Contemporary tourism and travel have become a form of religion, a new opiate of the masses. However, could Church and theology be religious forms of tourism and travel? 'Bibles and Baedekers' offers a theology of tourism and exile for a modern and postmodern world. It examines the ways in which location, identity and movement have made use of religious texts and metaphor and questions the relative absence of secular texts and ideas in theology. The theology of the tourist and traveller is one of new experiences, the acquisition of identity through movement. 'Bibles and Baedekers' uniquely applies this to the postmodern Christian, embodying the fulfilment of Bonhoeffer's 'religionless Christianity', dislocated from both a secular and 'religious' world.

It has become increasingly common to read tourism and travel in the modern world as a form of religion, a new opiate of the masses. Yet what happens if we consider Church and theology as religious forms of tourism and travel? Likewise, discussions of location, identity and the self have increasingly made use of religious texts, ideas and metaphors. Yet theology is wary of using secular texts, ideas and metaphors. This book addresses this oversight. It specifically seeks to re-read the modern issues of movement, location, identity and God from the insights of texts on tourism, travel and exile. What is the theology of tourism, travel and exile in a modern and postmodern world? Both tourist and traveller represent modernist theological positions, sure of what they can and will experience, sure of the sense of gaining a new identity out of movement. The postmodern Christian embodies the fulfilment of Bonhoeffer's 'religionless Christianity, ' dislocated from both a secular and 'religious' world. Like an exile they exist incompletely in either location, acting as a liminal point of mutual encounter and critique.

A philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, and Gnostic, Jacob Taubes was for many years a correspondent and interlocutor of Carl Schmitt (1888--1985), a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, law professor -- and self-professed Nazi. Despite their unlikely association, Taubes and Schmitt shared an abiding interest in the fundamental problems of political theology, believing the great challenges of modern political theory were ancient in pedigree and, in many cases, anticipated the works of Judeo-Christian eschatologists.

In this collection of Taubes's writings on Schmitt, the two intellectuals work through ideas of the apocalypse and other central concepts of political theology. Taubes acknowledges Schmitt's reservations about the weakness of liberal democracy yet distances himself from his prescription to rectify it, arguing the apocalyptic worldview requires less of a rigid hierarchical social ordering than a community committed to the importance of decision making. In these writings, a sharper and more nuanced portrait of Schmitt's thought emerges, as well as a more complicated understanding of Taubes, who has shaped the work of Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, and other major twentieth-century theorists.