Religion and Difference: Contested Contemporary Issues [1 ed.] 9783666564673, 9783525564677

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Trygve Wyller / Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati / Stefanie Knauss /  Hans-Günter Heimbrock / Hans-Joachim Sander / Carla Danani

Religion and Difference Contested Contemporary Issues

Research in Contemporary Religion

Edited by Hans-Günter Heimbrock, Stefanie Knauss, Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Hans-Joachim Sander, Trygve Wyller In co-operation with Hanan Alexander (Haifa), Carla Danani (Macerata), Wanda Deifelt (Decorah), Siebren Miedema (Amsterdam), Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Nashville), Garbi Schmidt (Roskilde), Claire Wolfteich (Boston) Volume 28

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Trygve Wyller/Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati/ Stefanie Knauss/Hans-Günter Heimbrock/ Hans-Joachim Sander/Carla Danani

Religion and Difference Contested Contemporary Issues

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de.  2020, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Gçttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Cover image:  Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage j www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-1145 ISBN 978-3-666-56467-3

Contents

Trygve Wyller Introduction: Framing Religion and Difference Between Praxis, Populist Hijacking and Identitarian Politics . . . . . .

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Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati Difference and Contested Public Places Spatial Representations of Religion in Contemporary Society . . . . . .

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Stefanie Knauss Difference and Contested Sexualities LGBT Catholics and the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Hans-Günter Heimbrock/Trygve Wyller Difference and Contested Humanity The Crisis of Migration and the Relief of the Preethical . . . . . . . . .

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Hans-Joachim Sander Difference and Contested Caricatures Reaching out for Religious Complexity through Metonymies . . . . . .

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Hans-Günter Heimbrock Difference and Contested Commitments How Do Religious Education Teachers Take Position? . . . . . . . . . . 117 Carla Danani Contested Religious Differences and the Question of Justice

. . . . . . 145

Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Abstracts

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Trygve Wyller

Introduction: Framing Religion and Difference Between Praxis, Populist Hijacking and Identitarian Politics

Starting from Praxis In a highly profiled project directed toward irregular migrants in Northern Europe, the project leaders attend a weekly meeting. They are meeting to plan the details of the project event to occur later the same evening. This is a project where a Christian congregation is cooperating with a philanthropic organization of professional volunteers, lawyers, nurses, doctors, dentists, etc. Once a week these volunteers offer three hours of advice and care support for the irregular migrants living in that part of the country. The support project is located in the church building. The congregation is part of the project but does not run it: They support and co-act. On this afternoon, the leading nurse says: “A few months ago the police went into a campsite run by a Christian organization, arresting the irregular migrants hiding there. This means that we have to increase the security of our project. This is the plan: You (pointing at two volunteers) go outside the church building to watch out for police cars. If you see them coming, you call my cell phone. Then I will call you (pointing again), who will open the two basement doors so that the irregulars can escape as quickly as possible. Because there are so many regular migrants living in this area there, the police will never notice the difference between the regulars and irregulars.” During this act of planned civil obedience, the minister of the congregation is standing quietly in the corner listening. He does not intervene, he does not protest, and he signals via body language that he is behind the plan.

The topic of this book is religion and difference. In such a context, the minister’s behavior was symbolically strong: by condoning the act of civil disobedience, he signaled that his religion – his Christian faith – had given him the mandate to defend a plural society, in the sense that non-Christian migrants should be supported even beyond what is legal. The whole idea in this project, the cooperation between the congregation and the philanthropic organization, is that they share the fundamental idea: that people of color and of all religions and all ethnicities deserve to meet a nation and a church that accept them and care for them, regardless of their confession, faith, gender, and ethnicity. This specific project and minister represent one view on the relationship between religion and difference opposed to current trends in

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contemporary populism, especially what the American sociologist Rogers Brubaker calls “Christianism.”1

Another Framing of Religion and Difference Brubaker develops the concept “Christianism” to describe the tendency to use Christian religion as the core reason for populist identitarian politics. Christianists fight to keep the number of Muslims in their nation as low as possible. Christianists argue that Muslims represent an end to women and gay rights as well as similar liberal rights that are part of current European values. The articles in this book, however, point in another direction: religion (first and foremost here: the Christian religion) cannot use the Christian faith as a means of oppressing and avoiding non-Christians; nor can Christians oppress other Christians based on their sexual, gender, and ethnic differences. In the age of increasing populist positions, Christianism is one of many different flavors of populism. We think there is a need to discuss, with a lower but serious voice, why and how religion also has a potentiality to argue for something else than the ideological support of its own position, i. e. identitarian politics. Yet the challenge is how to argue and reflect toward this more generous understanding of religion. We think that the main argument must start from “below,” from how generous religion acts, how humanity and relations are practiced in everyday life, instead of employing the top-down model of how ideologies and functionalist pretentions of a specific religion look like. The cases and the approaches in the following articles address practices from many perspectives, but everyday experiences form the basic starting point for the discussion of religion and difference by the authors in this volume. This volume was edited by the members of the editorial board of the Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht book series Research in Contemporary Religion. We hope that the series as well as this specific volume will contribute to international scholarship and reflection in field of contemporary religion. Religion today does not consist solely of scholarship; it is a contested and powerful part of public discussions and activities. (Christian) religion, of course, has always been part of a European public discussion, but today the issue of difference is part of significant tensions within that (Christian) religion itself. This is why we wanted to contribute to the heated topic of religion and difference by publishing the present edited volume. We aim at pursuing our own series policy, namely, to “promote research on religion from the perspective of phenomenological, empirical and cultural studies.” The 1 Brubaker: 2017. Thanks go to my Norwegian colleague Cathrine Thorleifsson at the University of Oslo for informing me about this important reference.

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articles in this volume developed from these positions. We think such positions are needed if we are to discover and present a religion that opposes populist Christianism. Therefore, we first interpret practices, that is, activities where people, both consciously and unconsciously, strive to engage in religion as something generous and as something that promotes fairness and justice. The above-mentioned opening case in this introduction symbolizes this intention. The minister who approved of civil disobedience in favor of the irregular migrants is communicating that there is a faith that does not always aim at identitarian politics, even when it is politically controversial. Most of the articles follow this line, even if the cases and arguments differ. We address challenges that are urgent in contemporary social and cultural practice, challenges that reveal where religious practices are being confronted with variations of identitarian politics. How can they respond and how can they find non-identitarian politics within religions themselves? Daria PezzoliOlgiati (München) presents the contested issue of the Haus der Religionen in the Swiss city of Bern. Political authorities and civil society wanted to establish religious plurality in their city and constructed a building to house all of them. The equal space given to each religion, of course, caused many members to complain: they thought their own religion was unique. Pezzoli-Olgiati treats the question of whether this common space for all religions causes visitors to reflect: should religions respect, and not oppose, difference? We chose in total six contested issues to discuss. We start with the justmentioned Haus der Religionen in Bern. The second issue comes from Stefanie Knauss (Villanova), who researches the tense issue of LGBT identity and membership in the Catholic Church. This is a very different case than the one in Bern, but – parallel to Pezzoli-Olgiati – Knauss explores which reflections and traditions within the Catholic Church can theologically provide a space for gays. The Bern case and the role of gays within the Catholic Church point to a more traditional kind of Christianism than the one addressed by Brubaker, who first of all analyzes the Christianism that claims Christian faith is the guarantee for liberal values like gay tolerance and free speech, etc. Accordingly, a high number of Muslims should not be included in Western society, since those are the people who oppress liberal rights. That position might be considered the most modern form of Christianism. The variation behind the conflicts in Bern and Rome is the older Christianism, which combines essentialism and conservative Bible interpretations to fight Islam. But there is another Christianism working parallel to the one conceptualized by Brubaker. Still, whether we view modern or traditional Christianism, what matters in this book is that the authors look for practices, experiences, and positions from inside (the Christian) religion which oppose and contest both old and new forms of Christianism. Hans-Günter Heimbrock (Frankfurt) and Trygve Wyller (Oslo) present in their article two cases, one from the migration-influenced island of Lamp-

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edusa and one from language courses for young refugees in Germany. The authors argue that experiencing the participation in a shared creation leads to a position that contests illiberal Christianism. When people share creation, religion must defend difference, since difference is less fundamental than the shared creation.

Practice as Praxis The populist interpretation of religion as something necessary to avoid all kinds of unwanted ideologies belongs to a functionalist interpretation of religion. One major contribution here stems from Emile Durkheim2 (1857–1917). Durkheim was not a populist, though modern populists do use the Durkheimian argument: religion (and they mean primarily a general and unspecified idea of Christianity) provides the guarantee for the continued presence of “our” (either secular – Brubaker – or conservative – many cases in this book) way of Western democracies, framed by values of Christian origin. Drawing on this functionalist understanding of religion thus serves to establish an idea of a religious tradition as something homogeneous and coherent, and to underline the difference and boundaries that separate “our” tradition and “their” tradition. It is this form of religion and Christianity that is disputed and contested in this volume. Carla Danani (Macerata) contributes to this discussion from a more philosophical position. She introduces the reader to the decisive philosophical discourse on how religion can be accepted as a legitimate partner in public reason. From one perspective, one can interpret religion as a particular position compared with the universality of public reason. In such a context, Danani argues that public reason cannot be dominated only by the question of what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in the public debate. Rather, religion introduces an aspect of otherness, and that aspect of otherness in turn adds decisive perspectives to the quality of the public debate. Thus, the theoretical approaches in this volume differ considerably from article to article. Nevertheless, we share some basic preconceptions: nonChristianist religion cannot be studied primarily because of its functionalist aspect. Non-Christianism is a practice that in itself is valuable. When in this volume Hans-Joachim Sander (Salzburg) analyzes the caricature with the phrase “Tout est pardonn8” on the front page of Charles Hebdo in the first issue after the terror attack, he addresses religion as practice. According to Sander, one would not have expected that the secularist magazine would ever positively address core religious issues. However, when Charlie Hebdo did so, the message and the outcome were surprising and challenging. For this reason, this book tries to elaborate on what the 2 Durkheim: 1995.

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relationship between religion and difference means when religion is understood as practices that perform difference and have their deeper meaning just in such kind of practice. This means that we approach religion in the tradition Aristotle called praxis.3 Praxis with an “x” indicates that something has a value in itself and not only through what is achieved, but by what participants acknowledge as meaningful in itself. In our view, too many contemporary discussions on religion and difference contribute to the opposite thrust of the Aristotelian tradition by relating to religious practice as poiesis, that is, by looking first at the impact and not giving priority to inherent values. One very common, and politically correct, way of interpreting religion from the position of poiesis is to claim that the significance of the Christian religion is enabling liberal society. Religion then is defined by its function, which eventually leads to interpreting the significance of Christianity as a contribution to a specific identity. Our argument is that, when one studies religion as praxis, one necessarily views the religion/difference relationship from another perspective than when religion is studied as poiesis. In Aristotle’s thinking, a poetic action serves as an external effect on its own performance; it is the instrumentality of practice. One acts in order to achieve something. Many scholars have contributed to the poiesis aspect of religion, difference, and practice. We think the time is ripe to involve the praxis part of religious practices.

