LTI Director's Anti-human Theology published

Peter Scott's Anti-human Theology: Nature, Technology and the Postnatural is now published by SCM Press. For further information, please click here.

LATEST NEWS: Read a review from the UK Church Times here. 

'In this ground-breaking book, Scott makes a vital contribution to a necessary exodus out of enslaving modes of thinking about nature.' ---Sigurd Bergmann, Trondheim University, Norway.

'This book is a brilliant challenge to standard modes of theo-political discourse, one sure to stimulate new ways of imagining the contemporary human situation.' ---Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College, USA.

Fascinatingly Disturbing

Dr. Michael Hoelzl has contributed to a newly released book on Michael Haneke's work entitled, Fascinatingly Disturbing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Michael Haneke's Cinema, edited by Alexander D. Ornella and Stefanie Knauss. Here's a brief extract from the back cover:

Michael Haneke is one of Europe’s most successful and controversial film directors. Awarded the Palme d’Or and numerous other international awards, Haneke has contributed to and shaped contemporary auteur cinema and is becoming more and more popular among academics and cinephiles. His mission is as noble as it is provocative: he wants to "rape the audience into independence," to wake them up from the lethargy caused by the entertainment industry. e lmic language he employs in this mission is both highly characteristic and ecient, and yet his methods are open to criticism for their violence toward and manipulation of the audience. e aim of this book is to analyze critically Haneke’s aesthetics, his message, as well as his ethical motivation from an interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. Contributors to the book come from a variety of academic disciplines and cultural backgrounds-European and North American.

Symposium on the Politics of Discipleship

The Church and Postmodern Culture website is hosting a three-part online symposium on Graham Ward's new book The Politics of Discipleship. The first contribution was from Ronald Kuipers, Senior Member in Philosophy of Religion at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario. His reflection can be downloaded as a PDF by clicking here. Here's a brief abstract:

In the best Christian tradition, Graham Ward has, in The Politics of Discipleship, performed a true service—particularly for his Christian readers. While I think it is fair to say that one of the book’s primary messages is directed at a Christian audience (which is not to say that this is its only intended audience), at the same time the book does much more here than merely preach to the converted. The book instead calls for the conversion of the converted. That is to say, this book succeeds, in rather arresting fashion, to show Christians, especially those living in affluent Western societies, how deaf they have become to their faith’s true calling. The book severely criticizes what Ward calls “Christian accommodationism” to the powers that be, and with that dares Christians to be “impolite”—to turn from this accommodating stance and instead respond redemptively to the chasm that yawns between the world Scripture promises will one day come into reality, a world of justice and shalom, and the one human beings are now busily setting up, one in which “[t]he forces of dehumanization, dematerialization, and depoliticization are strong and hegemonic; new poverties and new slaveries proliferate; and we are sleepwalking into a future that threatens to overwhelm if grace and transcendent goodness cannot prevail" (Ward, p. 300).

Politics of Discipleship

New Publication!

The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens, is Professor Graham Ward's latest publication in a series by Baker Academic Press. In this fourth volume in the Church and Postmodern Culture series, internationally acclaimed theologian Graham Ward examines the political side of postmodernism in order to discern the contemporary context of the church and describe the characteristics of a faithful, political discipleship. His study falls neatly into two sections. The first, which is the more theoretical section, considers "the signs of the times." Ward names this section "The World," noting that the church must always frame its vision and mission within its worldly context. In the second section, "The Church," he turns to constructive application, providing an account of the Christian practices of hope that engage the world from within yet always act as messengers of God's kingdom. 

"Extraordinary! Graham Ward's The Politics of Discipleship is an extraordinary book. Ward does nothing less than help us see how 'world' and 'church' implicate each other by providing an insightful and learned account of the transformation of democracy, the perversities of globalization, and the ambiguities of secularization. Perhaps even more significant is his theological proposal for the difference the church can make in the world so described. This is an extraordinary book."-Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke University

"For some time now, Ward has blended orthodox theology, biblical study, and cultural theory with an independent originality. Now he has added politics to this mix. An extremely significant volume."-John Milbank, University of Nottingham

German Translation of True Religion

Kohlhammer press has recently published a German translation of Graham Ward's 2003 book, True Religion. Auf der Suche nach der wahren Religion: ReligionsKulturen 4, was translated by by Annerose Karkowski and was made available in December, 2008. Here's a brief abstract:

Vom religiösen Fundamentalismus bis zum Konsum religiöser Spezialeffekte im Holy Land-Abenteuerpark in Florida: Religion steht einmal mehr auf der Liste der wichtigsten Themen der Gegenwart. Doch wie verhält sich die gegenwärtige Wiederkehr des Religiösen zur Wahrheit der Religion? Ward skizziert die Genealogie der Suche nach der "wahren" Religion in der westlichen Welt. Er macht auf die Wandlungen dieser Suche im Wechselspiel mit den Entwicklungen des modernen Säkularismus, Liberalismus und Kapitalismus aufmerksam. Für die Gegenwart kommt er zu dem überraschenden Fazit: Zurück zur Theologie!

Graham Ward ist durch seine Beiträge zu Diskursen postmoderner Theologie international bekannt geworden und gilt als einer der kreativsten Theologen der Gegenwart.

The New Visibility of Religion

New Publication!

The New Visibility of Religion: Studies in Religion and Cultural Hermeneutics is the latest in the Continuum Studies in Religion and Political Culture series edited by Graham Ward and Michael Hoelzl and will be published in early October.

Synopsis

This is a unique collection of essays that brings together contributions from theology, aesthetics, social and political science, philosophy and cultural theory to examine the surge in the public visibility of religion.Since the late 1980s, sociologists have been drawing our attention to an international surge in the public visibility of religion. This has increasingly challenged two central aspects of modern western European culture: first, the assumption that as we became more modern we would become more secularised and religion would disappear; and secondly, that religion and politics should occupy radically differentiated spheres in which private conviction did not exert itself within the public realm. The new visibility of religion is not simply a matter of what Keppel famously called 'The Revenge of God', that is, the resurgence of Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism. Religion is permeating western culture in many different forms from contemporary continental philosophy, the arts and the media, to the rhetoric of international politicians.This collection of essays brings together a unique collection of voices from theology, aesthetics, social and political science, philosophy and cultural theory in an exploration of four major aspects of this new visibility of religion: the revision of the secularisation thesis, the relationship between religion and violence, the new re-enchantment of reality and the return of metaphysics.

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