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The Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a vocal opponent of Trump, concluded his indictment of Trump and Trumpism by recognizing that there are wider, long term effects even if Trump only survives one term of office. He observes: Trump is a problem we�ll be a long-time in solving. The damage to our institutions, our hopes, and our reputation in the world won�t be undone overnight or with a few sweet words.1 This essay seeks to use a particular, non-American perspective and history to make sense of what we can call the problem of Trump. There is an ever-expanding accumulation of books, articles, podcasts and documentaries that engage with what can be termed the problem of Trump (the man, the movement, the idea) as a political, social and cultural problem. This chapter (and the wider edited project) does something different, by deliberately engaging with the problem of Trump from the perspectives of radical theology and philosophy. To do so situates Trump as first and foremost both a problem of thinking and a problem for thinking. If the first problem is interrogating what thinking gave rise to Trump, then the second problem is how to think about Trump. So, our question � and problem � is how might we think Trump, think the rise and momentum of Trump, think what Trump symbolizes and expresses drawing on the insights and possibilities offered from radical theological and philosophical thought?

This essay arises from an engagement with the reflections and letters of Jacob Taubes to Carl Schmitt (Taubes 2013); central to these writings is the question of the sovereign. If the sovereign is the one who decides the exception, then sovereignty is focused on this decision of what is/is not the exception – and who gets to decide. An engagement with these writings of Taubes as a Jew and friend-enemy of the Nazi jurist offers a way toward what I term the necessity of impure sovereignty. For Taubes the central question is what does pure mean and thus, dialectically, what does impure mean? To engage with this question, I begin with a discussion of Weimar and the situation that gave rise to Schmitt's work on sovereignty. I make use of the diaries of Count Harry Kessler and also of an essay of Schmitt's from 1926. I then turn to the writings of Taubes to Schmitt. In my view, sovereignty as understood by both Schmitt and Taubes is problematic because of its central decision for homogeneity and dictatorial democracy. Therefore, I argue for three counter-decisions. Firstly, for the necessity of the impure sovereign-decision for heterogeneity. Secondly, against the Schmittean katechon, I argue for identification with the chaotic, impure Antichrist. Finally, against history, I argue for hope and so we must make the alternative sovereign-decision to remain impure.

This essay arises from an engagement with the reflections and letters of Jacob Taubes to Carl Schmitt (Taubes 2013); central to these writings is the question of the sovereign. If the sovereign is the one who decides the exception, then sovereignty is focused on this decision of what is/is not the exception – and who gets to decide. An engagement with these writings of Taubes as a Jew and friend-enemy of the Nazi jurist offers a way toward what I term the necessity of impure sovereignty. For Taubes the central question is what does pure mean and thus, dialectically, what does impure mean? To engage with this question, I begin with a discussion of Weimar and the situation that gave rise to Schmitt's work on sovereignty. I make use of the diaries of Count Harry Kessler and also of an essay of Schmitt's from 1926. I then turn to the writings of Taubes to Schmitt. In my view, sovereignty as understood by both Schmitt and Taubes is problematic because of its central decision for homogeneity and dictatorial democracy. Therefore, I argue for three counter-decisions. Firstly, for the necessity of the impure sovereign-decision for heterogeneity. Secondly, against the Schmittean katechon, I argue for identification with the chaotic, impure Antichrist. Finally, against history, I argue for hope and so we must make the alternative sovereign-decision to remain impure.

A manifesto sets out an impassioned political and social argument, while traditionally the religious equivalent has been a creed. Yet read from the position of a radical theology and secular political theology, the historic and institutional nature of a creed acts as a barrier and limitation on radical and political theology, reducing radical theology and especially political theology to sectarian disclosure and closures. A manifesto on the other hand, overtly political in nature and outlook, becomes the open call to possibility that sits at the heart of both radical and political theology. These four new gospels are a powerful and prophetic work of political theology. They operate out of what Mary Ann Caws terms 'the manifesto moment' which is its positioning 'between what has been done and what will be done, between the accomplished and the potential, in a radical and energizing division',1 a moment of crisis expressing 'what it wants to oppose, to leave, to defend, to change.

Central to the self-definition of modernity walks the flanuer, the modern, observing, critical individual who wanders amidst but against the crowds and urban flows of modern life. Central to the flaneur is an identity that is incomplete, an existence that is dissatisfied. As Bauman notes, the flanuer is the mirror-image, the imitation, the product of the stock-taking, the forced adjustment and mimicry of the modern world - which is itself the original flaneur.

In his 1941 centennial survey of New Zealand, Oliver Duff observed, 'We are not Puritan enough to take our pleasures sadly, but we take them very seriously'. Duff's comments offer a useful starting point for the investigation of cartoons in New Zealand history. Cartoons - that is, editorial cartoons - are a serious pleasure, a type of puritanical corruption of a Protestant sensibility. They are an act of protest, commonplace in the main, but expressed in such a manner as to make the commonplace interesting. Ingvild Saelifd Gilhus, in her study on laughter in the history of religion, refers to Bakhtin's description of carnival laughter as virtually an alternative to religion. Carnival laughter is 'cathartic and salvific, an expression of rebellion aimed at the religious authorities and their institutions, past and present'. This essay seeks to explore the ways that the carnivalistic humour of the cartoon has represented religion in New Zealand over the past 150 years, aiming to lay the ground work for developing a cartoon history of religion in our society.

In the past decade social theorists and Continental philosophers have returned again to an engagement with Christianity and the legacy of Christian belief. This is framed in the context of a Europe seen in transition to a post-secular identity and, often implicitly, against what is seen as an encroaching Islamic presence within Europe. This move has often brought together Marxist, post-Marxist, and Catholic-legacy philosophers, together with philosophical Protestants in an attempt to recover what I term a political theology of response. Response, in opposition to belief, signals an alternative post-secular turn of attempted inclusion out of a perceived shared cultural legacy. This essay asks if, in such a cultural philosophical turn, the alternative post-secular turn of a political theology of response signals that belief remains within the private sphere as we seek to engage in a public conversation of non-believing "response"? Adapted from the source document.

Situated as we are in what could be termed late capitalism, the 150th anniversary of Marx's Capital, Vol 1 is certainly one that should not be allowed to float by unnoticed. Since its initial publication, Capital has proved a force to be reckoned with – scholars and thinkers from all fields and traditions have grappled with Marx and his Capital, not only as a text itself but also as a text written in a specific context, space and time. Debates have centred around the nuances of Marx's conceptual complexities as well as how to interpret these to make sense of contemporary events, phenomena and crises. Such debates have also extended to the author himself – the degree of reflexivity as well as his ability to control the mastery of his own work. More recently, with the collapse of state systems that claimed some sort of allegiance to Marx – and the turn of the market of China and Vietnam – Capital has perhaps tended to lose its wider readership and influence both as a seminal text and as a guiding political force.