Lived Religions of Difference Praxis is the opposite of poiesis: it refers to practices that are their own ends. One does not “do” religion in order to achieve something. However, this again leads to a surprise, as the the religious educator Günter Heimbrock shows in his article about the confessional aspect of religious education. The common opinion, among scholars as well as among the public, is that teachers should hide their own confession when teaching students religion. Heimbrock’s research comes to the opposite conclusion: confessions do not necessarily mean to instrumentalize goals. Confession also means connecting in such a way that it enables trust between students and teachers. Therefore, when this book turns to the praxis element of religion and away from the instrumental, cognitive element, unexpected results emerge. The practices may be ends in themselves and have religious significance even if some of them are not considered to be “religion” by any of the participants. This is also the case in Sander’s discussion of the Charlie Hebdo case and in Heimbrock and Wyller’s report on the migration island of Lampedusa. Religion seems to be happening even when the context is rather “secular.” One more surprise! 3 Knight: 2007.

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This focus on praxis as the unexpected part of the contribution of the humanities to the normative has been part of academic discussion for many decades now. The Irish-American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most important contributors. His core argument in After Virtue4 is that ethics and virtues develop within social praxis. Virtues are not rules that we learn and then apply, but rather are trained and shaped within social praxis. By living in such praxis-oriented communities, people develop the attitudes and habits decidedly needed when facing challenging situations and choices. We think this position is a fruitful approach to the discussion of religion and difference. MacIntyre’s interpretation of Aristotle teaches us that we can learn from social praxis – a position opposite to the Christianist and similar populist positions, which tend to start from ideology (top down), and claim, for example, that the ideas behind a Christian framing of society are democratic and aim at equality, whereas Muslim ideas are not. The paradox is that this ideological position in itself is not the problem. The problem is that the Christianist approach starts from the top and does not care for the surprises emerging from praxis. That is why we criticize the Christianist position, both from theological and from religious vantage points.

Difference as Inherent to Religion If one combines MacIntyre’s basis in praxis and the surprise aspect of religion with the phenomenological approach (found, among others, in Sara Ahmed’s writings5), then there are some important elements to build the critical spaces of religion and difference. Ahmed, together with the phenomenological mainstream, claims that encountering people relieves them of being aliens. Encountering means developing a sensory awareness of what is already connected. People can of course be strangers, but they cannot be aliens; strangers are embodied people whom we sense and from whom we cannot escape. To learn from all these innumerous praxis encounters makes for a good start for a less hostile and more generous relationship between religion and difference. This also rejuvenates the concept of lived religion developing in the same direction. Lived religion covers a lot more than institutionalized religion. Lived religion is alive because difference is organic and already a basic element of lived religion. One recent contribution that aims at responding to similar issues as found in the articles of the present book is Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance. Building on three decades of research in the field of lived religion, Ganzevoort and Sremac think that “over the last decades the 4 MacIntyre: 1981. 5 Ahmed: 2000 and 2012.

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perspective of lived religion has emerged to remedy the shortcomings of earlier perspectives that approach religion as stable systems and that focus more on the official positions, traditions, creeds, and hierarchal structures.”6 We share this position. Our approach to the field of lived religion, however, adds a new aspect to the discussion: When religion is no longer a “stable system,” then difference organically belongs to all those areas where religion is lived. Pursuing religion first as praxis requires paying attention to difference as inherent in religion, or more specifically : inherent in the Christian religion. One should pay considerably more attention to praxis when different cultural, social, and ethnic participants share the same space or act in the same ritual. On such occasions, an inherent, and not instrumental, tendency is going on, and this inherent tendency is something that does not end in identitarian politics.7 This gives a fruitful interpretive perspective on the difference between populism and identitarian politics, on the one hand, and a more generous relationship between religion and difference on the other hand. When the point of departure is lived religion, as in the opening case of this introduction, people are already connected and involved. The minister who supports the plan for civil disobedience protecting irregular migrants from being arrested in the church is already connected to most of the people in that space. For him these are decisive and normative connections, and he is committed to them even if the established religion with which he is affiliated is not. Yet it is his lived religion in that space that most deeply motivates his commitments. This is a relationship between religion and difference that opposes the Christianist trajectory presented above and most of the other ways religion today is used to support and preserve populist and fundamentalist positions. It is our hope that the contributions in this volume serve to expand and deepen such perspectives.

References Ahmed, S. (2000), Strange Encounters, London: Routledge. Ahmed, S. (2012), On Being Included, Durham: Duke University Press. Brubaker, R. (2017), Between Nationalism and Civilizationism. The European Populist Moment in Comparative Perspective, in: Ethnic and Racial Studies 40, 8, 1191–1226. Durkheim, E. (1995), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, London: The Free Press. Ganzevoort, R./Sremac, S., eds. (2017), Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance, London: Palgrave. 6 Ganzevoort/Sremac: 2017, 4. 7 Machado/Turner/Wyller : 2018.

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Knight, K. (2007), Aristotelian Philosophy. Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, London: Polity Press. Machado, D./Turner, B./Wyller, T., eds. (2018), Borderland Religion. Ambiguous Practices of Difference, Hope and Beyond, London: Routledge. MacIntyre, A. (2007), After Virtue, Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.

Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati

Difference and Contested Public Places Spatial Representations of Religion in Contemporary Society

Who is permitted to express religious belonging in public space? Whose symbols are deemed worthy of display so that they find a broad audience? Which religious practices should be made visible, and which should be confined to the intimacy of the private sphere? The presence and visibility of religious identities in public places is a highly contested issue in contemporary Europe.1 I introduce this chapter with the instructive – and symptomatic – case of Christian Meier and an artistic performance that was much discussed in Swiss media in autumn 2016. In early September that year, the artist, who lives mainly in Shanghai, installed a 3-meter tall crescent made of acrylic glass on a mountain summit in the idyllic Alpine landscape of the canton of Appenzell. Connected to photovoltaic cells, the crescent glowed at night. To emphasize the symbolic significance of this spatial, material statement within the on-going debate about the visibility of religious symbols in public space, the work of art was placed on a mountain peak called “Freedom” (fig. 1). The artist had not received permission to display his artwork at that location, and he therefore agreed to remove the crescent within a week. In the many interviews that followed this contested performance (objects cannot be put on display in the mountains without permission from the relevant authorities and the owner of the land), the artist highlighted the provocative character of his artwork. His aim was to promote a debate about what he saw as the absurdity of installing crosses on mountain tops. As an atheist, Meier considers religion a private affair, and he therefore contends that neither Christian nor any other religious symbols should be erected on mountain summits. For Meier, nature is disfigured by symbols of the irrational way of thinking that is religion. By choosing an Islamic symbol, he aimed to encourage the local population to think critically about the alleged normality of displaying “religion” in the beauty of the Alpine landscape. According to the artist, the crescent was selected because of its highly provocative potential within contemporary political debates, but not as a direct reference to 1 Many thanks to David Leutwyler, the director of the Haus der Religionen, and to Brigitta Rotach, responsible for its cultural programme, for their generous support. My thanks also to Stefan Maurer for his kind permission to use his photographs and to Rona Johnston for her great help in proofreading the text.

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Fig. 1. Installation by Christian Meier on a peak called “Freedom” (2140 m) in the Canton of Appenzell, Switzerland, 08. 09. 2016.

Muslims living in Switzerland. In addition, he was fascinated by the aesthetic power of this form: displayed in oversize in such a wonderful location, it would look spectacular, day and night.2 This artistic initiative by an individual has been politicized by wider debates in Switzerland and other European countries. The ban on building minarets in Switzerland, introduced into the federal constitution after a national referendum held in November 2009,3 and the interdiction on wearing certain types of clothing that cover the face or the body4 correlate chronologically – and, I suggest, in substance – with the controversy about crosses in public buildings such as schools and in public spaces such as mountain tops. The positions adopted in public and political debates cover a broad span. Some contributors consider the presence of any religious symbol in public space an unacceptable highlighting of a phenomenon that in a secular society belongs in the private sphere. Others argue against religious symbols in the name of religious freedom or out of respect for people who have no relationship with religious communities and/or traditions. Yet others main2 For a selection of the interviews with Christian Meier that appeared in newspapers in the German-speaking area: Hehli: 2016; Knopf: 2016; Ritter: 2016; Naef: 2016. 3 Mayer: 2011. 4 See e. g. Legge sull’ordine pubblico (LOrP), Art. 2,l. (http://www4.ti.ch/fileadmin/DI/Docu mentazione/RLorp/Legge_sulla_dissimulazione_del_volto_negli_spazi_pubblici.pdf [accessed 25. 03. 2017]) of the Canton of Ticino: this law prohibits covering one’s face in a public place. While the law does not specifically address religious clothing, the campaign that promoted the initiative and the application of the law once it had passed both made specific reference to Muslim women wearing a burka or niqab.

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tain that the allegedly increasing Islamization of Europe can only be stopped by a self-confident “local” religion, that is, by Christianity, and by the promotion of vaguely defined “Christian values.” Christian symbols such as crosses then join the impressive architectural heritage of various Christian denominations to become synecdoches for “European” or “Swiss” culture in general. Others are comfortable with the presence of religious symbols of Christianity and/or other religious traditions and communities in public spaces: they argue on behalf of their own religion and its historical and social significance or in favor of a legitimate expression of religious belief in a pluralist society. Many of the opinions found within contemporary political and media debates can be understood as attempts to construct identities by creating a radical distinction between “us” and the “other.”5 The process of othering is variously articulated: in the case of Meier and his illuminated crescent, a secular, rationalistic artist contested the visibility of Christianity on mountain summits, presenting himself as an atheist, placing himself in opposition to Christianity and religion, and claiming a “symbol-free” Alpine landscape. From the perspective of the study of religion, the arguments staged and points of view articulated are noteworthy, but so too are aspects left unmentioned. Crosses displayed in the Alps have complex religious significance in a history that encompasses a typology of crosses as well as other material issues that are not just denominationally determined. Such issues are related to the different functions of the Alpine zone that in the modern era and up until today has been profoundly transformed, from the subsistence farming of rural societies to the Romantic discovery of the mountains, from the conquest of a hostile nature to contemporary leisure pursuits, sport, and tourism.6 Furthermore the crosses are not alone, for Tibetan flags are also widespread as references to religion in the mountains. Those flags do not correspond at all with the distribution of religious affiliation within the Swiss population,7 but instead show connections between forms of mountaineering tourism in the global era (fig. 2). Such controversy provides evidence of the significance of public space not only as a political or scholarly category but also as a lived experience, as a locus of social life. Both premise and product of social life, space interacts with individual biographies, shared cultures, and national identities. Religion is one of many factors that influence the production and reception of space. This chapter will discuss methodological strategies for approaching space as a 5 On stereotypes about others in Switzerland cf. Engler : 2012. On the concept of othering in relation to religious identity cf. Mecheril/Thomas-Olalde: 2011; Sökefeld: 2011; Dahinden/Moret/ Duemmler: 2011. 6 Cf. Nicolson: 1997; Egli/Tomkowiak: 2011; Mathieu: 2015. 7 Cf. the overview of the distribution of denominations and religions within the population in Switzerland in 2017 in https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/it/home/statistiche/popolazione/lingue-re ligioni/religioni.assetdetail.1901537.html [accessed 25. 03. 2017].

