Pastoral Theology and the Problem of Political Violence

ABSTRACT This article argues that political violence is unjustifiable as a basis of forming a polis. To make this case, a brief explication of the notions “political” and “political violence” is proffered. From here I claim that political violence is inimical to civic care and civic faith that founds a polis' space of speaking and acting together. I then shift to a Christian pastoral theological framework, arguing that political violence contradicts the revelation of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and is, therefore, unjustifiable. More specifically, the incarnation reveals a non-sovereign God of infinite, indeterminate care as the principle for organizing human relations-the ecclesia/polis. I also argue that Jesus' forgiveness of the Roman soldiers can be grasped in terms of Giorgio Agamben's notion of inoperativity, wherein the apparatuses and grammar of the terroristic forms of Roman political violence are rendered inoperative as a way of organizing human relations.