T&T Clark Hannah Arendt and Theology (Philosophy and Theology)

About the Author John Kiess is Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland, USA. He received his Ph.D. in Theology and Ethics from Duke University, USA. Product Description Hannah Arendt is regarded as one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century. Famous for her account of the banality of evil, her wide-ranging work explored such themes as totalitarianism, the Holocaust, statelessness and human rights, revolutions and democratic movements, and the various challenges of modern technological society. Recent years have seen a growing appreciation of her complex relationship to theological sources, especially Augustine, the subject of her doctoral dissertation and a thinker with whom she contended throughout her life. This book explores how Arendt s critical and constructive engagements with theology inform her broader thought, as well as the lively debates her work is stirring in contemporary Christian theology on such topics as evil, tradition, love, political action, and the life of the mind. A unique interdisciplinary investigation bridging Arendt studies, political philosophy, and Christian theology, Hannah Arendt and Theology considers how the insights and provocations of this public intellectual can help set a constructive theological agenda for the twenty-first century. Review "This is a splendid book, among the best in this series and representing a high-water mark for this genre of theological analysis. It spans the range of Arendt's considerable corpus (from the densely theoretical and systematic to the popular and occasional) and presents its diversity in marvelously integrated and engaging fashion." - Syndicate"...masterfully traces out the entire arc of Arendt's oeuvre, developing its ties to Augustine in particular and theology more generally with a breadth and thoughtfulness that can only be hinted at in this review...one encounters here not only an account of Arendt's thought but also its exemplar, of how an active attentiveness to the words and thoughts of one's forebears brings one 'to catch something of their still-living spirit, even if [their experience] only survive[s] in ruined form." - Arendt StudiesA readable and engaging book which provides compelling answers to the questions of why and how a theologian might engage with the thought of Hannah Arendt. - Theology Kiess offers a wealth of philosophical and theological perspectives on Arendt, and reading this book whet my appetite to access more of her work. - Regent's Reviews Kiess exercises tact in demonstrating that [Arendt's] early training in theology continued to animate some of her most intriguing and productive concepts, and he exercises courage in showing what those concepts might have to offer to worldly theologies and virtue ethics today. - Political Theology Keiss offers a lucid, well-sourced introduction to the relevance of Hannah Arendt's thought for work at 'the intersection of ecclesiology, radical democracy, and civic virtue' (to quote from Chapter 3)... Those engaged in broader scholarship on Arendt will be particularly interested in his proposal cum question: 'What is Arendt pointing us to if not a politics open to grace?' - CHOICE"Kiess clearly and wisely explores Arendt's views on evil, plurality, love, thinking, and the birth of the new. He then hints at how these ideas might call Christians to live justly in a broken world. Balancing political realism with an openness to grace is not easy. But Arendt and Kiess propose just such a balance, so that 'politics becomes the art of being born.' Incarnation abounds." -Christian Century"Provides stunning insights to those looking for a broadly religious take on the many problems of power faced by the modern world. Scholars of political theology, philosophical theology, and religious ethics will be well served by returning to Arendt, a thinker for our age, with John Kiess as their guide." -Reading Religion"An overall superb