Theological Metaphors of Marx

Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo PÉrez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

• Translator’s Note / Camilo PÉrez-Bustillo  viiForeword: On Karl Marx’s Negative Meta-Theology / Eduardo Mendieta  xiPreliminary Words / Enrique Dussel  xxiPrologue to the English-Language Edition: The Criticism of Theology as the Criticism of Economics / Enrique Dussel  xxxiiiPart I: The Critique of Fetishism  11. Fetishism in the Young Marx, 1835–1857  32. Fetishism in the Four Versions of Capital, 1857–1882  243. A Critique of Capital’s Fetishistic Character  46Part II: Theological “Metaphors”  734. Marx’s “Metaphorical” Theology  755. The Cultic Sacrifice of the Fetish: The Use of Biblical Texts  1076. Marx’s Atheism and That of the Prophets of Israel  141Appendix: The Epistemological Decolonization of Theology  159Notes  169Index  235

“Originally written in 1993, Enrique Dussel’s The Theological Metaphors of Marx could not be more relevant today. Drawing from Marx’s less-known and mature work, Dussel reveals how theology became a cog of capitalism and colonial domination, and, relatedly, how theology-based criticism becomes a critique of politics and human existence past-present. A crucial text for understanding the rapid rise of the Christian Right throughout the world and for undertaking theological decolonization as an ethics of liberation.” - Catherine E. Walsh, author of (Rising Up, Living On: Re-existences, Sowings, and Decolonial Cracks) “Enrique Dussel provides an exemplary methodology to navigate the rising critique of the secular and appeals to post-secularity. He offers a sophisticated exploration of the extent to which Christian theology, biblical narratives, and Christian discourses served as both references and scaffolding for nineteenth-century philosophy and political economy and a strong argument for a Christian theology that is informed and infused by Marx’s critique of capitalism. Dussel’s deep knowledge of the history of Christianity and the history of modern philosophy and his acute hermeneutical abilities are in full display in this text.” - Nelson Maldonado-Torres, author of (Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity) "The book opens important theological questions and convincingly shows how Marx can be a resource to respond to such questions. Dussel has offered to both theologians and Marxist scholars a refreshing reading of Marx that takes his theological metaphors seriously and opens potentials to recover Marx as an ethical thinker by locating him as a thinker of the exteriority of capitalism." - Joseph Drexler-Dreis (Theological Studies)