Is It radical enough? The ethical call of Caputo's theopoetics to stick to the difficulty of life in light of Black Lives Matter

Editor's: "More than the other chapters in this volume, perhaps, Damen's chapter "Is It Radical Enough? The Ethical Call of Caputo's Theopoetics to Stick to the Difficulty of Life in Light of Black Lives Matter," underscores the continuity of Caputo's recent radical theology with his earlier work. Damen in effect intimates that Caputo's theopoetics of the cross is a variation of the (earlier) radical hermeneutics he had proposed. Caputo's theopoetics of the cross, for Damen, is to be regarded not in the light of the dialectical victory in and through the resurrection but rather as a victory in defeat, as a radical siding with the victim. Caputo's theopoetics, then, goes to the very roots of theology, to the vulnerability of our lives, and the questions this poses. For Damen, this radical theology of the cross is inherently political and she makes a case for the ability of Caputo's theopoetics to side with the victims of radical injustices, such as decried by the Black Lives Matter movement. For this, she here stages an intriguing dialogue between the work of Caputo and the womanist theologian Kelly Brown Douglas."