: 20220223

More Download PDF

Abstract

Is there a political theology of revolution in Carl Schmitt or is his political theology only and exclusively autocratic? Schmitt sees the key to revolutionary politics in the construction of the idea of the people as a constituent power. This idea, and the first event it produced, namely, the French Revolution, not only establishes a concrete state of exception but also makes exceptionality both at the same time a constituent and a de-constituent element of the political order of the Modern State. The exception goes from coming from “outside” the political order to being integrated into it as an element of stasis , that is to say, of destabilization. Hence, all modern politics, under the mask of legality, become permanently revolutionary. This article analyses the juridical genealogy and the theological–political transfers involved in the construction of the modern revolutionary political era that follows from Schmitt’s insights.

Topical issue: Religion and Spirituality in Everyday Life, edited by Joana Bahia, Cecilia Bastos, and María Pilar García Bossio

Open Access May 24, 2023

If You Have Faith, Exu Responds on-line: The Day-to-Day Life of Quimbanda on Social Networks

Joana Bahia, Farlen de Jesus Nogueira

Article number: 20220227

More Download PDF

Abstract

The present work analyzes the interface between Quimbanda and the digital environment in the daily life of a Quimbandeiro. Quimbanda is an Afro-Brazilian faith that has grown in the virtual universe through consultations and other uses of digital media. In addition to analyzing the Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram pages of these religious groups, we interviewed and followed the daily life of a teacher and also conducted bibliographic research on the subject. In their daily practices, Quimbandeiros use the internet as a space for interaction, quotidian practices of care, and the manufacture of spells. We analyze how digital interaction presents this religious belief in the virtual public sphere and the interconnections between religious and technological narratives. Quimbanda, a somewhat stigmatized religion, expands its boundaries in virtual mode. In the case analyzed in this article, Quimbandeiro work is directly linked to the movements of Exu, the entity who controls the crossroads. Through the mediation of the production of religious images, Exu expands his spiritual and technological presence offline, flooding online communities with meaning.

Open Access June 5, 2023

Media and the Sacralization of Leaders and Events: The Construction of a Religious Public Sphere

Mihai Coman

Article number: 20220230

More Download PDF

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate that media can achieve a religious construction of an event or issue and set the public sphere in a religious frame through the sacralization of events and persons. This perspective can be supported empirically by the studies showing the way in which mass media framed different events in a religious imaginary and language and proposed this image as a frame for public sphere debates and theoretically by the concepts of media events, mediatization, ritualization, and sacralization, in order to reveal the processes through which the translation from a secular discourse to a religious discourse is produced. Under certain circumstances, mass media work as an “as if” (metaphoric) religion, and the events are presented through a religious frame – through themes and figures that come from the religious sacred narratives. Journalists accomplish this by setting events and leaders within the symbolic frame specific to religion: within this framework, those who report the facts are using narratives close to hagiographic stories, and by this, they are accomplishing the sacralization of these events. This enables journalists to exert a “ritual mastery” over presenting the events and imposing its significations.

Regular Articles

Open Access February 4, 2023

Naturalism Fails an Empirical Test: Darwin’s “Dangerous” Idea in Retrospect

Charles Byrne

Article number: 20220225

More Download PDF

Abstract

In his theory of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin provided a plausible alternative to Christianity’s creation account of human origins. In response, the Christian botanist Asa Gray suggested that the variation that drives evolution might be generated by God. Darwin rejected Gray’s hypothesis, invoking philosophical naturalism, a hallmark scientific paradigm. Darwin’s conclusion was reached on ideological grounds rather than empirical ones. I frame the question of the source of biological variation in a way that is accessible to modern experimental science and trace historical advances in biology that have accumulated to favor Gray’s theistic view. In particular, I show that empirical evidence collected subsequent to Darwin’s time contradicts the assumption of randomness in the mutation process, and thereby undermines the basis for his invocation of naturalism in the origins of biological variation.

Open Access April 1, 2023

Talking about God from the Meaning of Life: Contributions from the Thought of Juan Antonio Estrada

Diego Fernando Bedoya Bonilla, Carlos Arboleda Mora

Article number: 20220226

More Download PDF

Abstract

Juan Antonio Estrada, a Spanish philosopher and theologian, proposes the search for meaning in life as the theological place for a valid experience of God. The “achieved” or fully realized life, to which every human being aspires, is the proposal of salvation that Jesus makes possible with the proclamation of the Reign and that opens a hopeful future with Easter. By bringing reason and faith into dialogue, Estrada contributes to fundamental theology by talking about God, not from the traditional concepts of classical theology, but from the human experience related to the search for a deep meaning for existence. Although this author emphasizes the elements of a problematic faith with unresolved issues and doubts – including the timeless challenge of theodicy – his agonizing and perplexed position is full of confidence in the certainty that God’s salvation plan will inevitably come true. In this contingent life, everything remains incomplete; yet God in Jesus gives the ultimate meaning for life that all human beings grope for. This fundamental issue of human reflection will be developed by going deeper into Estrada’s philosophical and theological work.

Open Access May 31, 2023

Symbolic Theology and Resistance in the Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Paul Tillich

Margrethe Kamille Birkler

Article number: 20220229

More Download PDF

Abstract

In this article, I study how symbolic theology can be advantageously utilized in the resistance against oppressing structures and ideologies. Studying two sermons of Paul Tillich and two speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the symbols used herein as a call to resistance against injustice, I wish to show how theologically grounded symbols have been used to resist injustice and in the call for justice. Furthermore, I study how the symbols used by Tillich and King can be utilized and reinterpreted in the various struggles taking place today against old and new oppressing structures and ideologies. The resistance against injustice must, however, also be undertaken intersectionally. And finally, I propose to bring the understanding of theology as symbolic engagement from Robert C. Neville into conversation with intersectional symbolic theology. I believe an intersectional symbolic theology can be successfully applied to feminist theology, queer theology, and other liberative theologies today.

About this journal

Open Theology is an international Open Access, peer-reviewed academic journal that welcomes contributions written in English addressing religion in its various forms and aspects: historical, theological, sociological, psychological, and other.
The journal encompasses all major disciplines of Theology and Religious Studies, presenting doctrine, history, organization and everyday life of various types of religious groups and the relations between them. We publish articles from the field of Theology as well as Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology of Religion and also dialogue between Religion and Science.
Open Theology does not present views of any particular theological school nor of a particular religious organization. The contributions are written by researchers who represent different religious views. The authors present their research concerning the old religious traditions as well as new religious movements.
The aim of the journal is to promote an international and interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of Theology and Religious Studies. The journal seeks also to provide researchers, pastors and other interested persons with the fruits of academic studies.

Article Processing Charges

Call for Proposals for Topical Issues

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Political Theology and the State of Exception: Critical readings on the centenary of 'Political Theology' & 'Roman Catholicism and Political Form' by Carl Schmitt - Edited by Guillermo Andrés Duque Silva (University of King Juan Carlos, Spain) - NEW DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: May 31, 2023.
Religion and Spirituality in Everyday Life edited by Joana Bahia (State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Cecilia Bastos (National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and María Pilar García Bossio (UCA-CONICET, Argentina) - deadline for submissions: May 15, 2023.