Theological-Political Turn
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A01=Geraldine Muhlmann
Agamben
Author_Geraldine Muhlmann
Carl Schmitt
Category=JP
CharlesTaylor
continental philosophy today
critical theory and religion
critique of political theory
do our religious heritages still offer tools for reading modern politics?
does religion underlie politics?
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Eric Voegelin
forthcoming
Habermas
how to understand international politics today
is religion making a comeback in Western societies?
Jacob Taubes
Karl Jaspers
modernity and the sacred
philosophy of history
political philosophy
political secularisation
religion and politics
religion as underlying political phenomena
religious points of view still inhabit our way of thinking about politics
Rorty
secularism
the place of religion in contemporary politics
the theological-political sham is not a simple awareness of the religious traces in modern politics but instead claims that the very foundation of politics is religious
theological turn in philosophy
why do so many thinkers use religious ideas to analyse contemporary politics?
Product details
- ISBN 9781509567324
- Publication Date: 14 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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In recent years numerous authors have claimed that underneath everything political there lies something religious – an underground religious substance, as it were. These religious elements, it is said, are the essence of political phenomena and the driving force of their history. Even in our modern "secularized" politics, the heart of the matter, it is alleged, is religious, just as it was in the past. This fashion for the theological-political can be observed in the most varied trends in contemporary philosophy, from the work of Giorgio Agamben and Charles Taylor to that of Richard Rorty and Jürgen Habermas.
In Géraldine Muhlmann's view, this "theological-political" idea is a sham. It sheds no light on the factors that underlie key political developments, such as the crisis of liberal democracies and the rise of authoritarianism. It has nothing to say about the concrete ways in which religious points of reference, when they do exist, are used to wage war or to make politics. It contributes nothing to reflection on political matters and it leads us astray by failing to attend to their specific, complex and intertwined logics.
So what accounts for the rise of theological-political thought? Muhlmann argues that its popularity has less to do with a genuine attempt to understand politics and more to do with a desire by philosophers to demonstrate their ability to grasp the substantial basis of politics and the true direction of political history. In other words, the triumph of the theological-political is a philosophical hubris – and a dangerous one at that.
This ambitious inquiry into the rise of a troubling philosophical zeitgeist will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, political theory and religious studies and to anyone interested in the ideas that are shaping our world today.
In Géraldine Muhlmann's view, this "theological-political" idea is a sham. It sheds no light on the factors that underlie key political developments, such as the crisis of liberal democracies and the rise of authoritarianism. It has nothing to say about the concrete ways in which religious points of reference, when they do exist, are used to wage war or to make politics. It contributes nothing to reflection on political matters and it leads us astray by failing to attend to their specific, complex and intertwined logics.
So what accounts for the rise of theological-political thought? Muhlmann argues that its popularity has less to do with a genuine attempt to understand politics and more to do with a desire by philosophers to demonstrate their ability to grasp the substantial basis of politics and the true direction of political history. In other words, the triumph of the theological-political is a philosophical hubris – and a dangerous one at that.
This ambitious inquiry into the rise of a troubling philosophical zeitgeist will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, political theory and religious studies and to anyone interested in the ideas that are shaping our world today.
Géraldine Muhlmann is Professor of Political Science at Paris-Panthéon-Assas University. She is the author of A Political History of Journalism, Journalism for Democracy and, most recently, The Theological-Political Turn.
