Ep108. What is Theology? Adam Kotsko
/"This book represents a series of approaches to theology as a critical human discourse, in light of an ever-expanding awareness of the degree to which Christianity is ruining all our lives."
I sat down with Adam Kotsko to talk about Christian thought and contemporary life. I ask how he became (and why he remains) interested in theology, what is political theology, and the relationship between critique, construction, and hope. We then discuss theology and philosophy (and the way both are at risk of trending toward political quietism), before talking about genealogical work in theology and his illuminating chapter on how the doctrine of original sin continues to operate in the modern concept of race and colonial violence - both assigning people as inferior and blaming them for such 'damage'.
Adam Kotsko teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, where he teaches widely in the humanities and social sciences. Adam’s research focuses on political theology, continental philosophy, and the history of Christian thought. He is the author, most recently, of The Prince of This World, a study of the political legacy of pre-modern Christian ideas about the devil, and Neoliberalism’s Demons, which argues that the contemporary political-economic order functions on the basis of a logic of moral entrapment that echoes the theological concept of demonization. Visit his website.
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