In the 2016 American presidential election, 81% of White evangelicals voted for Donald Trump despite the obvious fact that he had little knowledge or interest in Christianity. This has continued to puzzle many commentators, as well as conservative Christian leaders. This paper argues that Theodor W. Adorno’s 1943 analysis of the radio broadcasts of Martin Luther Thomas provides insight into Trump’s popularity among evangelicals. Adorno compares the fascist-style broadcasts of Thomas to a pagan religious sect. He describes this practice as (...) “racketeering in religion,” which effectively results in the “liquidation of religion.” The article demonstrates ways in which this analysis is relevant for understanding the relationship between Trump and American Evangelicals. (shrink)

This article analyses treatments of the freedom of choice in theological reflections on sexuality. It explores common contradictions that often emerge in such accounts, including: the reaffirmation of disavowed simplicity, the affirmation of biological determinism at the expense of interpersonal values, and a distrust of choice, which effectively amounts to a choice not to choose. The article shows that while conservative Christian sexual ethicists often demonise individual freedom of choice, liberal theology often fetishises such freedom. These tensions are contrasted with (...) Rowan Williams’s concept of the ‘body’s grace’, and Kathleen Roberts Skerrett’s notion of ‘incarnating the other’. The discussion shows that the contributions of each of these theologians require greater analysis of the contemporary social and cultural forces shaping contemporary sexual practices. The article explores this entwinement between sexuality and the ideal of freedom in contemporary culture by engaging with Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom. (shrink)

This essay examines how the legacy of Marx’s emancipatory commitments continues to be intertwined with his critique of religion. This is illustrated with reference to Raymond Geuss’s claim that Marxism’s political failure is related its lack of an adequate moral theory, a view that leads him to suggest that Marxism needs to function more like a ‘pseudo-religion’. These issues are analysed by drawing from Max Horkheimer’s writing on Christianity, which imply that materialist critical theory will be resourced by attention to (...) particular historical expressions of religion. The; paper argues that such an approach requires a distinction between two strands of Marx’s critique of religion-an ‘eliminationist’ and a ‘descriptive functionalist’ perspective- and involves privileging the second strand over the first. The implication is not that religion resolves the question of the ground of Marxism’s normative critique; rather, what is advanced is view that the critical theory can be supported and resourced by a critique of the ‘religion of everyday life’. (shrink)

This essay explores the use of the concept of the messianic by Giorgio Agamben and Theodor Adorno. Throughout his work, Agamben consistently presents his reading of the messianic as an alternative to what he considers to be the ‘pessimistic’ negative dialectics of Adorno, which he argues ‘is an absolutely non-messianic form of thought’. For Agamben, the messianic brings dialectics to a ‘standstill’. This essay analyzes this deployment of the ‘messianic’ in his thought, and contrasts it with the perspective of Adorno. (...) Agamben’s interpretation of Walter Benjamin is challenged with reference to a debate between Adorno and Benjamin over theology, dialectics, and politics. (shrink)