Answering the question of what political theology is, at a time when the term is widely used by theologians, political scientists, and cultural theorists, What is Political Theology? distinguishes between 'political theology', 'public theology', 'civil religion' and 'liberation theology', also paying attention to the distinction between religion and theology. With 'political theology', a term coined by Carl Schmitt in the 1920s, we are concerned with the political aspects of a systematic discourse on what it is to believe in God from a Christian perspective. Outlining Schmitt's ideas as they were elaborated between 1922 and 1969 and their subsequent critical reception in theology, the authors engage with both those contemporary Left Wing thinkers who have re-appropriated Schmitt and the theologians who have critical debated with these thinkers.