NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 77, Issue 4, 2023

Abstract The concept of figure was used by theology from its origins in Paul of Tarsus to the explicit strange hybridisation that is present in Sacred Scriptures of the symbolic—the space of discourse and meanings—and the historical— the space of existence. With the publication of Figure, Eric Auerbach offered a genealogy of the idea of figure that made its use possible in disciplines other than theology. Considering the genealo Read More

Abstract Canonicity might seem to be the opposite of creativity. Yet, cultures and communities, hence any political realm, depends on strategies of simplification and fixation. Canons do have the role of creating habits and “normality” through which individuals feel to belong to a same world. That counts explicitly in the academic world where researchers, precisely in order to operate inventively, canot but rely on conventions Read More

Abstract This paper explores the concept of the “theo-political” within the paradigm of inventive theology. Such a theology methodologically abstracts from classical dogmatic or hermeneutic content. It asks primarily the question of the possibility of believing and making to believe. Informed by philosophical rhetoric (amongst others, Chaim Perelman) and postmodern critique, inventive theology proposes to be pistol Read More

Abstract What does Gorgias has to say about religious speech considered as a form of rhetorical speech directed at persuasion? Or more precisely, what does his rhetoric teaches us about the nature and origin of the persuasiveness of religious speech? Now, to properly understand how, according to Gorgias, from a rhetorical perspective religious beliefs arise, this article shall first deal with his conception of the connectio Read More

Abstract The “propaganda by the deed” is a 19th-century anarchist notion emphasizing the communicative power of action in revealing the non-inevitability of human political organization. In this article, I offer a reading of the 1527 Schleitheim Confession in light of this notion. Schleitheim is similarly animated by an assertion of possibility: ecclesial and worldly sovereign order are not inevitable, but can be remade. Schleithei Read More