Empire, Multitude and the Church: Theology after Hardt and Negri

Empire, Multitude and the Church: Theology after Hardt and Negri is a 2017 book by Y. T. Vinayaraj, published in New Delhi by the India Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (ISPCK). The book considers the relationship between political theology, the church and the ideas associated with political philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Its title and related work by Vinayaraj place it within his wider engagement with political theology and the role of Christian communities in public life.

Background and themes

The book’s central terms, “empire” and “multitude”, are also present in Vinayaraj’s published work on M. M. Thomas. His curriculum vitae lists an earlier essay titled “Empire, Multitude, and the Church: Signifying M.M. Thomas for a Theology of Multitude in India”, published in Religion and Society in December 2015 and included in the edited volume Reclaiming Manyness: Re-reading M.M. Thomas in the Light of Indian Christian Theologies. This provides a documented connection between the book’s subject and his work on M. M. Thomas.

The World Communion of Reformed Churches’ 2017 General Council minutes cite the book while discussing a “communion of the multitude”. That discussion describes a community that resists imperial logic while retaining the differences among its members and sharing in the common good. The minutes offer an example of how the book’s vocabulary was taken up in ecumenical discussion; they should not be treated as a substitute for the book itself or as a full summary of its argument.

Publication details

References

  1. Vinayaraj, Y. T. Curriculum vitae. Bibliographic listing for the book and the related 2015 essay on M. M. Thomas, empire and multitude.
  2. World Communion of Reformed Churches. Minutes of the 2017 General Council. Cites the book in its discussion of a communion of the multitude.

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