Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds. Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. [Book Review] // Clayton Crockett, ed. Religion and Violence in a Secular World: Toward a New Political Theology. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2006. [Book Review]

Like all such ‘turns’ by which the humanities are narrated, the recent theological turn, or return of religion, has those who view it cynically, as a fashion, and others who treat it more positively, as an apposite engagement with contemporary events. Certainly this debate now occupies a place at the forefront of critical theory, as indicated by the numerous books, collections and journal issues devoted to the theme. But there might seem something particularly frightening about this trend; for many secular academics, theology and religion should have been excised from the public sphere by an Enlightened politics long ago.