Abstract

Lakeland entitles the introduction to his book “Hegel and Liberative Praxis,” suggesting that to many people such a heading falls in the same category as “Kant and Jogging” or “Spinoza and the Low-Fat Diet.” But his central thesis is that Hegel’s idea of the state provides the basis for a coherent justification of political theology as practiced today in Europe by Metz and Soelle and in Latin America by such liberation theologians as Gutierrez, Segundo, and Sobrino. This involves two moves, first linking theology to political theory and then linking political theory to praxis.