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Wednesday, 7 January 2026

Does Catherine Keller have anything to say about diagnosing the gap between declared equality and lived power, social stature and so on?

Yes — *Catherine Keller does offer resources for diagnosing the gap between declared equality (egalitarian moral ideals) and the uneven distribution of power and domination in lived social orders, but she approaches the problem from a theological and relational rather than strictly political or economic framework. Her work interrogates how structures of power, normativity, and hierarchy are reinforced by cultural, religious, and metaphysical assumptions, and how they might be reimagined. Drew University User Homepages

Here are the core ways Keller’s thought speaks to that gap:

1. Critique of Sovereignty and Domination

Keller challenges traditional understandings of divine and political sovereignty, which often mirror and legitimize earthly uses of power and domination. In her theological critique:

She rejects the classical idea of an omnipotent God who sovereignly controls history and imposes order, seeing it as analogous to human systems of unilateral power and domination. MDPI
Instead, she proposes a relational, persuasive model of power that does not coerce but invites transformation and cooperation. This model frames power not as control over others but as influence rooted in mutuality and relationality. Religion Online

From this perspective, the gap between declared equality and lived power becomes visible in how hierarchical, sovereign forms of authority — both divine and human — naturalize inequality and marginalize those who are different.

2. Process and Interdependence

Keller draws on process theology (influenced by Alfred North Whitehead) to decenter static hierarchies and emphasize entanglement, interdependence, and becoming:

Instead of viewing beings (human or otherwise) as fixed ranks beneath a sovereign center, she sees all creatures as deeply interrelated and co-constitutive. PTU Research Portal
This ontology challenges frameworks that justify inequality by claiming some beings are fundamentally superior or destined to rule.
In doing so, she offers a conceptual basis for a more egalitarian social vision grounded in interdependence rather than domination.

This relational ontology helps diagnose inequality as a failure of social and ecological relations, not simply a misalignment of distribution.

3. Feminist and Poststructural Critiques of Power

Keller’s work is deeply feminist and poststructural, which means she doesn’t just affirm equality in abstract terms — she investigates how language, categories (like gender, race, species), and norms structure power in such a way that declared equality becomes hollow in practice:

She argues that Western traditions of authority and dominion — including religious ones — have normalized domination by interpreting difference as deficit or disorder. Goodreads
Her feminist commitments aim to dismantle those interpretive structures by showing how claims of universal equality often mask persistent hierarchies and exclusions.
She explores how unsaying oppressive norms and reconfiguring theological language can expose and counter practices that sustain inequality.

In this way, Keller’s theology diagnoses the gap between formal equality and actual power relations as rooted in cultural and symbolic systems that legitimize domination, not merely individual moral failure.

4. Hope Beyond Dominion

Importantly, Keller doesn’t simply negate power; she redefines it:

Her idea of power emphasizes “the energy of influence” — that which empowers without overpowering and fosters communal flourishing. Religion Online
This reimagining opens space for forms of authority rooted in mutual responsiveness and co-creative engagement rather than hierarchical control.

In terms of diagnosing the gap you described — between the normative claim that all persons are equal and the reality of unequal distributions of wealth, power, and stature — Keller would point toward:

Structural forces (institutional, linguistic, symbolic, cultural) that sustain domination,
Theologies and narratives that legitimize hierarchy, and
Ontological assumptions (about being, otherness, and power) that invisibilize or naturalize inequality.

Her work suggests that addressing this gap requires rethinking not just policy or ethics but the very categories and metaphors through which we understand personhood, power, and interrelation.

In short

Catherine Keller does not write political economics, but her *theological critique of sovereignty, her process relational ontology, and her feminist interrogation of power structures provide conceptual tools for understanding how egalitarian ideals get distorted into entrenched hierarchies in lived social reality. Her diagnosis points to power as relational, deformation of equality as structured through dominant narratives, and the need for a reconfigured power rooted in interdependence rather than dominance.