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The Politics of Religious Experience
Whilst Foucault's work has become a major strand of postmodern theology, the wider relevance of his work for theology
still remains largely unexamined. Foucault both engages the Christian tradition and critically challenges its disciplinary
regime. This text brings together a selection of essays by leading Foucault scholars on a variety of themes within the history,
thought and practice of theology. Revealing the diverse ways that the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) has been employed
to rethink theology in terms of power, discourse, sexuality and the politics of knowledge, the authors examine power and sexuality
in the church in late antiquity, (Castelli, Clark, Schuld), raise questions about the relationship between theology and politics
(Bernauer, Leezenberg, Caputo), consider new challenges to the nature of theological knowledge in terms of Foucault's critical
project (Flynn, Cutrofello, Beadoin, Pinto) and rethink theology in terms of Foucault's work on the history of sexuality (Carrette,
Jordan, Mahon). This book demonstrates, for the first time, the influence and growing importance of Foucault's work for contemporary
theology.
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p.5 There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and
perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all... But, then,
what is philosophy today - philosophical activity, I mean - if it is not the critical work that thought brings
to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible
to think differently, instead of legitimizing what is already known?
p.22 Foucault goes on to argue that knowledge does not release human subjects from the workings of power,
but reinscribes them within a matrix of power/knowledge.
p.23 The idea that there is either located at - or emanating from - a given point something which is a 'power'
seems to me to be based on a misguided analysis... In reality, power means relations, a more-or-less organized,
hierarchical, coordinated cluster of relations... But if power is in reality an open, more-or-less coordinated...
cluster of relations, then the only problem is to provide oneself with a grid of analysis which makes possible an analytic
of relations of power.
p.23 power is seen as something which circulates within a system, something inhering in relationships rather
than as a possession of a person or group
p.34 social discourse is invariably linked to the establishment or arrangement of power relations.
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