Friendship in the New Political Theologies

Abstract As a distinct academic discipline, political theology rose and fell with Carl Schmitt. If there was any hope of redeeming it, the discipline would have to be entirely renewed. A deep‐seated and understudied feature of that renewal lies in the reconceptualisation of the political relation. Jürgen Moltmann as it were opened up Schmitt's closed friendship by separating classical and especially Aristotelian from Christian and typically Augustinian friendship. I examine this reconceptualisation and demonstrate that it is inadequate. Yet, in its essence, the reconceptualisation seems to represent dogma also in the new forms of political theologies that ensued from the renewal. I demonstrate this in reference to the friendship accounts of Gilbert Meilaender and Guido de Graaff. This has produced a significant lacuna in the literature. There is no systematic account of civic friendship in contemporary political theology. Positioned in that lacuna, I offer a critical perspective on political theology as a discipline.