Peter Hodgson’s Liberal Theology: A Radical Vision was something I felt that I just had to read after seeing a copy in the bookstore at the National Cathedral. It was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for – a liberal, socially progressive view of christology. And kind of short. That was important, too.

The book is a reminder of just how non-radical a liberal vision of christian theology actually is, once you start to think about it. It only seems radical because of the way it has been hijacked by the right (religion as having been hijacked by the right – such a cliched statement as this point, but it’s just so damn accurate).

Around half way through the book,  the author, Peter Hodgson, made a point that very much struck me as what the right is missing: tragedy.

Bear with me here.

Yes, you hear a lot of doom and gloom (especially now, as the economy improves, the right is very focused on a ‘it’s midnight in America’ message) and a lot of talk of sin, declining values, damnation. All that good stuff.

But not about ‘tragedy’ as Miguel de Unamuno wrote about. About tragedy as an essential part of the human condition.

If you’re not a fan of theology, you can replace concepts like ‘original sin’ with ‘the tragic aspect of the human condition.’

By accepting tragedy as something essential in our existence on this too, too solid earth, then you are more aware of human suffering as not just a product of sin, not just as something to be worked through en route to grace, but as something deserving on compassion not just in the hereafter but in the here and now.

And that’s missing from the conservative view.

Hodgson is also, clearly, a HUGE fan of Hegel. Much of his theology seems to derive from readings of Hegel. Almost makes me want to go back and take another crack at reading my old buddy Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (GW to his homies). Almost. ‘Cause he’s really freaking difficult and boring. He makes Kant and Heidegger’s ouevre read the kids’ picture books in dentists’ offices.