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Fig. 2. A very common arrangement in an Alpine landscape nowadays, Lago di Le't, Ticino, Switzerland.

contested issue from the perspective of the study of religion. After a number of key concepts have been presented, those concepts will be related to a particular space where the representation and coexistence of different religious traditions and practices have promoted a new understanding of the public religious place.

Approaching Religion from a Spatial Perspective The “turn” is a key scholarly concept that presupposes the (re)discovery of a particular perspective. The revolution it suggests may be exaggerated, but the very term “turn” encourages us to rethink intellectual habits that implicitly define the questions we ask in the humanities and particularly in the study of religion.8 Aleida Assmann interprets the “spatial turn” as an expression of the postmodern shift from a focus on time and history to the contemporary concern for space, found, for example, in economic affairs, touristic 8 The term “spatial turn” was introduced by Edward W. Soja in 1989 in his volume Postmodern Geographies. Since then it has been at the heart of a rich debate. For an introduction see Döring/ Thielmann: 2008 and – in relation to religion – Knott: 2005 and Lauster: 2010.

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approaches to historical sites, lieux de m8moire, and environmental debates.9 Major issues of our time – globalization, migration, war, and the internet and other media, for example – demand new attention be given to space in contemporary society and to a spatial approach to history. As Karl Schlögel writes, “History takes place” (Geschichte findet statt).10 He identifies the “spatial turn” in the increased attention given to the spatial aspect of the historical world.11 A broad range of approaches to and studies of space have been produced within the humanities and social sciences, encouraging us to return to the rich resources of concepts of space within the histories of philosophy and culture.12 And thinking about space has influenced how we study religion within both society and history.13 In The Location of Religion Kim Knott addresses the relevance of the interaction between space and religion: The aim of this book is to develop a spatial methodology in order to examine religion in Western modernity. I hope that this will offer a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the physical, social, and cultural arenas in which it is situated, and thus on the nature and presence of that which we in the West call “religion.” This is a study then in locating religion. For some the focus on location may signal a consideration of geographical places, material objects, the built environment, perhaps social institutions; for others it may be read metaphorically to imply “imaginary sites,” “cultural spaces,” and “ideological positions.” Both are intended.14

I quote these initial sentences of Knott’s insightful volume to highlight the complexity of space within research on religion. Physical and material, mental and psychological, cultural and symbolic dimensions of space are intrinsically intertwined: religious approaches to space have produced not only a broad range of concrete places and spatial practices but also transcendent topographies beyond the limits of immediate perception.15

Layers of Space While this chapter cannot offer an exhaustive evaluation of all the theories that can help us grasp the complexity of space, a dimension that resists linear 9 Assmann: 2008, 153. 10 Schlögel: 2009, 70. 11 Schlögel: 2009 68: “Es kann also gar nicht genug turns geben, wenn es um die Entfaltung einer komplexen und der geschichtlichen Realität angemessenen Wahrnehmung geht. Spatial turn: das heißt daher lediglich: gesteigerte Aufmerksamkeit für die räumliche Seite der geschichtlichen Welt – nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger.” 12 For an overview see e. g. Crang/Thrift: 2000; Dünne/Günzel: 2006; Döring/Thielmann: 2008. 13 For a recapitulation of the main area of research see Knott: 2005, particularly p. 130. 14 Knott: 2005, 1. 15 Cf. George/Pezzoli-Olgiati: 2014.

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procedures,16 we can note the particularly influential approach adopted by Henri Lefebvre, which in turn has inspired authors in a range of fields related to cultural and social studies, including Edward W. Soja, Kim Knott, and Martina Löw. As we turn to explore the visibility of religious symbols and practices in public space and its acceptability, basic distinctions discussed by Löw are helpful. For Löw, spaces are institutional figurations, both symbolic and material, that shape social life and are engendered by cultural processes.17 Social positions and power relations are negotiated through the formation of space in modern everyday life. The organization of space and the collocation of places have a materiality generated by, for example, buildings, streets, walls, or furniture, but at the same time particular material organization takes shape, relationships involving individuals, groups, or goods are established, and differences and hierarchies are created and expressed. This relationship between the material and social dimensions of space is to be conceived as an interaction. Löw emphasizes this double character of space: both the metaphorically determined social space and the socially appropriated geographical space identified by Pierre Bourdieu18 demand our attention as we explore the spatial dimension of society.19 When viewed from the perspective of the study of religion, a further layer is added to the geographical, material and social significance of spatial organization, that of symbolic meaning. Space is also always an imagined space and a place of imagination. In a global society, technology has transformed the impact of space’s materiality. In virtual spaces created by technology, materiality seems paradoxically reduced. Spaces are (re)produced as images that potentially can be available always and everywhere; distance does not require physical displacement. Nevertheless, the material and social remain: we perceive virtual spaces within a concrete space that produces and is produced by social organization.20 The link between space and imagination can also be related to practices of imagination in visual art, film, music, and religion, symbol systems that produce virtual spaces where material and social spatial practices are invented or challenged.21 And even this fictional production of space is perceived within a space characterized by a distinct material configuration, within a museum, cinema, theater, or religious building, for example, where particular social 16 In suggesting a linearity that is not appropriate to the subject, the recurring metaphor of space as something than can be read can be problematic. Nevertheless “reading space” indicates the possibility and necessity of considering space as a crucial dimension that can be analysed and debated (cf. e. g. Schlögel: 2009, 23). 17 “Institutionelle Figurationen auf symbolischer und – das ist das Besondere – auf materieller Basis, die das soziale Leben formen und die im kulturellen Prozess hervorgebracht werden.” (Löw : 2004, 46). 18 Löw : 50: “Er [Pierre Bourdieu] stellt zwei Räume Gegenüber : den metaphorisch gemeinten sozialen Raum und den sozial angeeignet geographischen Raum”; see also Soja: 2008, 255. 19 Löw : 2001. 20 Löw : 2004, 48. 21 For a consideration of the spatial dimension in this context cf. Bruno: 2007.

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relationships are conveyed and realized as, again, virtual and real spatial productions are intertwined. How can we orientate our research to engage this network of interactions? In exploring the controversies over references to religious traditions and practices in public space, we must approach space as a fundamental dimension of human life where material, social, and symbolic aspects are relevant and interrelated. Space is a dynamic category negotiated on many levels. Knott correctly stresses the mediality of space:22 space is a crucial medium for meaning-making processes in society.

From Space to Place Until now I have used space as a general category. In pursuing this reflection on contested places, however, we need to focus on the tension between space and place, where we relate to space corporally. There are a number of substantial theoretical approaches to space and place; here we will briefly discuss two positions. In an essay entitled Geschichte findet Stadt, Assmann focuses on the distinction between space and place.23 “Space” is a general category, the term for a dimension that “has to be constructed, shaped, used, occupied,” it is “mainly an object of making and planning;” “places,” by contrast, are defined by what has already happened, by what has been enacted or endured. While spaces are open to the future, places already own names and narratives, are unique and concrete, and claim history/ies.24 Revisiting the history of philosophy, and phenomenological approaches to space in particular, Edward S. Casey also considers the difference between space and place, stressing the generality of the former and the particularity of the latter : “We come to the world […] as already placed here.”25 Human beings are located in places because they have bodies; they are embodied in place. Through the movement of our bodies we connect to places: There is much to be said about the role of the body in place, especially about how places actively solicit bodily motions. At the very least, we can agree that the livingmoving body is essential to the process of emplacement: lived bodies belong to places and help to constitute them. […] Just as there are no places without the bodies that sustain and vivify them, so there are no lived bodies without the places they inhabit and traverse.26 22 23 24 25 26

Knott: 2005. The title contains a word play relating Stadt (city) with statt-finden (to happen), Assmann: 2009. Assmann: 2009, 15 (translation from the German original by the author). Casey : 1996, 18. Casey : 1996, 24.

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This strong interaction is dynamic: Rather then being one definite sort of thing – for example physical, spiritual, cultural, social – a given place takes on the qualities of its occupants, reflecting these qualities in its own constitution and description and expressing them in its occurrence as an event: places not only are, they happen.27

Performativity of Places The tension between the key terms “space” and “place” helps us grasp the complexities of the spatial dimension of human life. While space theories focus on the multi-layered character of a general category with physicalmaterial, social, and symbolic aspects, approaches to place emphasize the crucial role of embodied practices and the relational, existential character of the spatial dimension. The affinities of space and place must also be recognized: space and place are both premises and products of culture; the relationality and dynamic of the spatial dimension is anchored in the interaction of materiality and corporeality, in social relations involving individuals, groups, institutions, and goods, and in meaning-making processes that encompass concrete and imaged dimensions. One way to engage the meaning-making processes that arise from interactions with places with religious connotations is to approach those places as media. The production of spatial meaning can then be analysed in light of crucial aspects of the communication process identified in cultural studies: representation, production and reception, regulation, and identity.28 We can then read specific contested public places performatively, recognising the spatial processes that produce meaning. To conclude this first section of the chapter with its broader consideration of our key terms, let us return to Meier’s crescent. His placing of a huge crescent on a mountain peak was a spatial practice intended to contest other spatial practices. His performance has a material dimension: the crescent as an object (including the solar cells) has a strong presence. In the panorama photo in fig. 1, the crescent contrasts with the cross in the background, each a symbol of a particular religious tradition. In turn, both constructions are artifacts that contrast with a natural landscape free from other human constructions. Made by humans and as religious symbols, the crescent and the cross interact with specific social discourses. Nature and human impact on nature demand our attention here as different interpretations of and claims on the mountain collide, as hierarchies of religious presence in the mountains are addressed, and as property and ownership are negotiated. Only a small section 27 Casey : 1996, 27. 28 Cf. Hall: 1997 and 2013; du Gay : 1997.

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of the Swiss population and the international mountaineering community have physical access to such distant and inaccessible sites. The symbolic interpretations of such constructions are therefore conveyed exclusively by media, and thus the mountain becomes a virtual place, a part referring to the whole, an image of Swiss territory, Swiss nationality, an undefined Swiss culture, or even a general idea of Christianity (although mountain crosses are especially associated with Catholicism). The mountain as a place where specific bodily performances are enacted is generalized to become a Swiss space where social and symbolic hierarchies and values clash. The (transitory) installation of a crescent challenges this generalization and opens up the possibility of negotiation by means of the artistic re-configuration of place. Is there a public, shared place where religious plurality can be performed? Are there spatial concepts that generate places where emic perspectives and other perspectives on religious symbols, traditions, and practices can coexist? How can religious differences be integrated into the pluralist public place in which we live? From a spatial perspective, it is impossible to conceive of religion as a private issue banned from public space: the material, social, and symbolic configurations of space ensure that even absence and emptiness generate meaning. Indeed, the challenges of coexistence arise in a space already identified and configured. Bodily performances are deeply inscribed in contemporary culture. Hypothetically, all the crosses and chapels in the Alps could be destroyed, but what of all the marked religious places of the past and in the present? Can destruction or emptiness really hold the promise of democratic coexistence? In the second part of this chapter I turn to a spatial initiative where the coexistence of difference is negotiated in a way that is literally “constructive”.

