Peace, Post-Secularity and Political Activism

Mitchell, Roger Haydon (2017) Peace, Post-Secularity and Political Activism. In: The Society for the Study of Theology :. UNSPECIFIED. (Unpublished)

Abstract

This paper elucidates a deep ontological, postsecular, theological perspective on peace despite controversies surrounding these terms. The purpose is to expose and elude the epochal sovereignty assumptions resurfacing in new western political space and to provide synergy with activists coming from a secular, non-religious, egalitarian perspective. The paper draws on contemporary sources with the capacity to sustain an inclusive incarnational politics of love. Firstly, Slavoj Žižek’s method of applying the ontological substrata of Marxist thought without the recognized integral dogma of Marxist ideology; secondly, Giorgio Agamben’s exposure of the inversion of the economics of the mystery in The Kingdom and the Glory; thirdly, Thomas Jay Oord’s definition of love as the promotion of overall wellbeing in The Nature of Love and his concept of essential kenosis in The Uncontrolling Love of God, and finally Walter Brueggermann’s elucidation of two streams of Old Testament narrative, the Shalomic and the Pharaonic in Journey To the Common Good. The contributions are grounded in my published research Church, Gospel and Empire: How the Politics of Sovereignty Impregnated the West and contextualised with reference to the current engagement of the Richardson Institute for Peace Studies in positive socio-cultural change throughout Morecambe Bay.