Religion, Politics, and New Testament Theology: Contesting Relevance and a Constructed Category

Abstract

It has been suggested by some, since the time of William Wrede, that biblical theology should align itself with the scientific study of religion. More recently, these appeals have been linked to a concern for the relevance of the discipline within modern universities and amid a secular, Western world. However, the category “religion” is itself complicated, and the implications of its use are not innocent. This article investigates the socially constructed nature of religion and the political discourse that shapes it in order to assess how the appropriation of this constructed category pertains to the relevance of New Testament theology as a discipline in particular, as well as how this category has already shaped New Testament studies more generally. I suggest that, rather than aiding biblical theology’s relevance, this category obscures a larger discourse that has sought to order social and political space in the modern Western world and beyond and that relevance should be sought elsewhere, including in the dialogue on alternative conceptual constructs that center those stories and persons that have been traditionally marginalized.

Keywords

• biblical theology
• New Testament theology
• religion
• politics
• relevance
• Clifford Geertz