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Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture
American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World
The Anthropocene marks the age of significant human impact on the Earth’s ecosystems, dramatically underscoring the reality that human life is not separate from nature but an integral part of it. Culturally, ecologically, and socially destructive practices such as resource extraction have led to this moment of peril. These practices, however, implicate more than industrial and economic they are built into the political theology of American exceptionalism, compelling us to reimagine human social and political life on Earth.
American Immanence seeks to replace the dominant American political tradition, which has resulted in global social, economic, and environmental injustices, with a new form of political theology, its dominant feature a radical democratic politics. Michael S. Hogue explores the potential of a dissenting immanental tradition in American religion based on philosophical traditions of naturalism, process thought, and pragmatism. By integrating systems theory and concepts of vulnerability and resilience into the lineages of American immanence, he articulates a political theology committed to democracy as an emancipatory and equitable way of life. Rather than seeking to redeem or be redeemed, Hogue argues that the vulnerability of life in the Anthropocene calls us to build radically democratic communities of responsibility, resistance, and resilience. American Immanence integrates an immanental theology of, by, and for the planet with a radical democratic politics of, by, and for the people.
American Immanence seeks to replace the dominant American political tradition, which has resulted in global social, economic, and environmental injustices, with a new form of political theology, its dominant feature a radical democratic politics. Michael S. Hogue explores the potential of a dissenting immanental tradition in American religion based on philosophical traditions of naturalism, process thought, and pragmatism. By integrating systems theory and concepts of vulnerability and resilience into the lineages of American immanence, he articulates a political theology committed to democracy as an emancipatory and equitable way of life. Rather than seeking to redeem or be redeemed, Hogue argues that the vulnerability of life in the Anthropocene calls us to build radically democratic communities of responsibility, resistance, and resilience. American Immanence integrates an immanental theology of, by, and for the planet with a radical democratic politics of, by, and for the people.
- GenresReligion
256 pages, Paperback
Published April 24, 2018
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May 13, 2019
“In a time in which it has become empirically and scientifically impossible to think about the human apart from nature, not to mention morally and politically irresponsible, we need more than ever to rethink our concepts of power, value and common life in an ecological context that takes seriously the internal relatedness of human and more-than-human life.” (121)
Taking up his own charge, Hogue delineates and criticizes a “redeemer symbolic,” a condensation of deficient concepts of self and other, and concomitant destructive practices, that continually reconfigures itself through the shapes of American history to preserve a belief that America is an exceptional nation and that, as such, America is right to extract value from others and externalize the costs of so doing upon others. At this level he is engaged in cultural critique.
However, he also seeks to criticize the redeemer symbolic by recourse to a metaphysical critique of “traditional theism.” But that traditional theism is identical with or responsible for the cultural symbolic is a harder case to make, and one that Hogue does not fully succeed in prosecuting. However, he argues that the “American immanent” philosophical and theological tradition (including as key figures the Pragmatists, Dewey and James, the "Chicago School" philosophers of religion, Mathews, Loomer and Meland, and, above them all, Alfred North Whitehead) offers an alternative conception of God/Nature that would delegitimate, if not dissolve, the redeemer symbolic. That conception stresses the vulnerability and resilience of the complexly “intrarelated” system of systems that is Nature (e.g., 139). It is the heart of a political theology that in Hogue's estimation, would ground a politics of democratic risk for an ever more beautiful community of shared vulnerability and resilience, rather than the tyranny of American exceptionalism.
Taking up his own charge, Hogue delineates and criticizes a “redeemer symbolic,” a condensation of deficient concepts of self and other, and concomitant destructive practices, that continually reconfigures itself through the shapes of American history to preserve a belief that America is an exceptional nation and that, as such, America is right to extract value from others and externalize the costs of so doing upon others. At this level he is engaged in cultural critique.
However, he also seeks to criticize the redeemer symbolic by recourse to a metaphysical critique of “traditional theism.” But that traditional theism is identical with or responsible for the cultural symbolic is a harder case to make, and one that Hogue does not fully succeed in prosecuting. However, he argues that the “American immanent” philosophical and theological tradition (including as key figures the Pragmatists, Dewey and James, the "Chicago School" philosophers of religion, Mathews, Loomer and Meland, and, above them all, Alfred North Whitehead) offers an alternative conception of God/Nature that would delegitimate, if not dissolve, the redeemer symbolic. That conception stresses the vulnerability and resilience of the complexly “intrarelated” system of systems that is Nature (e.g., 139). It is the heart of a political theology that in Hogue's estimation, would ground a politics of democratic risk for an ever more beautiful community of shared vulnerability and resilience, rather than the tyranny of American exceptionalism.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review