Manifesto of the Critical Theory of Society and Religion (3 vols.)

The Manifesto develops further the Critical Theory of Religion intrinsic to the Critical Theory of Society of the Frankfurt School into a new paradigm of the Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy and Theology of Religion. Its central theme is the theodicy problem. The Manifesto approaches this theme in the framework of comparative religion and critical political theology in a narrative and discursive fashion. In search of a solution to the theodicy problem, the Manifesto explores, trends in civil society toward Alternative Future I (the Totally Administered Society), Alternative Future II (the Militarized Society), and Alternative Future III (the Reconciled Society) in the horizon of the longing for the Wholly Other as perfect justice and unconditional love. Toward that goal it relies on both the critical theory of society as developed by Max Horkheimer, Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and others, and on the new political theology of Johannes B. Metz, Helmut Peukert, and Edmund Arens.

Rudolf Siebert was born in 1927 in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. He received his Licentiate and Ph.D. in Theology from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany in 1962 after studying history, philosophy, sociology, and theology at the Universities of Frankfurt, Mainz, Munster and the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., U.S.A. Siebert has taught, lectured and published widely in Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, the United States and Canada. He is professor of Religion and Society and Director of the Center for Humanistic Studies at Western Michigan University and of the international course on the Future of Religion in the I.U.C. Dubrovnik, Croatia, and of the international course on Religion and Civil Society in Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine. His previous major works were The Critical Theory of Religion: Frankfurt School, and From Critical Theory to Critical Political Theology: Personal Autonomy and Universal Solidarity.