Ted A Smith Weird John Brown Hardcover sku-37784417

Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics is a hardcover in Religion & Religious Studies Books by Ted A Smith, listed as sku-37784417. Smith challenges the view that separating religion from politics limits violence. Drawing on Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben and others, he examines how seemingly secular politics can produce violence without limit.

His reflections on John Brown, the nineteenth-century abolitionist who took up arms against the state in the name of a higher law, lead to an argument for more critical religious reflection. The book develops a negative political theology that challenges how American history is remembered and how violence is understood and exercised.