The Haus der Religionen in Bern The idea, planning, and realization of the Haus der Religionen (House of Religions) are the result of a long-lasting interaction of various social stakeholders.29 Political institutions, religious communities, and actors in civil society were concerned about two problems. First, in the late 1980s, the canton of Bern was looking into the development of an area in the western part of the city of Bern (fig. 3) that, dominated by a motorway and railway tracks and lacking even a specific name, did not seem to offer an appealing prospect for urban housing and activities (fig. 4). The German term Un-Ort, or “nonplace”, seemed an appropriate designation.30 Second, suitable accommoda29 For a general introduction to places used by different religions cf. Beinhauer-Köhler/Roth/ Schwarz/Boenneke: 2015. 30 Herzog/Blaser: 2015, 18; Schläppi/Saurer : 2015, 13.

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tion was needed for minority religious and individuals and communities that had come to Bern largely during the last decades of the twentieth century.

Fig. 3. Europaplatz in the urban context of Bern.

Fig. 4. Satellite view of the area before the realization of the new project.

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The area as a whole was named “Europaplatz,” stations for public transport were built or activated, and a development plan designed and realized as part of a process that involved, in various roles and at various times, Marid Shah (Urbanoffice, Amsterdam),31 Stefan Graf (Bauart Architekten, Bern, Neuch.tel, Zürich),32 Halter AG (a contruction and real estate company),33 the foundation Europaplatz – Haus der Religionen, the interreligious forum Runder Tisch der Religionen, the association Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen, and the city and canton of Bern. The whole process took some two decades, and the new construction was inaugurated in 2014 (fig. 5).34 Multifunctionality was a central feature of the project Europaplatz – Haus der Religionen from its conception. In improving the living and housing quality in the area, the project had to respond to very different needs. A new public transportation configuration now connects the area with the historic center, the main train station, and all the other services of the Swiss capital. New food stores, including a bakery, and other shops moved into the new building at Europaplatz, which contains offices and flats for both long-term residents and so-called “urban nomads” who commute to Bern during the week for work. Almost 20 per cent of the entire volume of the building, an investment of 75 million Swiss francs,35 was dedicated to the Haus der Religionen.36 Today, Europaplatz has a new face. The expanded infrastructure and services have attracted people to live, work, or visit the square. Private and public places are intertwined. The area has become a “meeting point for cultures and religions and a focus in urban planning”.37

31 http://urbanoffice.eu/wordpress/projects/office/ [accessed 25. 03. 2017]. 32 http://bauart.ch/werkverzeichnis/zentrum-europaplatz-bern [accessed 25. 03. 2017], with rich documentation of the project. 33 https://www.halter.ch/de/projekte/zentrum-europaplatz [accessed 25. 03. 2017]. 34 Some aspects of the multilayered negotiations in the history of the project can be found in: Gegenwärtig, noch nicht fertig. Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen 2012; s. also Widmer: 2017. 35 For detailed information about the history of the project see Haas: 2014, in: https://www.hausder-religionen.ch/file/repository/141214_baugeschichte_haus_der_religionen.pdf. The website https://www.haus-der-religionen.ch/medienberichte/ contains an almost complete archive of articles concerning the project that appeared in Swiss newspapers [both accessed 22. 03. 2017]. S. also Widmer: 2017. 36 On the challenges and problems of a multifunctional building see Schläppi/Saurer: 2015; Fischer : 2015. 37 Fischer : 2015, 31; translation from the German original by the author.

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Fig. 5. The multifunctional building at the Europaplatz.

From Urban Planning to Spatial Performance The concept behind the Haus der Religionen was outlined in 2011 by the foundation Europaplatz – Haus der Religionen, which was mainly responsible for its realization: In the “Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen” [House of Religions – Dialogue of Cultures] that is to be constructed, local communities from five world religions will go about their religious lives autonomously, within their own rooms but united under a single roof. Under that same roof will also be a center for intercultural and interreligious dialogue. Additional religious communities and numerous institutions and organizations associated with migration, integration, and culture will participate in this dialogue. Communities of Alevis, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims have each expressed a wish to take responsibility for an individual religious space. The Jewish community, Baha’i, and Sikhs as well as numerous non-religious institutions and organizations will also participate in the dialogue of cultures, by engaging intercultural and interreligious questions as a contribution to peaceful coexistence. The dialogue of cultures will provide a platform for encounters, exchanges, and education. It will become anchored in the Bern region as a cultural institution concerned with cultural identity and praxis-oriented integration, for migrant groups in particular.38 38 https://www.haus-der-religionen.ch/assets/files/1_Das%20Projekt_Haus%20 der%20Religionen.pdf [accessed on 22. 09. 2016, translation by Rona Johnston]: “Im zu errichtenden Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen“ führen hier ansässige Gemeinschaften

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This mission statement responds to the second issue that was to be tackled by spatial planning. The goal was to generate a place where religious minorities could gather for their religious practices and cultural activities and also to create opportunities for greater integration and dialogue across cultures. Since its inauguration on 14 December 2014, the Haus der Religionen has developed an intense programme involving both the religious organizations and those responsible for the common areas dedicated to dialogue and exchange, a programme that has attracted a diverse audience.39 Here I will focus on spatial practices that are particularly associated with the symbolic, with space deployed as a medium in the production of meaning. Thus I will explore the spatial performances that are possible at the Haus der Religionen, the product of a reorganization of an underused area and of a protracted planning process involving different social stakeholders, and the embodied practices that can create not only space but also a lived place for religious groups. The emphasis in this spatial exploration is on representation: I look at the configuration and organization of the house and the related activities performed within the building. The description begins with the house as a spatial unity and gradually engages its specific parts. The task facing the planning group was to conceive a structure where, on the one hand, different religious communities could realize places for ritual and other activities according to their specific needs and concepts and, on the other hand, common activities improving integration and dialogue between different religious and cultural identities could take place. This part of the multifunctional building had to be compatible with the areas and uses of other parts of the same structure. The Haus der Religionen therefore has two kinds of rooms: rooms for specific religions and the “dialogue area.” Seen from outside, the section of the building that forms the Haus der Religionen appears as a homogeneous unit. It is structured on two levels. The front, looking towards Europaplatz, is made of a long glass wall. This huge window also reaches across the shop and restaurant area to create an architectural unity with the Haus der Religionen. The glass front builds a broad base for the upper floors, with offices and von fünf Weltreligionen, unter einem Dach vereint, in eigenen Räumen selbstverantwortlich ihr religiöses Leben. Unter dem gleichen Dach besteht ein Zentrum für den interkulturellen und interreligiösen Dialog. Am Dialog beteiligen sich weitere Religionsgemeinschaften und zahlreiche Institutionen und Organisationen aus den Bereichen Migration, Integration und Kultur. Eigene Kultusräume betreiben wollen Gemeinschaften der Aleviten, Buddhisten, Christen, Hindus und Muslime. Am Dialog der Kulturen, d. h. dem Umgang mit interkulturellen und interreligiösen Fragen als Beitrag zum friedlichen Zusammenleben, beteiligen sich zusätzlich die jüdische Gemeinde, die Baha’i und die Sikhs sowie zahlreiche nicht-religiöse Institutionen und Organisationen. Der Dialog der Kulturen ist Plattform für Begegnung, Austausch und Bildung. Er soll sich in der Region Bern als Kulturinstitution verankern, die sich um die kulturelle Identität und praxisorientierte Integration insbesondere von Migrationsgruppen bemüht.” 39 Cf. Schläppi/Saurer: 2015, 13.

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accommodation, which have a dark exterior and varied window typology, bringing variation to the considerable volume. Different doors are irregularly distributed to give access to distinct parts of the Haus der Religionen. As one faces the building, on the left one accesses the Hindu temple and, on the right, the Muslim area. Accentuated by its metal framing, the main door at the center leads to the restaurant and additional common rooms as well as to the other religious places. Placed on each side of the main door, two steles spell out the names of the institution: “Haus der Religionen” (House of Religions) and “Dialog der Kulturen” (Dialogue of Cultures). From a spatial perspective, this architectural concept represents the plurality of religions and cultures as a unity dedicated to dialogue that exists alongside shops, public transportation, and housing: differences stand side by side behind the glass wall and under a single roof. This spatial configuration suggests that religion can be located just as shops, businesses or houses. A symbolic reading of the location could understand it as a place for religion as a general phenomenon that is expressed in plural forms, as “religions.” A colorful Hindu sculpture and a small minaret seem to correspond visually with chain shop signs reading “Subway,” “Denner,” and “Coop” that are displayed in the same building: religion is available alongside food and material goods; spiritual food is available alongside material nourishment. Places Dedicated to Dialogue The spaces dedicated to the dialogue between religions have a common design, with the generous, voluminous rooms fitted out in simple, natural materials. The end-to-end wooden floor creates a warm atmosphere, while furniture is both functional and inviting for visitors and those who work in the building. On the ground floor, the main entrance leads to a commodious space occupied by the restaurant Vanakam, which during the week offers an Ayurveda vegetarian lunch and on Saturdays a brunch with specialities from all over the world. The restaurant is located at the heart of the Haus der Religionen: people working in the building, members of the various religious communities, and other people who live or work at the Europaplatz lunch there. In the entrance area, close to the restaurant, are exhibitions related to religious, cultural, and social topics that highlight differences and commonalities across religions and cultures. They provide information about core issues for contemporary society and can be visited without charge during opening hours. The second floor contains a large office for the team in charge of the cultural programme at the house and rooms for conferences, film viewings, and cultural activities, as well as for workshops and debates. The team at the Haus der Religionen offers a schedule of diverse events with age- and gender-specific activities for groups. Some programmes seek to

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explain select aspects of a religious tradition for a broader audience, while debates promote exchange between people with differing religious identities and also for people without religious affiliation. Films are shown and discussed. Crucial topics such as the relationship between religion and violence are explored in collaboration with scholars and other experts. Activities such as yoga or dance classes are also offered. The cultural programme is developed by the in-house team in collaboration with the religious communities. Most members of the team have studied a field with ties to religion, and each member of the team is responsible for one domain, such as the cultural programme, finance, integration, education, exhibitions, restaurant, or housekeeping services. Supervision is provided by a director and the association Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen and by the foundation Europaplatz, Haus der Religionen. Some activities of the religious communities are regularly also open to both members of the other religious groups and a general audience.40

Rooms for Religious Communities The rooms dedicated to religious communities belong to associations that were responsible for their spatial configuration and interior outfitting after the completion of the shell of the building. A number of very varied places has been created as a result, corresponding to the needs and financial capacities of those involved. Some communities sought a place in which ritual and cultural activities could be performed; others wanted to be part of the project but did not require a room, as they already had premises within Bern. The Jewish, Sikh, and Baha’i communities fell into the latter category but nevertheless are present in the Haus der Religionen with three showcases in the major conference room. The conception and construction of the mosque and the Hindu temple followed similar processes. An Albanian-Macedonian association was responsible for the Islamic component. The mosque and related rooms were built by skilled craftsmen, essentially on a voluntary basis. The result is a representative and gorgeous mosque, oriented towards Mecca. The architectural layout was inspired by forms often found in Eastern Europe (fig. 6). This is the major mosque in the region, and the association and its imam are trying to assume an inclusive and leading role for the roughly twelve Islamic associations in the Bern region and to represent a liberal Islam in Switzerland. Like the mosque, the Hindu temple, which is dedicated to Shiva, has a separate entrance; it is therefore possible to access these sacred places without 40 For more information about the rich programming, see https://www.haus-der-religionen.ch [accessed 25. 03. 2017].

