Faith and Politics in Iran, Israel, and the Islamic State: Theologies of the Real
Cambridge University Press, 12/21/2017
EAN 9781107115675, ISBN10: 1107115671
Hardcover, 206 pages, 23.5 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Religious faith has been gaining in reach and influence throughout global politics over the last three decades, most prominently in the Middle East, and theologies of this nature are based on the understanding that faith in God is to be based, primarily and predominantly, on the realness of God's presence. The West, accustomed to its own discussion on religion and politics emphasising democracy and individual freedoms, has been at a loss to explain and engage these rising religious polities. Through an innovative approach to the role of faith in politics, Faith and Politics in Iran, Israel, and the Islamic State considers political theologies of the real formulated during the twentieth century and proposes that, while religion in the West has been committed to absolutist vision, these theologies have drawn their strength from a commitment to their concrete, divinely infused reality.
Introduction
religion as a political problem
Part I. The Crisis of the Real
1. Khomeini at the end of the Iran-Iraq War
the necessity and frustration of faith
Part II. The Subverting Real
Mediating Absolute Perfections
2. Sharon's speech
the first Israeli narrative
the straight lines of leadership and time
3. The settler narrative
sovereignty as faith
redemption and the expansion of the real
4. Gershon Hacohen's theology of the real
subversive mediation
Part III. The Urgency of the Real
5. ISIS and the establishment of the caliphate
redemption and hollowness.