Pastoral Theology and Sovereignty: Thinking and Being Otherwise

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the issue of sovereignty from the perspective of pastoral theology and its core principle of care. It is argued that God's infinite care of human beings, manifested in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, makes sovereignty inoperative. Inoperativity means the foundation of care orders relationships such that sovereignty and its attending mimetic violence are deactivated, inviting the possibility of relations that do not operate out of questions and answers of who rules. What this pastoral theological perspective offers is the ‘weak' transgressive power of the reality of care when it comes to the ‘strong' governing power associated with sovereignty and its theologies of subordination. This ‘weak' transgressive power is or can be a source of political resistance. This ‘weak’ power of care precedes questions of sovereignty and, while sovereigns can eschew care, they cannot eradicate this existential reality, which is a source of resistance.