Ward Blanton

James G. Crossley

Halvor Moxnes

The study of Jesus has rarely looked at its own scholarly context, at how the representation of Jesus might be shaped by those who study him. 'Jesus beyond Nationalism' examines how - since the beginnings of historical Jesus studies in the nineteenth century - representations of Jesus have been used to promote hegemonic or mono-cultural views. The ideology behind such representation has operated to deny difference in society, difference in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Examining depictions of Jesus in a range of contexts - from the Russian Christ and Jesus as 'Holy Anarchist' to Jesus in Muslim thought - Jesus Beyond Nationalism reveals the politics behind the ways in which Jesus has been constructed and presented.

Constructing the Historical Jesus in a Period of Cultural Complexity

Jesus Beyond Nationalism

Hent de Vries

The apostle Paul has reemerged as a force on the contemporary philosophical scene. Some of the most powerful recent affirmations of nonrepresentational, materialist, and event-oriented philosophies repeat topics and tropes of the ancient apostle. Other thinkers find in Paul and his numerous cultural "afterlives" the ideal figure to contest both identity politics and the postmodern political fetish of endless openness and the deferral of presence. Paul is appropriated both for and against Kantian cosmopolitanism, psychoanalytic models of subjectivity and power, Schmittian political theologies, Derridean messianism, political universalism, and an ongoing refashioning of identity politics within postsecular contexts. This book provides the most comprehensive constellation to date of current thinking about Paul and his cultural or philosophical "afterlives" in ancient, modern, and contemporary contexts. It is a groundbreaking international and multidisciplinary exploration of the vexed political history of Paulinisms in philosophy and of philosophies in Paulinism. From his very first utterances, Paul's pronouncements as the self-proclaimed apostle of Jesus were curiously intertwined with philosophical discourse, with Paul presenting himself as both philosopher and anti-philosopher. Early Christian receptions of Paul then carefully managed his legacy in relation to the philosophical schools, presenting him alternately as an exemplary Platonist, a purveyor of Stoic spiritual exercises, and someone whose authority outstrips philosophy altogether. In the modern period, various types of Paulinism were imagined serially as possible escapes of philosophical thought from the domination of inherited metaphysics or ontotheology. The contributors to this volume bring unprecedented multidisciplinary expertise to both the historical reception and the contemporary relevance of a thinker who may come to be seen as the defining figure of our political and intellectual moment.

Paul and the Philosophers

Recent critical theory is curiously preoccupied with the metaphors and ideas of early Christianity, especially the religion of Paul. The haunting of secular thought by the very religion it seeks to overcome may seem surprising at first, but Ward Blanton argues that this recent return by theorists to the resources of early Christianity has precedent in modern and ostensibly secularizing philosophy, from Kant to Heidegger. Displacing Christian Origins traces the current critical engagement of Agamben, Derrida, and Žižek, among others, back into nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century philosophers of early Christianity. By comparing these crucial moments in the modern history of philosophy with exemplars of modern biblical scholarship—David Friedrich Strauss, Adolf Deissmann, and Albert Schweitzer—Blanton offers a new way for critical theory to construe the relationship between the modern past and the biblical traditions to which we seem to be drawn once again. An innovative contribution to the intellectual history of biblical exegesis, Displacing Christian Origins will promote informed and fruitful debate between religion and philosophy.

Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament

Displacing Christian Origins

Blanton Ward traces the current critical engagement of Agamben, Derrida and Zizek, among others, back to the 19th and early 20th century philosophers of early Christianity.

Jeffrey W. Robbins

Clayton Crockett

Noëlle Vahanian

An Insurrectionist Manifesto contains four insurrectionary gospels based on Martin Heidegger's philosophical model of the fourfold: earth and sky, gods and mortals. Challenging religious dogma and dominant philosophical theories, they offer a cooperative, world-affirming political theology that promotes new life through not resurrection but insurrection. The insurrection in these gospels unfolds as a series of miraculous yet worldly practices of vital affirmation. Since these routines do not rely on fantasies of escape, they engender intimate transformations of the self along the very coordinates from which they emerge. Enacting a comparative and contagious postsecular sensibility, these gospels draw on the work of Slavoj i ek, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, François Laruelle, Peter Sloterdijk, and Gilles Deleuze yet rejuvenate scholarship in continental philosophy, critical race theory, the new materialisms, speculative realism, and nonphilosophy. They think beyond the sovereign force of the one to initiate a radical politics "after" God.

Four New Gospels for a Radical Politics

An Insurrectionist Manifesto

Nietzsche and Freud saw Christianity as metaphysical escapism, with Nietzsche calling the religion a “Platonism for the masses” and faulting Paul the apostle for negating more immanent, material modes of thought and political solidarity. Integrating this debate with the philosophies of difference espoused by Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ward Blanton argues that genealogical interventions into the political economies of Western cultural memory do not go far enough in relation to the imagined founder of Christianity. Blanton challenges the idea of Paulinism as a pop Platonic worldview or form of social control. He unearths in Pauline legacies otherwise repressed resources for new materialist spiritualities and new forms of radical political solidarity, liberating “religion” from inherited interpretive assumptions so philosophical thought can manifest in risky, radical freedom.

Ward Blanton

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