Just and Loving Gaze of God with Us

In recent years, Paul has become the subject of renewed interest among political philosophers. These philosophers deploy Paul as a means to deconstruct late modern political issues such as liberalism, biopolitics, and sovereignty. However, these philosophers ultimately truncate Paul's message to fit nontheistic, materialist ends. Such an approach polarizes interpreters, often leading either to a full endorsement or full rejection. In this work, Spaulding adds a needed voice in this conversation. By neither fully endorsing nor fully rejecting the new approach to Paul, Spaulding argues that Paul's message is both materialist and faithful to the Christian tradition. Spaulding critically utilizes both the new approach and recent studies in apocalyptic interpretations of Paul in order to articulate a Pauline political theology for our time. Pauline apocalyptic emphasizes the already disruptive nature of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that wrests humanity from under the sovereignty of the fallen powers and places them under the Lordship of Christ. Apocalyptic is nourished by the promise of the eschatological hope of the not-yet-finished work of Christ. The church that follows the Lordship of Christ is called forth into being in the tension of the present Lordship of Christ and the not-yet transformation of the cosmos. Such a tension begets practices that form the political commitment of what philosopher Iris Murdoch calls the just and loving gaze, namely the central conviction that, in order to live good (political) lives, one must be taught to see.

""To counter the exploitation and violence of modern politics, critics of the left have found an ally in Paul and his apocalyptic resistance to the powers. In this book, Hank Spaulding shows why those critics are valuable, but not radical enough. They want Paul without Christ, incarnation without the Incarnation. Spaulding's book is an important and insightful contribution to a fully theological political theology, one truly capable of finding a way through the problems of modern politics.""
--William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University
""Provoked by recent philosophical interest in the Apostle Paul, Spaulding here pushes back into Paul's inalienably theological politics in pursuit of an understanding of Christian political responsibility today. The resulting theological, biblical, and philosophical conversation that ensues is rich and engaging, drawing together a range of voices (when did Wesley, Kasemann, Arendt, and Murdoch last meet one another on the pages of a book!). It offers a compelling vision of an inhabitable Pauline politics of both the already and the not yet.""
--Philip G. Ziegler, University of Aberdeen
Henry Walter Spaulding III is an Adjunct Professor of Christian Ethics at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Ashland University, and Nazarene Theological Seminary. He is also Senior Pastor at Shepherd's House Church of the Nazarene. He is author of several journal articles in publications such as the Wesleyan Theological Journal, Studies in the Literary Imagination, and The Journal of Youth Ministry. This is his first book.