The Problem with Grace Reconfiguring Political Theology [Hardcover]

This book develops a post-secular, post-sectarian political theology, taking that burgeoning field in a new direction. With his bold suggestion that political philosophy must begin with political theology, Vincent Lloyd investigates a series of religious concepts such as love, faith, liturgy, and revelation and explores their political relevance by extracting them from their Christian theological context while refusing to reduce them to secular terms. He assembles an unusual canon of thinkers too Jewish to be Christian and too Christian to be Jewish Simone Weil, James Baldwin, Franz Kafka, and Gillian Roseto aid him in his explorations.Unique in its serious attention to both theological writing about politics and the work of academic philosophers and theorists,The Problem with Gracedeepens our understanding of political theological vocabulary as a way back to the everyday world. Politics is not about redemption, but about grappling with the ever-present difficulties, tragedies, and comedies of ordinary life. The Problem with Graceis a strange and wonderful book, anti-intellectual in the best sense. The defense of the ordinary here, indebted to the work of the late Gillian Rose, will threaten scholars in a wide variety of fields at the same time that the examples Lloyd invokes will energize them and enliven their classrooms. We live in an age in which the slow is at its maximal appeal: slow food, slow art, slow sex. Lloyd's work is the first I know that can be proudly described as slow thinking. Vincent Lloyd is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Faculty Associate of African American Studies at Georgia State University. He is the author ofLaw and Transcendence: On the Unfinished Project of Gillian Rose(2009) and editor ofRace and Political Theology(Stanford, forthcoming). Many books are produced each year within the discipline of political theology; very few, if any, are likeThe Problem with Grace. . . . [It] is liklÃ9