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Fig. 6. Interior of the mosque.

entering the common parts of the Haus der Religionen. The interior is characterized by detailed sculptures and shrines that were handmade in the traditional style by a team of artists from India. The interior was realized without plans, following entirely traditional procedures. The main shrine was too tall for the room, and its uppermost part sticks up from the roof and is visible from outside. The temple and related rooms for cultural activities and ritual performances take up the largest proportion of the space within the building (fig. 7). The community is composed mainly of young people from the second generation of immigrants and follows a “reformed” Tamil Hindu tradition. In February 2015, four female priests were consecrated, a novelty within this tradition.41 The mosque and the temple are located at opposite ends of the building and their location was subject of much negotiation. The tensions between these religious groups, particularly on the Indian subcontinent, made it unthinkable that they might share a wall or door. Both areas can be accessed, however, through side doors from the central entrance space that contains the restaurant. The story behind the derg.h, the Alevis’ room, is very different (fig. 8). The Alevi association participating in the project in Bern asked Swiss architect 41 For a reflection on the transformations in this community during the development of the Haus der Religionen and the temple cf. Hui: 2016; Läubli: 2015.

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Fig. 7. Hindu temple.

Patrick Thurson to design the room and to create a symbolic architectural language that would express Alevi identity. Twelve niches illuminated by invisible lamps refer to philosophers, poets, or imams who are constitutive for this religion.42 The ceiling has crossing lines that form diamonds, and the warm color of the ceiling and walls refers to earth and nature. The airy, linear interior tells of a community in search of a contemporary architectural language to transmit their tradition in new social and political settings. The Muslim, Hindu, and Alevi places display different architectural strategies, reformulating their communities in a novel social and cultural setting. Both the mosque and the temple emphasize strong links to traditional and conventional forms even as new concerns are addressed: the Muslim community has an urgent need to find commonalities across the varied concepts of Islam found in Switzerland, to provide a point of reference for 42 In an emic presentation of this space, the Alevi community writes: “12 illuminated niches: for some Alevis they symbolise the 12 imams, for others the 12 prophets and for others again the 12 poets, who have founded Alevism with their doctrine. For Alevis, the number 12 has an important meaning: for instance, practising alevis fast each year for 12 days. By doing this consecutively for 12 years, one achieves a higher stage in belief.” in: https://www.haus-der-reli gionen.ch/file/repository/Flyer_Dergah.pdf [accessed 25. 03. 2017, translation by the author].

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Fig. 8. Derg.h.

other religious actors and for political actors; the Hindu community is searching for a form of its religion that will meet the needs of members living in a European country and influenced by other faiths. In light of the challenge of finding new priests, the community resolved to allow women access to that role, a decision that expressed both continuity and adaptation to a new setting. The example of female leadership in the Protestant church and in other Christian denominations offered arguments that were taken up in the debate within the community.43 The Buddhist rooms and the Christian rooms were products of intense dialogue within each denomination. Very different communities with very different needs came together to form the Buddhist and Christian associations respectively and to take on responsibility for the relevant rooms in the Haus der Religionen. The Buddhist association has built a small cloister where monks can live. The meditation room responds to the needs of the Mahayana, Theravada, and Zen schools. Designed by a Swiss architecture firm (Architektur-Atelier Edgar Bertschi), the straight, linear room contains a golden Buddha statue and pillows for meditation (fig. 9). The room can be easily transformed to 43 Cf. Bühlmann: 2015; Meienberg: 2015 and the radio broadcast “Echo der Zeit”, Schweizer Radio und Fernseher (SRF), 01. 02. 2015.

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meet the requirements of traditional interior design for each of the schools involved.

Fig. 9. Buddhist temple.

While the Buddhist association has elaborated a common architectural language by means of reduction, the Christian rooms respond to different orientations by allowing for varied usage and ritual (fig. 10 and 11). The planning and realization were the work of Patrick Thurson, who designed a room suitable for both the Ethiopian-Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Moravian Church, a community that belongs to the pietistic Protestant tradition. On entering the room through the main door, the visitor is directly confronted by a modern, colorful iconostasis that contrasts with the light interior design of the room. The walls and ceiling are white; the floor is made of wood. The left side of the room is composed entirely of windows that can be covered with wood panels painted white. The right side is geometrically structured by multifunctional furniture, with moveable seats. A pipe organ is integrated into the entrance wall; this unique instrument can be played by visitors by pressing buttons. A hanging star refers to the Moravian Church. The various orientations of the room accommodate the denominations that use it. Facing the iconostasis, the worship space appears as an Ethiopian church; facing the entrance, the space appears unornamented, suitable for a tradition that does not favor figural visual representation. The architect designed the ceiling as a common symbol: jutted, intersecting circles allude to

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heaven and to the common Christian God. The design is a reinterpretation of Gothic ribbed vaults.44

Fig. 10. Christian church.

The various areas reflect stages of negotiation by religious communities living in a pluralist society where people are variously affected by, for example, economic pressures, political persecution, wars and conflicts. Along with migration, both historical and contemporary challenges require religious communities to rethink their location, needs, and traditions, and to adapt. As associations within a democratic system, the communities have to find ways of organising themselves that are in accord with the Swiss legal framework and many other aspects of Swiss society, such as language, education, gender roles, and intergenerational relationships. A variety of traditions, innovations, visions, and even fears are visible in the Haus der Religionen, in its organization as well as in the symbolic dimensions of the specific rooms and of the house as a whole. For instance, the Christian church, the derg.h, and the Buddhist area can only be accessed from the common entrance area. The Christian church and the derg.h, which have been designed by the same architect, are on the second floor, with the Buddhist meditation room and cloister on the ground floor. Their placement on different levels, one above the 44 Cf. Haas: 2016, 15.

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Fig. 11 Christian church.

other, did not assume particular meaning. By contrast, for the temple and the mosque the vertical axis has a fundamental role: the sacred places had to have material and symbolic contact with earth and heaven. For the Hindu community the reference to traditional sculpture was crucial, while for the Alevis an original architectural style was created. Appropriation has made all these spaces lived places, through the performance of activities associated with rituals and festivals by the communities who inhabit them, but also through all that characterizes an association in civil society, including self-organization, cultural events, and participation in the common programme of the house. Believers, religious experts, lay people, and visitors occupy these places and transform them by using and maintaining them. Looking through the Window The Haus der Religionen is visited by many people and groups that are not directly associated with the communities responsible for it. Schools, other religious communities, members of the main denominations in Switzerland, and scholars with students of theology or religious studies (myself included) visit the house as a constructive example of a configuration of religious plurality and as a positive option for the negotiation of spatial coexistence. Nevertheless, neither the spatial design nor the cultural programme nor the

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dialogue area suggests unity ; instead differences and difficulties in interreligious relationships are communicated openly and transparently. This tension between sharing a building and being radically different is also communicated by a spatial practice performed by a team of artists. Nika Spalinger, who is Professor for Arts in Public Space at the Lucerne University for Applied Sciences and Arts and a very active artist, was appointed to take charge of the design of the windows, in cooperation with her colleague Daria Tchapanova and the graphic designer Hanspeter Bisig. Emphasising their architectural function, the windows structure the interior by mediating the natural light illuminating the rooms; they form a barrier that divides inside from outside; they have a crucial role in protecting the rooms from environmental factors such as cold, heat, or noise. Light and silence are fundamental to many religious practices, and therefore the windows bear crucial meaning not only from an architectural and functional perspective (the building is surrounded by vehicular traffic and railway tracks), but also from a religious perspective. The team of artists has realized a motif, reiterated throughout the building’s window, that combines ornamental signs derived from different religious traditions.45 Moreover, the signs are arranged in harmonic, but incomplete forms (fig. 12). The pattern, like a curtain, reduces light, and it creates opacity so that people working, performing, or visiting do not feel that they are on display in a huge showcase. Nevertheless, once it is dark outside, the interior lighting completely transforms the pattern and the window becomes transparent (fig. 13). Viewed from outside, the whole glass front of the Haus der Religionen reveals itself as a huge visual installation about religious difference. The glass design regulates the gaze not only from the outside looking in, but also from the inside looking out. Viewed through the filigree pattern, the urban landscape takes on a novel look. This particular structure may cause visitors to ponder what it means to look at the city that surrounds the house through the incomplete patterns representing the dialogue between religions, or how we can think about the city as a place for the fruitful coexistence of difference, or how we might deal with the unavoidability of conflict and mutual incomprehension, or how we might conceive our own religious identity by looking through the symbols of other religions (fig. 14). Actors in Bern have contributed to the revitalization of Europaplatz and have provided a representative dwelling for religious minorities in a multilayered, long-lasting effort. The Haus der Religionen is not shut off, located in the middle of nowhere, but is part of a modern, attractive multifunctional building. The window reflects through art the role of the house as seen from different perspectives. By regulating the gaze with an incomplete synthesis of graphic symbols, it invites believers and sceptics, users and visitors to look inside and to look outside through a particular lens. It demands active 45 Berger: 2015/2016, 83.

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Fig. 12. The pattern on the glass front.

Fig. 13. The glass front at night.

involvement though the corporeal presence of people who observe either the interior of the house or the urban landscape, depending on their location. What the viewer sees will depend on the individual. One viewer might seek an interpretation of this work of art, and might cross the threshold, enter the Haus der Religionen, be confronted with religious difference, and think about

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Fig. 14. Looking towards Europaplatz from inside the building.

dialogue. Another viewer will see the building, note that shops are on the left and religion on the right, and simply ignore the project.

Performances of Place as Meaning-Making Processes In this volume, dedicated to religion and difference as contested issues of our time, I have chosen to focus on a project that provides an illuminating example of negotiating and articulating religious diversity in a contemporary city. It can be seen as a proactive initiative to deal with multilayered questions on a concrete and pragmatic level and as a counterpoint to political debates contesting diversity, a core issue in Switzerland, a country that is intrinsically multicultural and that for centuries has experienced the troubled relationships among the main Christian denominations. The Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen deserves a more detailed and deeper analysis than can be offered within a single book chapter. The history of the planning and realization of the Haus der Religionen can be described as the transformation of a general concept of space into an embodied place where meaning-making processes take place. Depending on

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the perspective adopted, the meaning-making process is determined by different strategies, with different approaches to the shaping and representing of diversity. In this conclusion, I highlight three principle perspectives on the transformation of a space into a place of religious and cultural activity : the urban perspective, the perspective that takes the Haus der Religionen as a civilsocietal organization, and the perspective adopted by the religious communities and associations involved. An Urban Place The construction of a building where an existing interreligious project could find an ideal domicile was the result of an effort by communal and cantonal political authorities to reshape an inhospitable plot on the outskirts of Bern. In the material dimension of the spatial concept, the project aimed at restructuring a “nowhere,” reshaping an underused area by introducing a new major building. This densification of the urban area implied a rearrangement of various social aspects of space: new connections with other parts of the city were made possible by improving the public transport infrastructure, new restaurants and shops were built, new housing was created, and an innovative center for intercultural and interreligious dialogue was opened. Reading the project on a symbolic level, the building at Europaplatz can be interpreted as a strategy by Bern intended to link the historic center of the Swiss capital and the periphery. Furthermore, the building symbolizes the foundation of Bern as a diverse city, as a place of exchange between activities, functions and people. By redesigning Europaplatz, the city and the canton, together with other stakeholders, have improved the integration of religious and cultural minorities into the urban setting, making their presence and activities visible within a prestigious project.

