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Good morning. Right, thank you President Wardlaw for your kind words. It is indeed good to be back from graduate school. Mhm. I couldn't get here quick enough. Mhm. To the President,

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said Dean Jensen, to my faculty colleagues, To you, the students, the staff and the guests who have decided to visit on this morning. I say to you once again, good morning. And

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I say after that the Lord be with you today . I want to reflect on the topic of political theology With the use of three phrases and I've given you a handout to help with your tracking. These

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phrases are the political parallel structures and paradigms of sovereignty . However, before discussing these more technical terms, I want to begin my reflections today with a poem written by celebrated Harlem renaissance poet, Langston Hughes Hughes

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who lived from 1902 to 1967, wrote a poem somewhere between 1919 In 1921 and the title of the poem is called the Negro Speaks of Rivers. The poem reads as follows. I've known rivers, I've

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known rivers, ancient as the world, and older than the flow of human blood and human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers I bathed in the Euphrates. When dawns were young, I

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built my hut near the Congo and it loved me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and it raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when abe Lincoln went down to new

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Orleans and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers Hughes pinned the sage and visionary words At the ripe

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old age of 18 and not a grand desk of a professor's office, or the comfortable chair of a wealthy gentleman, but as he sat on the roof and worn seat of a passenger train that carried him

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across the border from Illinois to Missouri, the place of his birth Hughes had planned to visit his estranged father and as he rode across the great terrain, these words came to him. I bathed in the

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Euphrates when dawns were young, I built my hut near the Congo and it loved me to sleep. My soul has grown deep. Like the rivers uses words reflect the soul of one who had weathered many

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trials and tribulations, especially those that might come to a black man in America rather than representing the shallow fantasies of a romantic escapist Hughes was born and lived during the height of America's tradition of what it called

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lynch law. At the end of the 19th century following reconstruction and the removal of federal troops from the south, the black dream of freedom turned into a nightmare one worse than slavery as whites were now free

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to take back the south to redeem it through my violence force work and segregation. During this time a black person could be lent for any perceived insult to whites. And so Hughes was familiar with rivers.

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Rivers here refers to the rivers of blood that flowed from black bodies as they were battered, bound and set ablaze under the silent southern sun Hughes also knew the rivers of tears so profuse that one negro spiritual

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would come along and say as a word of comfort , oh mary, don't you leave, Don't you mourn pharaoh's army got drowned. Oh mary, don't you weep. And in light of his soul,

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having learned all of this, Hughes summed it up by saying simple phrase. The negro speaks of rivers in a sense, the same rivers that carried Hughes to his destination, carry us two hours today,

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so that almost a century after the poet Penders title , we might still use the same language to describe the situation. The majority of african american life we have seen and can speak rivers. These rivers,

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unlike uses poem, are not too ancient but have come as recently as two weeks ago. Yeah, it was not found in the congo, but in Houston texas in the United States of America. These

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rivers, we're not explicitly racist, but they were institutionally structured. They did Lola's to sleep, but also gave us a rude awakening as life was taken from some. Thus use words still ring true today

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. The negro speaks of rivers for a few minutes this morning. I want to reflect a bit more on Hughes's poem and what it might mean for an african american political theology to speak of rivers as an

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academic discipline. Political theology emerged relatively recently And from the horrendous conditions of early 20th century Nazi Germany effect From 1919 to 1933. Just a short 13 years , the german state was in transition first from a

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federal monarchy to a liberal liberal democratic republic and then a short while later from a young republic to a fascist dictatorship and this in the wake of its lead role in the First World War. Such political transformation

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was made possible by new activist movements that were sweeping across the german countryside. For example, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, The German Revolution of 1918 and later the National Socialist Movement 1933. And within this

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context, political theology was birthed by german catholic theologian and legal thinker Carl Schmidt, one of Weimar Republic's most prominent legal scholars and as fate would have it even as the wicked words were beginning to take flight

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from the pin of young lengths and Hughes in America the nascent theological discourse. Political theology, we might say was going straight to Schmidt in the hands of an established scholar that is to say it is regrettably

