Course Title: Political Theology
Instructor: Dr. Ryan Turnbull
Time: Mondays, 6-9 PM
Location: In-Person, CMU. Available online for out-of-town students.

This class can be taken for SJC audit or credit.

Description:

Political theology names the study of theology’s political register. This can and has taken a variety of forms throughout history, but in its modern academic form tends to focus centrally on questions of sovereignty, the secular, and messianism. These core loci are often interrogated through a range of interdisciplinary critiques including insights from decolonial, ecological, feminist, and queer theory. In this class we will enter this engagement through the lens of hospitality, asking, how far can hospitality take us and what happens when we meet its limits?

In this class, students will be exposed to a range of topics and thinkers both ancient and modern who grapple with the intersection of theology and politics. Interlocutors will come from within and beyond the Church. Students will gain a concrete understanding of core issues in the field of political theology such as sovereignty, the secular, and messianism, but will come at these topics through a variety of contemporary debates and issues.