A Place for Dialogue The political authorities made a space available within the urban setting of Bern, but only cooperation between these authorities and various private and public institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, ensured the realization of a place for both interreligious dialogue and single religious communities. Functioning as a central agency, the foundation Europaplatz – Haus der Religionen organized the funding. Responsibility for the specific organization of the component designated as the interreligious center was given to the association Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen.

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A number of aspects of the part of the building that forms the Haus der Religionen are particularly striking. At the material level, the spatial organization meets an articulated need for rooms for the cultural and religious activities of very different religious minorities. Furthermore, it offers a platform for negotiation and exchange between diverse religious worldviews in contemporary society. The section dedicated to dialogue, in elements such as the auditorium for film screenings and conferences, the seminar rooms, the restaurant, and the offices, has a linear, quite neutral contemporary and functional layout. Socially, this section is a meeting point for different cultural, religious and organizational forms. In these spaces, knowledge about religion and worldviews (including agnosticism and atheism) is transmitted to varied audiences. The common spaces are also places for the performance of diversity in distinctive activities (for example in communal dining that respects dietary rules). On a symbolic level, the spaces dedicated to information and dialogue form an arena for negotiating coexistence, diversity, and religious and national identity. At the level of the institution’s activities, the window design expresses the concept’s objective, which is not to harmonize religious tradition, but to reshape diversity within a common space. The religious graphic symbols can be combined to build a pattern, but they are neither complete nor identical. Last but not least, the common spaces also make the tension between religious and cultural activities highly visible: religion is presented as a phenomenon embedded in cultural practice, implying that lived diversity is an enrichment for Bern and for Switzerland in general.46 Places for Religious Communities The material organization of the places belonging to the different religious communities and associations shows at the architectural, aesthetic, and functional level a broad range of solutions. Traditional forms as in the Hindu temple and the mosque, reinterpretations of traditional forms as in the derg.h and the Christian church, and a very neutral, multifunctional space in the Buddhist part characterize the rooms designed by the religious communities. This material aspect of the Haus der Religionen corresponds with the different social functions of the rooms. The spaces belonging to the various communities are in principle used in two ways: as a cultural meeting point for the community and as a sacred space for ritual and worship. They follow the requirements of the respective traditions and their liturgical, theological, and/or philosophical considerations and mark a recognizable religious identity for the members of the relevant community and for the members of the other religious communities present in this space, as well as for visitors. 46 Cf. Haas: 2016.

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On a symbolic level, while all represent diversity, these spaces can assume very different meanings. First, each space occupied by a religious community makes the presence of the community’s tradition visible by means of architectural design. Depending on the people present within this spatial diversity, the meaning-making process is articulated in specific symbolic ways. For the members of each religious community, spatial diversity sustains a distinct orientation and identification with their own tradition, shaping the individual community’s relations with the transcendent world and with the wider community. Having a temple, church, or mosque in the modern center of the Swiss capital has transformed communities whose sacred spaces were previously located in anonymous basements of industrial buildings at the periphery. Second, since the religious spaces are gathered in a single building, religious identity is perceived within the visualization of diversity. Each community is confronted with the fact that there are many religious traditions, communities, habits, and cultural belongings. Also on the symbolic level, the Haus der Religionen makes the coexistence of different religious worldviews evident in a very concrete, tangible way. Inhabiting sacral spaces in such a urban setting is to engage in identity processes where the tension between “us” and “others” is always present, recalled not least by architectural diversity. Third, the coexistence of such architectural diversity under a single roof can be read as a synecdoche for the presence of religion in society, as a universal human phenomenon articulated in various ways in light of its cultural, social, economic, and political setting. As noted, the spatial analysis of such a multi-layered project is only one of the many possible approaches to diversity in contemporary European society. With this study I wanted to focus on space as an existential premise for human coexistence and explore strategies for dealing with contested places. Considered from this particular perspective, while the crescent on Freedom peak makes a case for avoiding the visibility of religious symbols in public space, the Haus der Religionen represents a completely different concept, for it makes religious diversity visible in a new key, as a constitutive dimension of culture.

References Literature Assmann, A. (2008), Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. Grundbegriffe, Themen, Fragestellung, Berlin: Erich Schmid Verlag.

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Assmann, A. (2009), Geschichte findet Stadt, in: C. Cs#ky/C. Leitgeb, eds., Kommunikation, Gedächtnis, Raum. Kulturwissenschaften nach dem “Spatial Turn”, Bielefeld: Transcript, 13–27. Beinhauer-Kçhler, B./Roth, M./Schawrz-Boenneke, B. (2015), Viele Religionen – ein Raum?! Analysen, Diskussionen und Konzepte, Berlin: Frank & Timme. Berger, M. (2015/2016), Das Haus der Religionen in Bern, in: Schweizerische St. Lukasgesellschaft für Kunst und Kirche, ed., Stille. Jahrbuch Kunst und Kirche, 83–85. Bruno, G. (2007), Atlas of Emotion. Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film, London/ New York: Verso. Behlmann, B. (2015), Hindu-Frauen werden in den Priesterstand erhoben, in: Neue Luzerner Zeitung, 06. 02. 2015. Casey, E. (1996), How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time. Phenomenological Prolegomena, in: S. Feld/K.H. Basso, eds., Senses of Place, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 13–52. Crang, M./Thrift, N., eds. (2000), Thinking Space, London/New York: Routledge. Dahinden, J./Moret, J./Duemmler, K. (2011), Die Herstellung sozialer Differenz unter der Bedingung von Transnationalisierung, in: B. Allenbach/U. Goel/M. Hummrich /C. Weissköppel, eds., Jugend, Migration und Religion. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, Zürich: Pano/Baden-Baden: Nomos, 225–248. Dçring, J./Thielmann, T., eds. (2008), Spatial Turn. Das Raumparadigma in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften, Bielefeld: Transcript. Denne, J./Genzel, S., eds. (2006), Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaft, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. du Gay, P., ed. (1997), Production of Culture/Cultures of Production, London/ Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. Egli, W.M./Tomkowiak, I., eds. (2011), Berge, Zürich: Chronos. Engler, B., ed., (2012), Stereotypen in der Schweiz/St8r8otypes en Suisse, Fribourg: Academic Press. Fischer, S. (2015), Mischnutzung als Motor, in: Komplex. Das Magazin der Halter AG, 8, 31–43. Gegenw-rtig, noch nicht fertig. Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen (2012), Bern: Edition Haus der Religionen (www.haus-der-religionen.ch/edition). George, M./Pezzoli-Olgiati, D., eds. (2014), Religious Representation in Place. Exploring Meaningful Spaces at the Intersection of the Humanities and Sciences, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Haas, H. (2014), Dokumentation 2001–2014. Zwölf Jahre und die Baugeschichte Europaplatz, Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen, in: https://www.hausder-religionen.ch/file/repository/141214_baugeschichte_haus_der_religionen. pdf [accessed 25. 03. 2017]. Haas, H. (2016), Mit Bodenhaftung und Zugehörigkeit. Auf der Suche nach einem Modell des Miteinander im Haus der Religionen in Bern, in: Neue Wege. Beiträge zu Religion und Sozialismus, 6, 110, 11–17.

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Hall, S., ed. (1997), Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. Hall, S./Evans, J./Nixon, S., eds. (2013), Representation. London/Thousand Oaks/ New Delhi: Sage (Second Edition). Hehli, S. (2016), Atheist provoziert. Halbmond leuchtet über dem Appenzellerland, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung 07. 09. 2016, http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/atheist-provo ziert-halbmond-leuchtet-ueber-dem-appenzellerland-ld.115383 (20. 09. 2016). Herzog, A./Blaser, M. (2015), Über Kreuz beten, in: Hochparterre. Zeitschrift für Architektur, Planung und Design, 3, 12–18. Hui, M. (2016), Für die Jungen ist das Haus der Religionen eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Ein Gespräch über Berner Hindu-Priesterinnen, gemeinsame Lernprozesse und die Vision eines Hauses der Religionen im kriegsversehrten Sri Lanka, in: Neue Wege. Beiträge zu Religion und Sozialismus, 6, 110, 4–10. Knopf, S. (2016), “Die Leute sollen das Gipfelkreuz hinterfragen”, Tages-Anzeiger, 07. 09. 2016, http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/kunst/die-leute-sollen-das-gip felkreuz-hinterfragen/story/12940490 [accessed 20. 09. 2016]. Knott, K. (2005), The Location of Religion. A Spatial Analysis, Durham: Acumen. L-ubli, M. (2015), Gleichberechtigung im Tempel, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung 20. 06. 2015. Lauster, J. (2010), Raum erfahren. Religionsphilosophische Anmerkungen zum Raumbegriff, in: T. Erne/P. Schütz, eds. Die Religion des Raumes und die Räumlichkeit der Religion, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 23–32. Lçw, M. (2001), Raumsoziologie, Frankfurt a. M: Suhrkamp. Lçw, M. (2004), Raum – Die Topologischen Dimensionen der Kultur, in: F. Jaeger/B. Liebsch, eds., Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften. Grundlagen und Schlüsselbegriffe, Stuttgart/Weimer : Metzler, 46–59. Mathieu, J. (2015), Die Alpen. Raum, Kultur, Geschichte, Stuttgart: Reclam. Mayer, J.-F. (2011), A Country Without Minarets. Analysis of the Background and Meaning of the Swiss Vote of 29 November 2009, in: Religion 41, 1, 11–28. Mecheril, P./Thomas-Olalde, O. (2011), Die Religion der Anderen. Anmerkungen zu Subjektivierungspraxen der Gegenwart, in: B. Allenbach/U. Goel/M. Hummrich/C. Weissköppel, eds., Jugend, Migration und Religion. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, Zürich: Pano/Baden-Baden: Nomos, 35–66. Meienberg, J. (2015), Ein spirituelles und frohes Fest, in: Pfarrblatt 7, 07. 02. 2015, 32. Naef, T. (2016), Christian Meier “Gipfelkreuze sind schlichtweg absurd”, Tagblatt online, 07. 09. 2016, http://www.tagblatt.ch/ostschweiz/appenzellerland/arai/in nerrhoden/Religion-ist-ein-unvernuenftiges-Denksystem;art159209,4745662 [accessed 20. 09. 2016]. Nicolson, M.H. (1997), Montain Gloom and Montain Glory. The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite, Seattle/London: University of Washington Press (reprint, 1959).

