Carl Raschke


Carl A. Raschke is an American philosopher and theologian. Raschke is a Past Chair and Professor of Religious Studies Department at the University of Denver, specializing in continental philosophy, the philosophy of religion and the theory of religion. He is also listed with the affiliated faculty of the Global Center for Advanced Studies. Raschke is known in part for his research in philosophy of religion, postmodern theology, popular religion, philosophy of culture and philosophy of technology. He received his B.A. from Pomona College, his M.A. from The Graduate Theological Union, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Raschke is senior editor for The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory and senior consulting editor for The New Polis. He is a regular contributor to Political Theology Today. A major focus of Raschke's work has been postmodernism. In recent years he has written on the theory of religion and political theology. Alan J. Richard in The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Theology writes: "Carl Raschke, who might be credited for being the first to introduce deconstructive theory to the study of religion, is a unique theologian who has written on many topics, including economics, world religions, and higher education."
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Raschke published works on Satanism, the occult, heavy metal music, and subjects such as Dungeons and Dragons. In addition, Raschke was an expert witness on some cases involving Satanism, regularly made comments and appearances for the media on related topics, and advised the American Family Foundation; Raschke's comments and work during this period, particularly his 1990 book Painted Black, have been overwhelmingly condemned by scholars as inaccurate and repeatedly cited as having assisted in fueling the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic during the period, and Raschke's status as an "expert" on these topics has been criticized.

Philosophical and Theological Contributions

A central focus of Raschke’s work has been on postmodern religious thought and postmodernism. According to The Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, his “work has sought to expose a conceptual tangle in modernity’s approach to language, religion, and the body." Raschke launched this project in the 1970s with the publication of an article in The Harvard Theological Review entitled “Meaning and Saying in Religion: Beyond Language Games,” in which he “argues that the failure of Anglo-American philosophy to adequately account for religious language reveals a deeper failure to account for the process of meaning-formation at the heart of language itself.” His first major book, The Alchemy of the Word: Language and the End of Theology, which was republished in 2000 as The End of Theology, lays out this agenda in detail with reliance in particular on the philosophy of the later Martin Heidegger. Fire and Roses: Postmodernity and the Thought of the Body explores these interconnections by seeking to “reconcile erotic and tragic discourses through the thought of the Word made flesh.” An earlier work, entitled Theological Thinking: An In-Quiry, investigates the interconnections between the languages of religion and science.
After the turn of the millennium, Raschke turned his attention to the impact of postmodernism on Christian evangelical thought. His book, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity, explained how postmodern philosophy might transform present day evangelical theology, comparing it to Reformation thought, in particular Martin Luther’s key doctrines of sola fide and sola Scriptura. He writes in this book that “the postmodernist revolution in philosophy…has tendered an environment where the Christian gospel can at last be disentangled from the centuries-long gnarl of scientism, rationalism, secularism, humanism, and skepticism.” Reviewing the book, Brian C. Smith notes in Library Journal that Raschke challenges the conventional evangelical view of "postmodernism" and "exudes an embracing and accepting spirit toward it." A later book, entitled GloboChrist, published as part of a general series by Baker Academic Books, argued that the theory of the “rhizome,” first advanced by twentieth century French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, can be used to model the future of the Christian church in the new era of globalization. In an interview with the Evangelical Philosophical Society in 2009, Raschke explains he borrowed this term because “globalization is an ongoing, simultaneous transformation of nations, cultures, and religious outlooks and practices everywhere on the planet which they term ‘de-territorialization.’” Commenting on GloboChrist scholar Richard Haney criticizes the book for its "breezy terminology", but concludes the book "will challenge Christians to think missionally and philosophically at the same time." In his contribution among three authors to the volume Faith and Reason: Three Views, Raschke has argued that the gospel represented a departure from Greek and Enlightenment philosophies, and that faith and reason are "in tension" with each other.
Raschke has written on the general theory of religion. His book,The Revolution in Religious Theory: Toward A Semiotics of the Event, lays out how postmodern philosophy has impacted and reshaped both classical and contemporary paradigms of how we understand what is meant by the “religious.” In an interview with David Hale, Raschke criticizes many scholars of religion, particularly in regard to "cults", for approaching their subject as a "pseudo-phenomenology" that "does not seek to probe, or dialectically reflect, beyond the bare given." In reviewing the book, McGill University scholar Nathan Strunk writes that Raschke criticizes the history of religious studies as colonializing with a tendency toward "Aryanization", and thus "readers should not be surprised if some areas they consider sacred are tread over lightly."
His book Force of God: Political Theology and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy, leverages the philosophies of Michel Foucault and Friedrich Nietzsche to analyze from what he terms a “genealogical” standpoint the ongoing global economic crisis and the dysfunctions of democracy. In a review in the Journal of Religion Samuel Hayim Brody writes that "Force of God is ostensibly an entry in the genre of critical Schmittianism", but that "it also works on several other levels: as an extended exegesis and application of Nietzsche; as a survey of concepts of 'force' in modern Continental philosophy ; and as an argument for the continuing relevance of the Western philosophical canon to contemporary problems.". New Zealand scholar Michael Grimshaw writing in Syndicate, an online academic forum of major new books in a variety of fields, states that in Force of God "the crisis in liberal democracy is convincingly linked as yet another expression and result of Nietzsche’s death of god." He asks "if Force of God is a prophetical work in being the first political theology of the Trump interregnum; a political theology written before the rise of Trump but existing as both handbook to understanding the crisis in liberal democracy that led to Trump and a manifesto of how to undertake a political theology of resistance?"
Raschke has been credited with being "one of the first to register the importance of Derrida's work for postmodern philosophies of religion."
He is section editor for The Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions.