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the case that Schmidt deployed the nation discourse in an effort to legitimate both arising fascist dictatorship and Nazi anti Semitism. Yet smith himself acknowledged that political theology need not take these forms. His true insight comes identifying

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two features of modern politics that invests the discourse of political theology with lasting significance and that makes it have significance for us today. The first feature which I've highlighted for you is what Schmidt called liberalism's denial of

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the political. Schmidt understood liberalism to be constituted by two basic principles. The first is that, quote , the truth can be found through an unrestrained clash of opinion and second, that competition will produce harmony

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. End, quote, Liberalism assumes that a state can ultimately rest on a set of mutually agreed to procedures and rules that trump the claims of particular charity and necessity. And Liberalism attempts to neutralize or somehow

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de politicize the it's antagonisms perhaps by transforming enemies into economic competitors or ethical debate partners. Finally, for smith, liberalism holds that discussion economy, industry and technology will eventually be able to move us past the

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age of politics, the state and war Schmitz. Primary criticism of liberalism was what he called the denial of the political, a concept that signifies extreme cases of collective conflict, or separation or disassociation between enemies

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that simply cannot be resolved by law or profit or morality instances of the political. These instances where clear lines are drawn between friends and enemies, where violence and killing are possible are blind spots for Liberalism.

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Thus, the liberal state, according to smit, renders democracy itself vulnerable to the ever present possibility of conflict. As we saw, smith would argue In the National Socialism of 1933, Smith solution was to

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legitimate a political sovereign, an authority beyond which no other authority exists, and that possesses the ability to quickly form political will political theology emerged. In service of this task, Schmidt identified a second feature of

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modern politics, namely, and I have to be careful in saying this, the parallel structural relation between theology and political thought by way of metaphysics. Let me say that one more time. I know you

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probably got it the first time, but let me repeat it. The parallel structural relation between theology and political thoughts. By way of metaphysics, metaphysical discourse is discourse about the reality that lies beyond or behind

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what natural science can tell us. It's the discourse is concerned with describing what we might call the nature of things is concerned with the whole of reality and therefore its theories or what we might call world theories

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. Metaphysics not only gives us pictures of nature and the world, but also pictures of our own bodies , that is pictures of ourselves by which we can come to understand and to actualize ourselves in personal and

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public spaces. As a society, metaphysics presents us with interpretations of reality and these serve as engines for things like public policy and social governance. For example , here in U. S. Society, we

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currently operate with what we might call a market metaphysics . We have commercialized all of our public spaces and commodified literally everything From mountainsides, two marriages in obedience to the laws of supply and demand. On a

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personal level, we, as a society admittedly prohibit altruism to advance profit and ownership. All these behaviors and attitudes stem from a market metaphysics for smith. These world theories are significant because they structurally link theology

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and political thought into what we might call a medic relations, so that the disciplines strongly Correlated to one another, quote. All significant concepts of the modern theory of the State, says Schmidt are actually secularized

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theological concepts because of their systematic structure. For example , Smith continues the exception and jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Both disciplines have a double principal reason and scripture to an observer who takes the

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trouble to look at the total picture of contemporary jurisprudence . There appears a huge cloak and dagger drama in which the state acts in many disguises, but always has the same invisible person. The omnipotence of the

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modern lawgiver, of which one reason every textbook on public law is not only linguistically derived from theology, Schmidt argues that the correlation between theology and law and political thought occurs because our our our metaphysical image,

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excuse me, are epic, has a definite metaphysical image that it forges of the world, and this image has the same structure as what the world immediately understands to be the appropriate form of political organization,

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monarchy. This becomes as self evident in the consciousness of early modern thinkers as democracy does in modern thinkers , The God of imminence and the sovereign will of the people. In the 20th century, German movements

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appeared as evident as the god of transcendence and the sovereignty of the monarch In the 16th century. These two features of modern politics, the parallel relation between theology and political thought, as well as liberalism's denial

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of the political are of interest for an african american political theology, much of african american shares with political theology and acknowledgement of the political over against liberal narratives of discussion and progress, whereas liberals often downplay the