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Ritter, J. (2016), Gipfel der Freiheit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 08. 09. 2016, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/schweizer-installiert-halb mond-statt-gipfelkreuz-14426276.html [accessed 20. 09. 2016]. Schl-ppi, Ch./Saurer, M. (2015), Neues Gravitationszentrum, in: Die Verwandlung eines Unorts, Sonderheft von TEC21 – Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Fachzeitschrift für Architektur, Ingenieurwesen und Umwelt, supplement to no. 44, 30. October, 12–17. Schlçgel, K. (2009), Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit. Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik, München /Iwen: Fischer. Sçkefeld, M. (2011), Religion, Grenzen, Identitäten, in: B. Allenbach/U. Goel/M. Hummrich/C. Weissköppel, eds., Jugend, Migration und Religion. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, Zürich: Pano/Baden-Baden: Nomos, 271–286. Soja, E.W. (1989), Postmodern Geographies. The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, London/New York: Verso. Soja, E.W. (2008), Vom “Zeitgeist” zum “Raumgeist”. New Twists on the Spatial Turn, in: J. Döring/T. Thielmann, eds., Spatial Turn. Das Raumparadigma in den Kulturund Sozialwissenschaften, Bielefeld: Transcript, 242–262. Widmer, J.S. (2017), Das Haus der Religionen in Bern, in: M. Klöcker/U. Tworuschka, eds., Handbuch der Religionen, EL 51, 1–15.

Figures Fig. 1: Christian Meier, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/schweizerinstalliert-halbmond-statt-gipfelkreuz-14426276.html [accessed 14. 09. 2016]. Figs. 2, 5, 11, 12, 14: Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Neggio/CH. Fig. 3: Schl-ppi/Saurer: 2015, 15. Fig. 4: http://www.europaplatz-bern.ch/de/standort/ [accessed 25. 03. 2017]. Figs. 6, 7: Ursula Jost, Zürich. Figs. 8–10, 13: Stefan Maurer, Bern, www.maust.ch.

Stefanie Knauss

Difference and Contested Sexualities LGBT Catholics and the Church

Introduction Strangers are, as Sara Ahmed writes, those who are recognized by a group as not belonging to the group’s space. Maybe against common sense assumptions, strangers are thus not those who are unknown; instead, they are known in their difference, as those who do not belong, yet share a familiar, common space.1 In this chapter, I will draw on this ambivalence between known and unknown, familiar and strange in my exploration of religion and difference. Ahmed’s understanding of the stranger as the one who is known, yet known as not belonging, aptly describes, I think, the situation of the individuals in the case study I will focus on, namely LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans)2 persons who identify as Catholic and thus are, formally through baptism and in their own intentional relationship with Catholicism, members of the ingroup of Catholicism, but at the same time are known (and perceive themselves) as outsiders because of desires, sexual practices and gender identities that are constructed as different and un-Christian in Catholic teaching and exclude them from this community.3 As “unruly exiles,”4 LGBT Catholics cross and recross the boundary that is meant to keep them outside, moving between the apparently incompatible poles of homonegative Catholic doctrine and experiences of belonging, between being known and being a stranger, and between their apparently incompatible sexual and religious identities in what Teresa Delgado described as a “delicate dance.”5 In this contribution, I will follow the movements of this ambivalent “dance” as they emerge in the testimonies of LGBT Catholics about their experiences of difference and sameness collected in the recent social media initiative #chiesaascoltaci for the Jubilee of Mercy 2016, organized by the Italian association of LGBT Christians, Cammini di Speranza (paths of hope). The particularity of this case study is that it highlights the experience of difference within a religious tradition rather than among traditions, and thus, as will 1 Ahmed: 2000, 21; Simmel: 1950, 402. 2 Among the varieties of abbreviations in use, this is the acronym used in the primary sources I analyze here. 3 Ammicht Quinn: 2008, 11. 4 Sepidoza Campos: 2014, 157. 5 Delgado: 2014, 107; see also Sepizoda Campos: 2014, 162.

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emerge from the analysis of the material, renders unstable – without dissolving them – the categories of “same” and “other” in much the same way that Ahmed describes: the stranger is known, yet known as not belonging. The reflection on the experiences of LGBT Catholics highlights that difference destabilizes what is considered “the same,” even though the encounter with the other is often perceived as reinforcing a sense of in-group identity. As I will show in my analysis, the presence of LGBT persons within the Catholic community changes the understanding of “Catholic” and “church.” This implicitly also challenges those notions of diversity and inclusion that understand inclusion as a mere “adding on” of the other to a group that does not change in itself. Due to the case study chosen, this chapter is anchored in the context of Catholicism and in the experience of Italian LGBT Catholics, but in my analysis of sexuality as a marker of difference, I will also draw on studies from other Christian contexts where appropriate, to consider some broader implications. I will begin by briefly outlining the stance of the Catholic hierarchy regarding LGBT identities and how queer theology unsettles the attempted constructions of difference. This section provides the necessary context for my analysis of the testimonies of the campaign #chiesaascoltaci, which represents the main focus of this chapter and from which my more general reflections on difference and religion in the conclusion emerge. Here, I do not claim to represent all LGBT persons in their relationship to the Catholic Church and its homonegative magisterial teachings. Instead, I am interested in the question how the testimonies of LGBT Catholics collected in the intiative challenge the construction of queer desires and identities as different within the Catholic context, and thus the binary opposition between difference and sameness.

Homosexuality as/and Difference in Church and Theology Homosexuality as Unstable Difference in Catholic Teaching Only recently, in the 2016 Exhortation Amoris laetitia, the result of a two-year consultation of the Catholic bishops on the situation of the family, Pope Francis affirms the dignity of the person regardless of sexual orientation and condemns any form of discrimination or aggression against gay and lesbian persons. Yet at the same time, he underlines, quoting the final resolution after the Second Synod on the Family, that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”6 This line of thought 6 Francis: 2016, no. 251.

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continues the arguments of previous statements in magisterial publications. Official Catholic teachings construct homosexuality7 unequivocally as “other” in relation to the norm of heterosexuality, which is considered the only form of sexuality fully corresponding to the natural order as created and wanted by God, and thus provide a theological basis to the practice of exclusion of LGBT persons in the church. In this section, I’m not interested in refuting these arguments, which has been done masterfully by others before me,8 but in analyzing the ways in which LGBT persons are discursively constructed as “different” and the fissures that render this construction unstable in itself. In Catholic teaching, human beings are understood to be created as either male or female, with bodily sex determining social gender expressions and (hetero-)sexual orientation. The central notion of complementarity that guides magisterial attitudes towards sexuality implies that men and women are considered to be different yet complementary on both a biological-genital and affective-psychological-behavioral level. Thus the human being is understood to find fulfillment only in the union between a man and a woman, when the different characteristics of men and women can complement each other on the affective and sexual level.9 All forms of sexuality that do not conform to this matrix – sexual acts that are not potentially procreative or do not occur within the framework of heterosexual marriage – are considered as disruptions of the natural order. Consequently, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes homosexuality as “objectively disordered,”10 in the sense of being opposed to the created order and God’s will: Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved (no. 2357).

While homosexual desire is recognized as something that a person might not be able to change, the Catechism clearly states that the way to deal with this condition is to take it up as one’s cross and live a life of chastity.11 Bisexual and trans identities are not treated separately in the Catechism or, to my knowledge, other published magisterial documents, but by implication, they are also considered as disordered in Catholic teaching. Insofar as bisexuality may include non-marital, non-procreative, same-sex desire and relations, it contradicts the natural order as defined in Catholic teaching. 7 I will use the term “homosexual” here because it is the term primarily used in the texts I discuss, even though I am aware of its problematic pathologizing associations and its exclusion of other queer sexualities and identities. 8 See for example Boswell: 2015 [1980]; Jordan: 2000; Salzman/Lawler : 2008. 9 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: 1986, no. 7. 10 Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1993, no. 2358. 11 Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1993, no. 2359; Tushnet: 2014.

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Within the framework of Catholic teaching on sexuality, trans or gendervariant identities can be seen as opposing the primacy of bodily sex as created and the identity of bodily sex and social gender, representing a human interference in the Creator’s intentions for the sexual nature of a person. An unpublished document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prohibits changes in baptismal registers after transitioning, and its regulations concerning the validity of marriage show that the (im-)possibility of procreative sexual acts remains the central criterion for evaluating sexual relations.12 Arguments concerning homosexuality, bisexuality and trans identities are thus equally grounded in a complementary, heteronormative framework with an essentialist view of sex and gender, prioritizing procreation as the central meaning of the sexual act. LGBT persons are constructed as “different” on various levels in Catholic teaching. Primarily, arguments against homosexuality are based on the assumption of an ontological difference between men and women (and only these two categories of human beings), which exist in very specific ways that are essentially different from each other and require the heterosexual union to achieve fulfillment. In this schema of thought, homosexuals deny their own human nature by engaging in non-complementary relationships and thus inhibit themselves from fulfilling their human potential. Because in Catholic teaching, nature is understood as creation and thus the expression of God’s will, any transgression against the natural order is also a sin against God, and thus homosexuality is at the same time constructed as difference in moral terms. In addition, homosexuality is depicted as a cultural otherness through occasional vague references to “gay culture.”13 Presumably, this term refers to stereotypical forms of sexual behavior other than the ideal of life-long, monogamous, procreative, heterosexual marriage: short-term relationships, cruising, multiple sex partners, etc. A further dimension in the understanding of same-sex desire as a cultural difference emerges when it is described as “white” in African-American churches.14 An ethnic understanding of LGBT difference can be found as part of the self-understanding of LGBT Catholics, in parallel to ethnic parishes in the US context, as a way to create a positive collective identity as “ethnically” distinct and yet part of the larger Catholic community.15 Given the multi-dimensional construction of LGBT persons as “the other,” it is not surprising that the very idea to embrace an LGBTand Catholic identity appears impossible to many. Dugan McGinley notes that “[t]he popular conception of traditional religions like Roman Catholicism seems to preclude 12 Peter Förster, referenced in Goertz: 2016, 519, FN 6; see also Bucar : 2010. 13 Congregation for Catholic Education: 2005, 2. 14 Douglas: 1999, 97–98. Similarly, Talmudic Judaism (and Orthodox Jews today) considers samesex relations as something that “others” do, non-existent among Jews. Cf. Bohache: 2008, 163. 15 Primiano: 2005, 16; Radojcic: 2016, 1300.

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any hope of claiming both descriptions for oneself.”16 Excluded from the Catholic community as “objectively disordered,” LGBT Catholics often encounter a second exclusion from secular LGBT movements in which they may be seen as representatives of a homophobic institution. Individuals negotiate these contradictions in different ways;17 for some, they result in hiding, denying, compartmentalizing or otherwise splitting off one dimension of their identity or the other, leading to painful experiences of discrimination or self-alienation when elements of one’s identity have to be repressed. For others, their sexual and religious identity are closely connected in spite of religious and secular attempts to render them apart, as Dominic Wetzel writes: “For me, being queer and Catholic was never really separate; they were silently, surreptitiously interwoven.”18 The “culture of incompatibility” between LGBT individuals and organized religions such as Catholicism – reinforced as such by both the church and the secular LGBT community – creates a dichotomy of LGBT versus Catholic that renders invisible both the active involvement of LGBT persons in religious communities and those spheres of organized religion that are – in spite of official homonegative teachings – welcoming of LGBT persons.19 In fact, despite the multiple layers of the construction of LGBT identities and desires as different, this construction is within itself unstable and contested in various respects. A first blurring of the boundaries between inside (heterosexual Catholics) and outside (LGBT Catholics) appears in the differentiation between the LGBT person who deserves respect in their human dignity, and sinful same-sex relations, according to the motto: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” LGBT persons are the “same” insofar as they are human beings created in the image of God, yet different with regard to how they live the sexual dimension (sexual identity, desires and acts) of their being. The distinction between the concrete individual whose dignity is affirmed, and the general phenomenon of homosexuality which continues to be condemned as an objective disorder, is also noticeable in more recent pronouncements of the Pope and is sometimes taken to herald at least a positive change in the overall atmosphere and a sign of a less judgmental attitude towards LGBT persons.20 This ambiguity in the evaluation of homosexuality and LGBT individuals also emerges in the language used in official documents which shifts uneasily between the uncompromising judgement of homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered” or “grave depravity,”21 a use of language that contributes to the stigmatization and discrimination of LGBT individuals,22 and the call for 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

McGinley : 2004, 9. E. g. Gross/Yip: 2010. Wetzel: 2014, 61. Hopkins: 2014, 159. O’Brien: 2014, xx. Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1993, no. 2357. Jung: 2014, 123.

