Nestor Ravilas
The problem with religious imagination borne from oppressed and tormented communities is that it is either equally oppressive or, even worst. And since these religious symbols survived and outlived their own procreators, they transcend time and space to address and shape modern societies. Take for instance the case of the West, known to be the champion of secular democratic regimes, reminded by Carl Schmitt that their touted concept of the modern theory of the state are actually secularized theological concepts. This amounts to the fact that despite all the attempts of the prophets of rationality to either dismiss or reinterpret the phenomenon dubs now as post-secularism, it undeniably proves that secularist project fails, and religion, along with its metaphors and symbols, remain with us even after the so called, Great Separation.
All discussions on political theology from Carl Schmitt to Slavoj Zizek inevitably center on the person of the sovereign, says Graham Hamill. It comes with no surprise, therefore, why modern rulers remain enchanted with the glorious days of the Caesaropapists, those sovereign kings whose absolute rule made them subject to no one for they claimed to have both political and divine authority. The closest we remember are the English monarchs from Henry VIII, to James I, to Charles I, and James II, all asserted the divine right to rule. This history of political theology, where absolute power secured by divine ordination persists in our culture like the fruit in the middle of the garden where all are craving to have a taste of it.
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