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extreme nature of the antagonism between white and black americans , for example, and offer a Pollyanna view of us society. The negro from African american discourse speaks of rivers. Also like political theology. African american

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discourse often appeals to world theories other than liberalism's mechanistic worldview, where in nature does everything through conflict of bodies that press against one another. Here, we may again say that the negro speaks of rivers,

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but in this case rivers refers not to conflict and suffering, but the world, nature and or reality itself. Thus for Hughes in the poem, the negro speaks of rivers. The rivers are quote ancient

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as the world and older than the flow of human blood and human veins. His soul has grown deep like the rivers. Thus, to speaker, rivers is not only to acknowledge the political, those extreme

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cases of collective conflict, but also to begin to speak of the world in such a way that we see a different world other than mechanism. Yet even as political theology and african american discourse, Speaker Rivers

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, the discourses differ in their conditions of emergence and their thematic emphasis, political theology emerging from a european space of privilege. An african american discourse birth under the pangs of the experiences of chattel slavery, Schmitz

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. Political theology sought to re establish an authoritarian state , but african american political theology emerges from the underside of american sovereignty and thus describes particular symbolic weight to the concept of freedom. This Hughes the use of

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conflict and oppression. It's the same Hughes whose sole grew deep like the rivers as he experienced personal freedom in artistic expression as well as political freedom in the civil rights movement. Such freedom is not alien to

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other people's. Indeed, african american philosopher of religion Charles, H long draws from swiss theologian Karl Barth to articulate his vision of freedom, quote, Freedom from fear, Yes, but also freedom from a

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superiority complex in the face of a rising tide of color in the world. And again, freedom from an inferiority complex vis a vis europe freedom for humanity says, bar a new humanity end, quote.

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The emphasis on freedom implies not only that we transcend mecca mechanistic metaphysics, but also that the world theories to which we appeal operate as what I want to call paradigms a standard or paradigms of spirit. Rather

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, the paradigms of sovereignty here. And I've outlined this on your handouts, I use the term paradigm to expressly indicate how our world theories have implications for how we handle the political, the conflict. Our

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world theories give us grids to read an address these certain these circumstances. This we should use the term paradigm in the same fashion as contemporary italian political theologian Georgia Gambon, who identifies what he calls paradigms of

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sovereignty as our greatest danger. When dealing with world theories, quote the hidden paradigm guiding every definition of sovereignty, says the gunman is the point of in distinction between law and violence, the threshold on which

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violence passes over into law and law passes over into violence. Sovereignty is the principle that joining law to violence threatens them with. In distinction paradigms of sovereignty described world theories whose visions of original justice are blurred

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with violence or chaos, thus creating an opposition between law and nature. The letter which becomes anterior to invest superior to law, said differently paradigms of sovereignty . Our stories, their stories about origins or mythical

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past that locate our roots fundamentally in chaos. violence , unlawfulness, perhaps the best known within our own cultures are produced by english philosopher thomas Hobbes, Roughly 350 years ago. Still lingers with us today quotes

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Hobbs here by. It is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in all, they are in that natural condition which is called war, and such a war as

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is of every man against every man. For a Gambon, the paradigm of sovereignty is hidden in hobbs powerful state of nature. Story, we can see this in the house police, there's nothing but chaos

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and violence in the beginning, Law and order only appeared after the sovereign is instituted. A society driven by a paradigm of sovereignty is troubling primarily because when the society is forced to choose between law and what

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it narrates as natural, it will choose what it perceives to be The more fundamental of the two, namely nature, and with disastrous results for legal protections . Again, our own society might serve in this

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example. To the extent that we do not buy into the Hobbesian narrative, we buy into a neoliberal narrative, that of the market, we hope that the market order existed before the law and that too

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much law can only impede the markets evolutionary patterns. Thus, we govern our society in such a way as to remove public housing to reduce redistributive efforts to diminish labor unions and government departments of Housing and Environment

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, and in times of economic crisis, legal and social protections will give way even more to the sovereignty of the global market. Certainly, such a state of affairs is what prompts African American political theologian Willie

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jay Jennings to say that theology needs a different narration if it is to imagine a post racial future beyond the current order of things. For Jennings, the world is fundamentally imagined in modern period as one of

