The Theological Horizon is a Political Horizon

This presentation responds to Jonathan A. Anderson’s The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), a landmark study that reframes contemporary art’s engagement with religion and theology. While Anderson argues that theology has been rendered hermeneutically invisible within dominant art-historical narratives, this response explores the political stakes of that claim. If contemporary art history prioritizes power, ideology, and critique, might political and liberation theologies provide a more direct point of contact than Anderson’s broader theological horizon? Focusing on Anderson’s analysis of Kris Martin’s Altar, the presentation asks whether theological interpretation can persuade secular art historians or whether it risks speaking primarily to theology itself. By pressing the question of whether the theological horizon is already a political horizon, this session extends Anderson’s field-defining intervention and probes the future of contemporary art and religion as an interdisciplinary domain.