Political Theology

Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, has again become the subject of intense interest. Contemporary concern focuses on Schmitt's concepts of exception and sovereign decision, rather than the overall project of developing a political theology. Those who turn to political theology do so from the perspective of particular religions. In this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining faith in the popular sovereign. In a text innovative in both form and substance, Kahn forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. Sovereignty remains central to the inquiry, but Kahn shows how sovereignty creates an ethos of sacrifice in the modern state. Turning to law, Kahn shows how the line between exception and judicial decision is not as sharp as Schmitt led us to believe. He reminds readers that American political life begins with the revolutionary willingness to sacrifice, and that both sacrifice and law continue to ground the American political imagination. Kahn develops a political theology that has at its center the practice of freedom realized in political decisions, legal judgments, and finally in philosophical inquiry itself.