Call for Papers: Political Theologies of a Democratic Common Life

Religion can compound anti-democratic practices, polarization, and a turn to violence as a political strategy. But it can also be an important resource for countering these tendencies, including offering a constructive vision of and social practices for building a shared life. 

This fifth iteration of the Political Theologies conference series fosters interdisciplinary conversations around democratic resilience, the rule of law, and the need for a vibrant and diverse social and civic infrastructure if a peaceable common life is to be fostered. The broad, constructive question in play is: how can religion and religious groups serve as a resource for repopulating a democratic common life, and what is its historic and contemporary relationship with different ideological articulations of such a life whether conservative, socialist, anarchist, or liberal? 

This focus has a critical edge and can include critiques of anti-democratic and authoritarian ideologies, political theologies, and associated ideas, such as the ‘Dark Enlightenment’, national populism, MAGA-conservatism, of civilisationalism, and ethno-pluralism. It can include sharing resources for and case studies about countering illiberal practices, including but not limited to the weakening of the courts, the centralization of sovereign power, a disregard for democratic procedures and checks and balances, or comprehensive illiberal planning such as ‘Project-2025’. The critical question the conference seeks to address is: what political theologies advocate for and contribute to undermining a democratic common life, promote authoritarianism, and violence as a political strategy? 

Democratic resilience and civic health are not only facilitated by support for diversity and pluralism, but they are also facilitated by resources that help mitigate deep differences and divisions in society as well as the conflicts that inevitably arise as a common life is negotiated. It means recognising social anxieties, disappointment or anger, and offering avenues to express and process them – without condoning its exploitation for illiberal or violent purposes. The question to address here is: how can religious groups, symbols and discourses shape and inform common life 

discourses about human dignity, common goods, peace and justice, and how can these inform democratic action and engagement? 

Contributions are sought from the fields of theology, religious studies, politics, international relations, law, anthropology, social science, and psychology. Papers that engage political theology from religions other than Christianity are especially welcome. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): 

• Concepts of political and economic democracy, the rule of law, and democratic resilience 
• Anti-democratic and authoritarian political theologies 
• Political theologies of populism, whether left or right wing, or democratic or anti-democratic, and theological responses to populism 
• Anti-democratic and authoritarian practices in relation to the judiciary, executive and parliamentary rule 
• ‘Project 2025’ and the MAGA-campaign 
• Theological concepts of the common good, plurality, and democratic agency 
• Political and Theological concepts of (just) peace, (peaceful) justice 
• Small-c conservatism in relation to nationalism and civilisationalism 
• Anti-intellectualism and the ‘Dark Enlightenment’ 
• Religious humanism 
• Psychology of difference, de-polarisation, social empathy and compromise 
• Is there such a thing as a common life history and memory? 
• Religious civic and economic practices of solidarity 
• Liturgies, spiritualities, and rituals of depolarisation, enemy love, and reconciliation 

Please send a proposed paper title, short abstract (c.200 words) and short biography to Dr Marietta van der Tol (mdcv2@cam.ac.uk) by 30 November 2024. Decisions will be released by 20 December 2024. Short conference briefs of ca. 1,500 words are due by 1 March 2025. A limited number of subsidised rooms will be offered to speakers on the basis of need. Cost of travel will only be considered in exceptional circumstances and applicants must make a strong case that no other funding is available to them. 

This conference is generously sponsored by the Alfred Landecker Foundation, the Inez and Julius Polin Institute for Theological Studies at Abo Akademi, the Huffington Ecumenical Institute of Loyola Marymount University, and the McDonald Centre at the University of Oxford. For more information about the Political Theologies conference series, email Marietta van der Tol or Sophia Johnson (sophia.johnson@ruhr-uni-bochum.de).