Political theology

Political theology investigates the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics, society, and economics. Though the relationship between Christianity and politics has been debated since the time of Jesus, political theology has been an academic discipline since the 20th century.

The term "political theology" is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions.

Scholars such as Carl Schmitt use it to denote religious concepts that were secularized and thus became key political concepts. Furthermore, Benjamin Brown speaks about political theology in terms of religious thought on the classical question of "the good form of government," which is arguably at the center of classical secular political philosophy.

The term political theology has been used in a wide variety of ways by writers exploring different aspects of the Christian relationship with politics. It has been used to discuss Augustine's City of God and Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. It has likewise been used to describe the works of the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin.

The recent use of the term is often affiliated with the Carl Schmitt. Writing amidst the turbulence of the German Weimar Republic, Carl Schmitt argued in Political Theology that the main concepts of modern politics were secularized versions of older theological concepts.Mikhail Bakunin had used the term in his 1871 text "The Political Theology of Mazzini and the International" to which Schmitt's book was a response. Drawing on Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan he argued that the state exists to maintain its own integrity in order to ensure order in society in times of crisis.

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