Tags
Digby Stuart Research Centre, durham, hegel, liberation theology, philosophy of religion, political theology, religion, segundo, theology
On Wednesday, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present a paper at our research seminar. The motivation for the paper came from a point raised by Juan Luis Segundo in his Liberation of Theology. Segundo argues that, for Marx, the abolition of religion is ‘a precondition for the revolution rather than an effect of the revolution.’[1] This treatment closes off the possibility of religion playing a role in the development of critical consciousness. Religion is destroyed by an external force rather than transformed by an internal dynamic. The paper focused on the way that Hegel’s philosophy of religion provides the grounds for such an internal transformation. I particularly emphasised how later political theology picks up on Hegel’s philosophy. 
[1] Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology, trans. John Drury (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002), 59.
