Agamben and the Kingdom: A Theological Introduction

This study examines the work of Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben and his complex expropriations and critical reappraisals of the Christian intellectual tradition, focusing on his unique mediations of the thematics of the Kingdom of God. Unlike previous studies of this and other related topics, this project aims to show that Agamben’s work is not only thoroughly informed by theology, but that it can also be productively interpreted as itself a kind of political theology, as presenting a constructive account of Christian theory and praxis in the space of modern politics. This argument will be developed and tested through an exegetical analysis of five interrelated parts of Agamben’s work: (1) his overarching Homo Sacer project; (2) his early engagements with Christian eschatology, particularly The Coming Community; (3) his later reflections on Pauline theology and the early Christian community; (4) his multifaceted discussions of the Franciscan tradition and its “rule” (regula fidei); and (5) his “homily” at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. The last will serve to ground a more synthetic account of Agamben’s broader understanding of Christian messianism and the politics of the Kingdom. We will subsequently compare this account with other operative paradigms of political theology, focusing on the “magisterial” approaches of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and German theologian Johann Baptist Metz, the “Radical Orthodoxy” of Anglican theologian John Milbank, and the “weak theology” of Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo and American academic John D. Caputo. Ultimately, we will suggest that Agamben offers a Franciscan alternative to Augustinian political theology, and in so doing, a new lens for thinking about the Church as an actor within the crises of modern sovereignty and biopolitical modernity.