A THEOLOGICAL ESSAY on POLITICS and the CHRISTIAN SELF-UNDERSTANDING

ABSTRACT

On January 27, 2020, 75 years have passed since the liberation of the extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The second half of the last century was deeply impacted for what happened there, and thus giving rise to a whole cultural, philosophical, political and also theological reflection which enhanced some paradigm-shifts, but above all a meditation on the self-understanding of those types of thought. Three quarters of a century passed we face now a global crisis situation generated by the Covid-19 Pandemic. From some decades now, a reincarnation of the everlasting fascism, or Ur-Fascism, as Umberto Eco has called it, is being carried on, sometimes timidly and sometimes impudently. Some traditionalist sectors (and others more naïve) of the churches often feel attracted to it. Not being apolitical, Christianity is called to exercise its prophetic vocation, albeit the critical distance it must keep regarding the power, and thus to announce the Kingdom of God and denounce its opponents, who come frequently disguised as pious sheep, but are no more than ferocious wolves (cf. Mt 7 15). © 2021 Instituto Teologico de Murcia. All rights reserved.