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displacement, a world turned around turned upside down. In such a world, the primary task becomes to organize or to properly place persons. And this according to a vicious racial logic. According to Jennings,

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theology itself is entailed in this diseased imagination and this becomes complicit through forms such as racism and nationalism to the degree that we continue to narrate paradigms of sovereignty to ourselves. We will continue to see the world

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as disorder and chaos, the disease, social imagination , and we will be prevented from bonding with different kinds of people and fully entering the gift of intimacy . For Jennings, our political theological imagination should be

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informed by a world theories, much less chaotic, more like the images in license use foam. We need world theories that allow to allow us to build our hut in the congo, the mythical and alleged

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heart of darkness, a vision that allows us to see a muddy new Orleans or Houston bosom turn golden in the sunset. We need a vision that speaks of rivers, a few more words briefly. one

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such potential paradigm is a paradigm of standard in the paradigm of standard versus the paradigm of sovereignty. World theories are considered appropriate to the extent that they recognize some type of authoritative principle or standard as built into

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the cosmos itself. Thus, in contrast, the paradigms of sovereignty where chaos proceeds law in paradigms of standard law, proceeds chaos. Thus, in times of crisis, society is far less likely to result

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, resort to violence and war and would reasonably be open to alternative strategies such as diplomacy, debate and negotiation. Perhaps the most well known such paradigm in christian teachings is the scholastic natural law of the high

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Medieval period. Representative best by thomas, Aquinas, Qantas argued that we could participate in the eternal law according to right reason, by which we can discern those natural basic and universal goods oriented towards the good

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life, these natural goods. If we line them up with Hobbs state of Nature story, replace his story and give permission to know truth about morality without authority. Natural Law, however, has been problematic

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In the 15th and 16th centuries, it has been complicit with catholic missionary movements. Natural Law has also been known to devalue women and other groups and persons that do not depend on rationality and so thinkers are

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trying to rework natural Law. Perhaps this was the intention of african american political theologian in contemporary times, Svensson Lloyd, who has returned to the language of natural Law to get at this problem of world theories

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. In light of african american politics, Lloyd reinterprets the natural law tradition as quote, ideology, critique and social movement organizing. End quote lloyds, reinterpretation is laudable, yet with the secularization of natural law

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into secular reason in the modern period and with the secularization of secular reason in the modern period, to aesthetics in the postmodern period, it remains unclear where the Lord's metaphor of law overshadows his emphasis on motion

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, rhythm and our also for me, such a language falls to readily in line with contemporary cultural language of law and order. Thus, the search for a law in metaphysics that is a natural law may

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at least need to be balanced with the search for a more fluid and flexible aspect of nature, something like a spirit or a stream that stands between the law and the chaos, something like a river we

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might call this paradigm a paradigm of spirit to indicate its ability to navigate the pit ball pitfalls of both paradigms of sovereignty and the paradigms of standard. Such a paradigm would articulate the world in an effort to

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engender faith filled democratic politics even beyond the borders of the current liberal vision. The politics will be popular . Participatory oriented or consistent discussion with those who have used unlike our own, even as they are given

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to social movements and other forms of collective democratic action , were needed even with and on behalf of those with pervasive dissimilarities and they would speak of rivers. Perhaps they would speak of the rivers that flow from

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the Garden of God's first Creation when she established the world and called it good. Perhaps they would speak of the rivers that appeared after God, part of the Red Sea, and this in an effort much

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like today to take a scattered and landless people peacefully into the promised land. Or perhaps the rivers of which this political theology speaks will be those that allow one to bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young

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to build a hut near the congo and two have it lola's to sleep, to see a new Orleans , muddy bosom turn golden in the sunset. And so it is that the task of african american political

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theology and indeed all political theologies of freedom, have the following task to speak of rivers. That is an african american political theology must have the courage to acknowledge the political, the patients, to detect the

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parallel relation between theology and political thought and to seek out paradigms of spirit that usher in beloved community as you turn to a new semester and perhaps to a new season. I encourage you this semester to learn

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to speak of rivers. Thank you. Mhm.