ABSTRACT
The mythical and political theologies were mutually supportive, but philosophical theology was to be kept from the ears of the common people as disturbing and unsupportive of traditional allegiances. Christianity, like all religion, preserves a tradition, but for the new political theologians the heart of this tradition is the 'subversive memory' of Jesus which challenges all established order and disturbs complacency. Political theologians have repeatedly been accused of replacing an unholy amalgam of Christian faith and the politics of the Right with a no less acceptable confusion between Christian commitment and commitment to the causes of the Left. Themes such as secularization have for some time been central to Western theology, but do not figure nearly so prominently on the Third World agenda. In Africa, Asia and Latin America religious notions are at least as powerful as secular ideologies in the political arena.
