Critical Theology

These past decades, critical thought and theological discourse have been challenging each other, as they share mutual themes alongside odds and misgivings towards one another. In view of this development, we would like to establish by means of this conference, a series of discussions featuring scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. These discussions shall focus on the possibility of formulating a kind of critical theology stemming from the Israeli framework of religion, society and political ideas.

It seems that during the last two decades or so research in the humanities and social studies has turned more and more to fields of theology and their impact upon this research. A central goal has been to detect in depth the religious contents that have turned up again as primary parts in society, culture and politics. Such contents shake public awareness, realities and politics in Europe, the United States – and of course in Israel. Taken together, the new awakening of religious identities and pungent tensions caused by these smash the long-hold thesis of an ongoing secularization of modernity, or else the unwrapping of ‘mystic’ bonds – in more Weberian terms. The secular narrative undergoes a change to new forms. Is this a new age characterized by new and different forms, which might be called ‘post-secular’?

However, at the same time it is postulated that the religious discourse ought to be dealt with in critical terms and in accordance with the natural assumptions of religious thought in all three ‘monotheistic’ religions. ‘Critique’ should be understood here as reflection on needs of faith and security of the human by means of ‘God’ rather than an expression of these needs as such. How then, is one to understand the newly formulated oxymoron ‘critical theology’? Is it possible to deal with theology ‘critically’ and, if so, what should be the object of such criticism? On the other side, can theological reasoning be critical, or else, is real theological reasoning grounded in critical work?

This first conference on Critical Theology seeks to gather scholars from diverse field of the humanities, social studies, law and education to address these questions. There is an urgent need for such a critical theology to define anew the idea of deity as it pops up in our society and culture on an every-day level. No less important is a new understanding of the ‘believer’, the ‘non-believer’, the theologian and the traditional spiritual leader. In order to enable such a discourse of critical theology we aim at basis-work in terminology, first of all regarding the three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Islam and Christianity and the followers. We invite you to raise a broad range of questions dealing with theology and philosophy be it in the academic realm or in the socio-political sphere (including nationalisms); the consequences for future historiography, the relation to the term ‘secular’, the political bearings of such an enterprise in regard to changing forms of thought about critical theology in our days.  

Programme 

May 1

9:00     Greetings:    

Prof. Eyal Zisser, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities

Prof. Moshe Florentin, Chair of the Department of Jewish Cultural Studies

Dr. Michael Mach, Head of the Sub-department of Jewish Philosophy

Dr. Itzhak Benyamini - Chair of Conference: Critical Theology – An Open Definition?

9:30     Chair: Dr. Raphael Zagury-Orly

Dr. Michael Mach, Tel Aviv University: Modern Jewish Theology and its Relation to Christianity

Prof. Haviva Pedaya, Ben Gurion University: The Complexity of Jewish and Israeli Political Theology – To Bind and to Unbind

Dr. Yotam Hotam, University of Haifa: Does God Have “Hair”? Theology and Ecology in Postwar Thought

11:00:  Break

11:30:  Chair: Dr. Raphael Zagury-Orly

Prof. Yossef Schwartz, Tel Aviv University: The Metamorphosis of Academic Theology and the Crisis of the Humanities

Dr. Dana Freibach-Heifetz, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya / Kibbutzim College: Religious Contents within a Secular Arena: The Case of “Secular Grace”

Dr. Eli Schönfeld, Tel Aviv University / Hartman Institute, Jerusalem: On Consolation: Critical Reflections on the Critique of Religion

13:30   Lunch-Break

15:00   Chair: Dr. Michael Mach

Dr. Ronit Peleg, Tel Aviv University: Jean-François Lyotard – brit-milah

Dr. Hanoch Ben-Pazi, Bar-Ilan University / Kibbutzim College: The Justified Demands of Atheism: Leibowitz vs. Levinas

Prof. Ron Margolin, Tel Aviv University: The Phenomenology of Inner Religion and Critical Theology

16:30   Coffee-Break

17:00   Chair: Dr. Michael Mach

Dr. Hagar Lahav, Sapir College: Intersecting Angles: A Post-secular Feminist Jewish Theology

Dr. Avner Dinur, Sapir College / Kibbutzim College: God only as a Concept: The Debt of Secular Theology to Immanuel Kant

May 2

9:00     Chair: Dr. Itzhak Benyamini

Dr. Avinoam Rosenak, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: A Theology of the “Unity of Opposites”: A Critique and an Alternative

Prof. Galili Shahar, Tel Aviv University: King’s Daughter: Literature and Exile (Benjamin/Kafka, the Baal Shem Tov, and one Remark on Agnon)

Dr. Rony Klein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Return of the Repressed Jew Figure in France: Lyotard and Badiou on Paul

10:30   Coffee Break

11:00   Chair: Dr. Itzhak Benyamini

Dr. Aïm Deüelle Lüski, Tel Aviv University / Bezalel Academy: Thinking the Old Testament after Deleuze-Guattari

Dvorah Silverstein, Writer: Genesis 32: Two Narratives Bound in One Text

Ishai Mevorach, Institute for the Advancement of Rav Shagar's Writings: On the Language of Translation and Translating to the Source Language

13:00   Lunch Break

14:30   Chair: Yotam Hotam

Prof. Adi Ophir, Tel Aviv University: Concerning This Philosopher, Paul

Dr. Itzhak Benyamini, Ben Gurion University / Bezalel Academy: God’s Self-Creation

Dr. Adi Efal, University of Cologne: Figure, Icon, Idol

16:30   Chair: Yotam Hotam

Dr. Raphael Zagury-Orly, Bezalel Academy, and Dr. Joseph Cohen, University College Dublin: On the Obedience to the Heart

17:30   Coffee Break

18:00   Round Table: Critical Theology Today?

Dr. Itzhak Benyamini, Dr. Raphael Zagury-Orly, Dr. Yotam Hotam, Dr. Michael Mach

Organizing Comittee: Dr. Itzhak Benyamini (chair), Dr. Raphael Zagury-Orly, Dr. Yotam Hotam, Dr. Michael Mach