Guest Editor’s Introduction

"Political theology" has a narrower and broader meaning. In its narrower sense it concerns the specific questions that were so dramatically raised by Carl Schmitt about theology, the state, and politics. But in its broader meaning it refers to the complex issues that have arisen throughout the world about the meaning, significance, and boundaries (or lack of boundaries) among politics, religion, and theology. The papers included in this volume deal with political theology in both its narrower and broader senses. Several of these papers were presented at a Hannah Arendt/Reiner Schürmann Symposium held at the New School for Social Research in November 2011. They have been supplemented by articles of other thinkers who are deeply concerned with questions of political theology. Collectively they show the vitality, diversity, and significance of current debates.