In Search of Real Circumcision: Ritual Failure and Circumcision in Paul

This article applies the theoretical framework of ‘ritual failure’, a sub-discipline of ritual criticism, to Paul’s discussion of circumcision in his letter to the Galatians, Philippians and Romans. It is argued that the application of this theoretical perspective clarifies the dynamics at stake and provides a new way of understanding the development in Paul’s position regarding circumcision. There is movement from an attitude of strong propagation, by way of indifference and a subsequent attitude of rejection, to one of modified reintegration into Paul’s thinking. At every turn of this development, ritual failure plays a pivotal role and functions as a catalyst for the development of Paul’s theology

First image revisited: human nature, original sin and international relations

In Waltz’s famous classification, human nature’s propensity to evil is catalogued as a first-image causal explanation of war. Ever since, human nature explanations of conflict have been attacked for resting on metaphysical assumptions and a priori pessimism. This paper argues that modern conceptions about the inherent wickedness of human nature or, equally, reductionist sociobiological explanations about its hard-wired conflict-proneness are impoverished secularised versions of Christian anthropological assumptions grounded in the doctrine of original sin. Itself a widely contested dogma, in its Augustinian formulation it was closely connected with a soteriological perspective, that is, a defence of its status as a corollary of the doctrine that all human beings are equally in need of salvation in Jesus Christ. However, its use was never entirely disconnected from the purposes of theodicy and Christian apologetics striving to reconcile the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God with the reality of evil and suffering in the world. It is this latter legacy – associated with the explanation of suffering and evil in the world but stripped of its salvific eschatological content – that is picked up by secularist theorisations of human nature which tend to reduce the paradox of original sin to the parody of man’s evil nature