The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Theology by Christopher D. Rodkey & Jordan E. Miller

Author:Christopher D. Rodkey & Jordan E. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319965956
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Critical and Historical Impact

In Soelle’s self-understanding, being radical entailed rejection of certain doctrinal formulations as incompatible with modern philosophy, the Holocaust, and social injustice. Starting out as a radical political theologian, she soon identified her work with liberation theology and found connections between the moral challenges of the Holocaust and political oppression to church complicity and resistance around the globe. She considered it radical for Christians to be activists for justice and the alleviation of suffering and oppression. Conceptually, her work has significant connections with other types of radical theology, and in particular, Simone Weil’s mysticism of suffering, the 1960s death of God movement, and the contemporary interest in developing a simultaneously political and radical theology.

Soelle admired Simone Weil for her integration of philosophy, activism, and mysticism. Like Soelle’s post-theism, Weil’s theological reflection was a form of religious atheism. Both thinkers rejected the notion of an anthropomorphic God as a ruler, king, and judge. For Weil , faith in God was a necessity in the world interpreted spiritually as assent to the divine will, where the self is annihilated internally in selfless love or externally in affliction.6 Also like Soelle, Weil did not posit eternal life for individuals or false consolations such as rewards in heaven. Love of God means love of this world and assent to necessity. In rejecting theism but retaining faith in God, Weil adopted a mystical approach which places God beyond human concepts. As Weil put it, “I am quite sure there is not a God in the sense that I am quite sure nothing real can be anything like what I am able to conceive when I pronounce this word.”7 Both Soelle and Weil considered language about God to exceed words, and both had an unflinching moral conscience. They were both influenced by Marx to reflect on social class inequalities, and Weil’s decision to become a factory worker in order to understand proletariat oppression was reflected in Soelle’s visits to poor communities in the United States and developing countries. For Soelle and Weil , suffering was central to faith and Christianity appealing as a religion that gives radical voice to the oppressed. The cross displays the interdependence of love and suffering as simultaneously a political and mystical vision of reality.

The American death of God movement launched by the Time magazine cover story in 1966 and its companion article published the year before are contemporaneous with Soelle’s book Christ the Representative, which was published in German in 1965. Time singled out Thomas J.J. Altizer , William Hamilton, and Paul van Buren and sensationalized their rejection of theism. The Time article indicated that these theologians declared traditional doctrines defunct and called for ethical humanism in place of biblical literalism. Altizer has had a long career as a radical theologian which involved dialogue with continental theology and held similar post-theistic impulses to Soelle. Van Buren was known for his secular Christianity and his theology of Jewish-Christian relations offering a reformulation of the doctrine of Israel as a correction

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