Abstract
The concept of political theology was introduced to the literature by Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the most important names in this field. The third chapter of Schmitt's book, Political Theology, first published in 1922 and translated into Turkish in 2002, begins with the sentence "All the concepts of modern state theory are secularized theology concepts." For example; the omnipotence of the god has turned into the omnipotence of the lawgiver with the modern state. As can be understood from here, political-theology is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the theological origins of modern-secular concepts and institutions. Gülbeyaz Karakuş, in her work published in 2018, focuses on the Turkish Republic regime, whose relationship with religion has been the subject of research in many ways, in terms of political-theological transformation. By studying the concepts in detail, she tries to examine the elements that provided the transformations and the conditions that caused them, especially since the last period of the Ottoman Empire. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who was the first to use the concept of civil religion in the last part of his Social Contract book, thinks that it is important for the state that every citizen has a religion that will make them love their duty. Karakuş examines whether a civil religion was established by the founding staff of the Republic in Turkey, just as Bellah did for the United States. In this context, she thinks that the theoretical infrastructure of a civil religion was created in the founding years of the Republic with the political-theological transformations she identified. Then she states that this civil religion has been shaped by new concepts, new rituals, new places and a leader cult on the basis of nationalism, excluding the past.