Luke Bretherton

Luke Bretherton is a British author and theologian. His work addresses contemporary moral and political questions, particularly as these relate to the relationship between religion and democracy.  He is currently Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology at Duke University in North Carolina (2012–present).^[1] Previously he taught at King’s College London (2004-2012) and St Augustine’s College (2001-2004). Alongside his scholarly work, he writes in the media (including The Guardian, The Times and The Washington Post) on topics related to religion and politics, has worked with a variety of faith-based NGOs and churches around the world, and is actively involved in forms of grassroots democratic politics, both in the UK and the US. He hosts and writes the Listen, Organize, Act! Podcast.

He is best known for his work on how and why religion broadly, and churches in particular, can enable or disable democratic politics. Constructively, his work draws on the intellectual history of covenantal political theologies (as against political philosophies that focus on a social contract) and forms of democratic practice such as broad-based community organizing to set out a contemporary vision for democracy. His understanding of democracy provides a framework for addressing the contested relationship between religion and politics in hyper-diverse, plural societies. The technical term for it is a ‘consociational’ conception of democracy and it represents an alternative to multiculturalism, communitarianism, and what the philosopher Charles Taylor identifies as a “politics of recognition.” Another significant contribution he makes is pioneering the use of ethnographic and interdisciplinary methodologies in political theology.

His approach to theology is dialogical. Truths about God and about what it means to be human can only be discovered through encounter and relationship with others – Christian and nonChristian as well as human and nonhuman.  Rather than either a set of abstract dogmas, empirical facts, mathematical formulations, or philosophical axioms, truth on his account is a relational and participatory reality.  For Bretherton, coming to know the truth about God and neighbor necessarily entails listening to others, cultivating the quality and character of relations with others that enable both oneself and the other to be heard, and forming a common life with others through democratic politics.

Specific issues addressed in his work include debt, usury, fair trade, environmental justice, racism, humanitarianism, the treatment of refugees, interfaith relations, euthanasia, secularism, nationalism, church-state relations, and the provision of social welfare.