UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL HOPE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By JOHN-MARK HART Norman, Oklahoma 2017 POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL HOPE A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY ______________________________ Dr. Vincent Leitch, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Daniel Cottom ______________________________ Dr. David Anderson ______________________________ Dr. Ronald Schleifer ______________________________ Dr. David Chappell © Copyright by JOHN-MARK HART 2017 All Rights Reserved. This dissertation is dedicated to the people of Christ Community Church in Oklahoma City: my friends, family, and co-conspirators in the peaceable kingdom of God. Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee—Vincent Leitch, Daniel Cottom, David Anderson, Ronald Schleifer, and David Chappell—who have provided me with generous encouragement and stimulating intellectual engagement throughout my time working on this project. In particular, my committee chair, Vincent Leitch, has given invaluable professional and personal support for many years. For this I am profoundly thankful. This dissertation was supported financially by three fellowships: a Rader Fellowship in Literary and Cultural Studies through the University of Oklahoma’s Department of English, a Dissertation Fellowship through the university’s Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, and a Dissertation Completion Fellowship through the university’s Honors College. I could not have finished this project without the generous funding provided by all three of these fellowships, and I am grateful to the institutions and individuals who made my research possible. I could ask for no better network of personal, spiritual, and emotional support than the people of Christ Community Church in Oklahoma City. In addition to much friendship and prayer, the church provided me with two short sabbaticals that enabled me to devote needed time to research and writing. During these times, my friends and co-leaders Chauncey Shillow and Reid Hebert shouldered many extra burdens of pastoral and administrative responsibility, for which I am deeply appreciative. Finally, my wife, Candace, and my four children—Abigail, Elijah, Zoe, and Sophia—have made the grace and peace about which I write tangibly present. I thank God for the gift of sharing life with such people. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv Abstract .......................................................................................................................... vii 1. Introduction: Sowing Shalom .................................................................................... 1 1.1. Peace and Power ............................................................................................... 1 1.2. The Church and the Peace of God ..................................................................... 8 1.3. Speaking from the Church .............................................................................. 10 1.4. Theological Method ........................................................................................ 15 1.5. Roadmap for Analysis ..................................................................................... 27 2. Evil ........................................................................................................................... 33 2.1. Faces of Evil .................................................................................................... 33 2.2. Evil as Banality and Monstrosity .................................................................... 39 2.3. Evil as Privation of the Good .......................................................................... 45 2.4. God’s Image and Original Sin ......................................................................... 54 2.5. Evil and God’s Creation .................................................................................. 67 2.6. Alternative Contemporary Approaches to Evil ............................................... 74 2.7. Learning the Language of Lament .................................................................. 84 2.8. Evil, Lament, and Hope .................................................................................. 94 3. Justice ....................................................................................................................... 97 3.1. Justice and Beloved Community ..................................................................... 97 3.2. Justice in Western Philosophy and Contemporary Christian Theology ........ 101 3.3. Christian Critics of Justice ............................................................................ 111 3.4. Secular Critics of Justice ............................................................................... 121 v 3.5. Wisdom and Justice in Christian Scripture ................................................... 134 3.6. Justice, Eschatology, and the Peace of Christ ............................................... 152 3.7. Prophetic Imagination and the Problem of Utopia ........................................ 162 3.8. Rectifying Justice as Judgment and Grace .................................................... 173 3.9. Walking el Camino de Justicia ...................................................................... 189 4. Love ........................................................................................................................ 204 4.1. Love, Forgiveness, and the Quest for Peace ................................................. 204 4.2. Types and Levels of Love ............................................................................. 210 4.3. Love’s Critics ................................................................................................ 215 4.4. Cruciform Love ............................................................................................. 222 4.5. Love and the Triune God .............................................................................. 229 4.6. Judgment, Grace, and Beloved Community ................................................. 233 4.7. Christian Love as a Response to Divine Grace ............................................. 238 4.8. Love, Affections, and Value ......................................................................... 245 4.9. Enemies and the Practice of Love ................................................................. 255 4.10. Forgiveness, Enemy-Love, and Justice ....................................................... 261 4.11. The Church as a Community of Love ......................................................... 270 4.12. Love and Power ........................................................................................... 278 4.13. The Church and Civil Authority ................................................................. 289 4.14. Four Biblical Paradigms for Christian Cultural Engagement ..................... 304 4.15. The Creative Power of Love ....................................................................... 318 5. Conclusion: Twenty Principles of Peacemaking ....................................................... 322 References ..................................................................................................................... 335 vi Abstract This dissertation intervenes in political theology to offer a constructive and wide- ranging theological proposal for Christian cultural engagement and peacemaking in the context of the globalization, perpetual violence, widespread economic inequity, and religious pluralism that characterize geopolitics in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon the biblical concept of shalom, it argues that the church’s peacemaking vocation involves not only mediating conflict, but also pursuing human flourishing at the local, national, and international levels. The dissertation engages with influential classic and contemporary texts of Christian theology as well as the work of leading secular cultural theorists in order to reassess the meaning of three major concepts—evil, justice, and love—that are central for any coherent vision of Christian political praxis. Building upon this analysis, it advocates for the spiritual disciplines of lament and “prophetic imagination,” whereby the church learns to name the world’s evils while also cultivating new visions of human flourishing that can guide and sustain social action. In order to flesh out the principles and tactics of the church’s peacemaking mission, the dissertation also analyzes the thought and action of exemplary modern peace activists, notably Martin Luther King Jr., John M. Perkins, Desmond Tutu, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The central argument is that the church is called to resist evil and cultivate shalom in the present world order through counter-cultural love, which is expressed by (1) radical practices of reconciliation across demographic barriers, (2) assets-based development strategies aimed at promoting comprehensive flourishing in under- vii resourced communities, and (3) nonviolent direct action that challenges injustice at the structural level while promoting a biblically-rooted vision of human solidarity. Keywords: political theology, peacemaking, lament, prophetic imagination, assets- based community development,