Satanic ritual abuse moral panic, modern popular culture and new religious movements

Raschke has written and commented on topics such as Satanism, Dungeons and Dragons, heavy metal music and certain new religious movements. His work in this area as well as his role in the development of the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in particular the book Painted Black, have been much criticized in academia.
Particularly during the late 1980s and 1990s, Raschke regularly commented to the media on matters involving Satanism and the occult, advised the American Family Foundation during the 1990s, and appeared as an expert witness during trials purportedly involving Satanism. Raschke has continued to accept media requests for comment on these topics, such as for an object purportedly involved in the murder of Jessica Ridgeway in 2012.
Reviewing Painted Black in 1991, scholar Jonathon S. Epstein writes: "Painted Black adds additional fuel to the flames of hysteria surrounding satanism in America", that "what the book lacks is scholarship, it makes up for it in sweeping and unsupportable generalizations", and that … "Painted Black cannot be taken seriously. In 1995, scholar Wouter J. Hanegraaff writes "Raschke's eagerness to include everything "gnostic" into a "genealogy of darkness" inspires sloppy historical scholarship. … With a similar lack of sensitivity for the power of words and definitions, Raschke routinely uses "satanism" and "occultism" as synonyms. This careless attitude towards terminology leads to painfully inaccurate overviews." Writing in 1998, scholar Phillip Jenkins cites Raschke's Painted Black next to Maury Terry's Ultimate Evil and Larry Kahaner's Cults That Kill along with an episode of Geraldo Rivera's talk show as examples of major works that popularized the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic in the late 1980s and 1990s. Jenkins says "For several years, belief in the existence of satanic cults and ritual murder achieved wider credence in the United States than it had in any other society since that of sixteenth-century Europe", where the moral panic subsequently spread to areas of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
In an analysis of Raschke's role in adding fuel to the 1980s and early 1990s United States Satanic ritual abuse moral panic, scholar Eugene V. Gallagher notes that Raschke referred to critics of his works as "cult apologists" but says "the shrillness of Raschke's argument ... ultimately fails to compensate for the paucity of evidence behind it". Referring to Raschke's Painted Black, scholar Joshua Gunn writes that "Raschke's error-filled tome is frequently cited by seemingly secular academics who profess in a belief of Satanic ritual abuse".
Scholar Arthur Versluis is highly critical of Raschke's Painted Black, which he describes as an "effort to awaken an American inquisition" and refers to the book as "breathless sensationalism". Versluis cites Raschke's description of the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons as a means of initiation into "black magic" as an example and says that "it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the hysterical nature of this book, nor the number of errors in it." Versluis is critical of Raschke's role in the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic, noting the false imprisonments that the moral panic resulted in, and says, regarding Painted Black, "This is dangerous stuff indeed ... Fortunately, Raschke's book didn't have the kind of impact he so clearly wanted: to fully awaken the medieval Inquisitorial spirit. But ... the 1980s and the 1990s 'Satanic panic' was bad enough."
Comparing Raschke's Painted Black to Tipper Gore's 1987 book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society in that Gore "invoked Satan as the seducer of youth", scholar Robert Latham refers to Carl Raschke as "a tabloid 'expert' on 'cults'". Latham is particularly critical of Raschke's claims that MTV "had put an entire generation of teens at risk of satanic contamination" and writes that "Raschke's indictment of the resultant 'Dionysian frenzy' ... indiscriminately conflated acts of violence, sexual 'deviance', and supernaturalism in a millennial scenario of youth's spectacular degeneracy."
Scholars Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jesper AA. Petersen provide examples of Raschke "quoting ... misleadingly and out of context" and "hav forgotten all his academic training, and reverted, in a telling manner, to the folklore of evil". The scholars characterize Raschke as an "until-then well-reputed academic". Scholar Joseph P. Laycock is highly critical of statements that Raschke made in the 1980s and early 1990s regarding Satanism in popular culture, noting that Raschke "is one of the few academics who embraced the moral panic over Satanism and role-playing games in the 1980s". Analyzing Raschke's works on heavy metal, scholar Robert Walser says that "the terrorism of Raschke and similar critics depends upon two tactics: anecdote and insinuation. Raschke himself cites a group of sociologists of religion who determined that there was 'not a shred of evidence' that Satanism is a problem in America, directly contradicting the thesis of Rashke's book."
Raschke's comments regarding Heathenry have also been criticized. According to a 1998 interview with the SPLC, Raschke claimed that "a recent biological terrorism threat in New York City may have come from Asatrúers ". Citing this claim as an example of the reception of Heathenry in his overview, scholar Mattias Gardell says "I have found nothing to substantiate the alarmist allegations of Raschke".
In an article on Wicca and media for the Oxford Handbook of Religion and the News Media, scholar Sarah M. Pike describes how a media report during the trial for the West Memphis Three "failed to consult experts on Wicca and Satanism" but rather referred to material by Raschke, who she describes as a "widely discredited 'Satanism expert'".
Raschke has written and commented in the media extensively on contemporary religion, especially regarding the New Age Movement. His most cited and often controversial book on this is The Interruption of Eternity. Other writings of this kind include "The New Age: The Movement Toward Self-Discovery", "New Age Spirituality" and "New Age Economics".