Holding to a “Complex” Theology: Rediscovering the Ambiguity of the Christian Tradition through United States Politics and Melchior Cano’s De Locis Theologicis

The entanglement between the theological and political has received substantial attention from
scholars, but the majority of work fails to explicitly address theology’s emergence from political
constructs and remains silent about the ambiguity held within the Christian theological tradition. This
dissertation seeks to close this gap by using the theopolitical claims of presidential candidates in the
United States to (1) discuss the emergence of the theological from the political, and (2) highlight how
readings of the Christian tradition can either veil knowledge production or unearth the complexity and
ambiguity within the tradition. Using the work of Mark Lewis Taylor, Colby Dickinson, and Thomas
Bauer as a framework, and concretizing this framework through engagement with Melchior Cano’s De
Locis Theologicis, this project will outline a “complex” theological approach that seeks to challenge
reductionist presentations of the theopolitical and honor the ambiguity held therein.