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respect for LGBT persons; between the condemnation of the act and the commitment to pastoral care for the person. While the attempt to separate being and doing within the human person is untenable in any case, it has problematic consequences: on the one hand, the distinction between being and doing appears to acknowledge the dignity of the person and promote the inclusion of LGBT individuals in the community, yet on the other, it can be used as a cover or even incitement for intolerance and discrimination.23 Most importantly, it doesn’t challenge the condemnation of homosexuality as sin and those who engage in same-sex relationships as sinners. Regina Ammicht Quinn notes that the evocation of attitudes of respect, sympathy and tact towards homosexual persons constructs homosexuality as a deficiency deserving of pity and thus contributes to “the reinforcement of a divisive category” in spite of the acknowledgement of the inherent dignity of the human person.24 These rhetorical as well as argumentative ambiguities ultimately result in a reinforcement of the construction of homosexuality as difference, and certainly have not yet led to an institutional shift away from its condemnation. However, as will be clear from the analysis of the posts below, such ambiguities also provide openings for a repositioning of LGBT Catholics in their own negotiation of personal experience and official pronouncements, “straddling an ecclesial belonging that both accepts the inherent goodness of our persons and rejects the actions that arise from our sexual orientation.”25 Another ambiguity appears in the gap between the official teachings of the magisterium on homosexuality and concrete pastoral practice in parishes or encounters with priests and other representatives of the Church, when LGBT persons may experience welcome and participate fully in the life of the community.26 This results, as McGinley notes, in an “uneasy bifurcation” of the Church’s position between exclusive magisterial teaching and inclusive pastoral reality,27 and he concludes, somewhat pessimistically, that [t]he chasm between the moral and pastoral rhetorics cannot reasonably be bridged in a way that makes sense in the lives of those toward whom the teaching is geared or for those who try to carry out a pastoral ministry for their sake (19).

In addition to welcoming parishes, other less institutionalized spaces allow for the integration of religious and sexual identity that the official teachings represent as incompatible. For example, in the US, Dignity28 ministers to LGBT Catholics, even if it is not officially recognized by the Church. In Italy, there are 23 24 25 26 27 28

Jakobsen/Pellegrini: 2004, 1. Ammicht Quinn: 2008, 11–12; see also Cahill: 2014, 149. Sepizoda Campos: 2014, 157. Sepidoza Campos: 2014, 160. McGinley : 2004, 14. For a self-presentation of the movement, see https://www.dignityusa.org/ [accessed 22. 01. 2019].

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over 30 groups of LGBT Catholics across the nation who come together for study, reflection, prayer or community.29 Potentially, then, LGBT Catholics can indeed find parishes or lay Catholic communities in which they are fully integrated and that contradict, in their very presence, the exclusionary teachings of the Church. However, it remains highly problematic that there is no certainty as to the kind of welcome an LGBT person might experience in a new community or from a new parish priest, a stressful situation which requires a careful probing of attitudes before an LGBT person can come out. Finally, instability is also created by the divide between the pronouncements of the Magisterium and the attitudes of the faithful, who increasingly disagree with official teachings on homosexuality and adopt positive attitudes. A 2015 Pew survey of the attitudes of American Christians regarding homosexuality shows that 70 % of Catholics think that homosexuality should be accepted by society.30 Lisa Cahill quotes a Public Religion Research Institute report from 2011 that shows that 71 % of American Catholics support samesex civil unions and 60 % are in favor of allowing adoption into same-sex couples.31 For numerous Catholics, both straight and LGBT, the official teachings of the magisterium carry less weight than their informed conscience today.32 If “church” is not simply the hierarchy of bishops, Vatican congregations and the Pope, but all the faithful as the people of God, then the Catholic attitude towards LGBT persons is by no means as clear-cut as magisterial pronouncements make it seem. Yet magisterial teachings so far have not changed in response to this shift in attitudes. This points towards the fact that questions surrounding homosexuality are, in the specific context of the Catholic Church, very much questions of maintaining the power of the hierarchy and thus concern the self-understanding and structure of the Church.33 A way forward is shown in Patrick Hornbeck and Michael Norko’s reflection on this situation. They draw on the Catholic doctrine of reception which asserts that a rule needs to be received and accepted by the community of the faithful in order to be considered an effective guide.34 The Second Vatican Council affirms that the understanding of the faith (sensus fidei) is given not just to the ordained, but to the whole people of God so that the Gospel “might shine forth in their daily social and family life.”35 The variation between church teachings and the attitudes of the faithful towards issues such 29 See the list on the webpage of the association Progetto Gionata: http://www.gionata.org/igruppi-in-italia/ [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. 30 Murphy : 2015. 31 Cahill: 2014, 142–143; see also Clague: 2016 for global data. 32 Meek: 2014, 104; however, see Wetzel: 2014 for a conservative backlash in neo-traditionalist circles. 33 Jordan: 2000. 34 Hornbeck/Norko: 2014, 15. 35 Vatican II: 1964, no. 35.

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as same-sex marriage shows that the current teaching is not “received” fully and by everybody, and thus further development of the current “understanding of the faith” about matters of sexuality is needed.36 The theological approaches and experiences of LGBT Catholics that I discuss in the following sections are a rich contribution this development.

Queering Difference in Theology Theological reflections about sexuality as a marker of difference move on various levels. Approaches in Christian sexual ethics take up the challenge to develop an ethical framework that positively values queer sexualities and identities. Margaret Farley, for example, draws on the principle of justice as the guiding principle that should govern all sexual relationships, whatever their concrete expression.37 Lisa Cahill considers the ethical arguments regarding the legal recognition of same-sex relationships and concludes: “It is for the good of society and the public order to extend the social ethos of permanency in marriage and family” so that both same-sex and heterosexual couples may be included.38 These approaches mostly underline the sameness between homosexuality and heterosexuality, drawing on principles such as justice in order to establish a common basis or framework through which to establish criteria that can be used to evaluate all forms of sexual expression. Queer theology takes a different route and questions the underlying assumptions of sameness and difference that shape Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality, and their consequences in the interaction with power and knowledge. Here, the question is not to re-evaluate sexual classifications so that homosexuality can now be understood as no longer “bad” but “good,” but instead to reconsider the value itself that is placed on categorizations of sexual desires and acts.39 How do we establish categories? What value do we attribute to them, and what roles do they play? How does the Catholic Church and its teaching reinforce and use homosexuality as a category of difference? What resources for undoing categories do religious traditions offer? After all, it is not at all self-evident why, out of the uncountable possibilities of categorizing sexual desires, in the 19th century, the gender of the person somebody desires became the defining marker of identity and difference in sexual matters.40 Queer studies are taking up this theoretical interest in uncovering the constructedness of binary categories of biological sex (male/female) and the consequent norms regarding sexual 36 37 38 39 40

Massingale: 2016, 181. Farley : 2005. Cahill: 2014, 154. Ammicht Quinn: 2008, 13. Sedgwick: 1990, 8–9, 35.

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behavior in a heteronormative system,41 questioning the underlying essentialist thinking and the differences and hierarchies that these classifications help to construct. Queer theologies take to heart this critical significance of “queer” and aim at deconstructing categories and rethinking methodologies in theology, connected with a liberation theological interest in critiquing the ways in which theology has contributed to maintaining structures of dominance and exclusion. This critical work can be understood as an attempt to bring theology back to what it is: “a queer thing,” as Gerard Loughlin writes,42 a challenge to the powers that be and a perpetual rethinking and critiquing of the ways of doing theology. In their critical and constructive endeavor, queer theologies creatively draw on elements of the theological tradition and rediscover hidden histories and narratives. In particular apophatic theology with its desire to “say God,” while at the same time knowing that God can never be fully said by human beings,43 is used as a fruitful method of undoing identities and categories. The central Christian doctrine of the trinitarian God, three persons with one being, provides a fruitful basis for queer theological (un-)thinking: “Because God is an internal community within God’s very being, this collapses the usual difference between the self and the other (that is, otherness as being ‘external’ to one’s self),”44 while at the same time affirming distinction, in that community presupposes relationship with the other as other.45 Other Christian doctrines such as the incarnation or revelation as encounters between the human and divine are taken up and reconsidered in a queer way in how they are used both to affirm categories and to challenge boundaries.46 While theology should be “queer” – odd, out of place, and strange – in a materialist, commodified world, it has often been complicit in ideological, political or economic power structures. The late Argentinian queer theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid underlines sharply how the heterosexual norm has shaped, and in turn has been reinforced by a “T-theology,” a “Totalitarian Theology,” based on the exclusion of scandalous “other” sexualities and desires.47 She shows how in Latin America, this heterosexual totalitarian theology has been used to “divinely” legitimize a system of colonial domination, (re-)production and exchange in which women have been exchanged and forcibly taken by men, and non-heterosexual relationships have been delimited because they are not seen as productive.48 As Althaus41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Cheng: 2011, 6. Loughlin: 2007, 7. Loughlin: 2007, 7. Cheng: 2011, 56. Althaus-Reid: 2000, 131. Cheng: 2011. Althaus-Reid: 2003, 8. Althaus-Reid: 2000, 20.

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Reid shows, the difference created through categorizations of sexual desires has led to material exploitation and suffering in which theology is used as a source to legitimize economic and political power structures. Queer theology’s critique of the binary hierarchical categories that structure theological thinking and the privileging of one set of experiences – heterosexual, masculine – in the tradition thus helps to uncover the hidden or denied connections between theology, sexuality, economics and politics as they are experienced, especially, by those on the margins of the system: straight and lesbian women, gay men, bisexual, trans and queer people.49 One of the challenges of queer theology is to maintain the tension between sameness and difference. Navigating between the affirmation of difference, politics of equal rights, otherness, and identity, queer theology is equally critical of the exclusionary consequences of hegemonic categorizations and of counter-hegemonic identity politics, questioning the myth of stable, unified identities which is often part of the politics of social movements, including the LGBTcivil rights movement. As Norbert Reck critically points out, the price to be paid for the achievement of “equal rights” was “the secure inscription of the fundamental alterity of homosexuals.”50 While the queer critique of categories of difference has clearly shown their implications in power structures, queer theology is equally critical of the assumption of sameness that all too often colonizes the “other” under the pretense of welcome and inclusion.51 Instead, queer theology insists on maintaining the tension between proximity and distance, recognition and surprise. Sepidoza Campos describes this as an attitude of “ambivalent hospitality,” when in the encounter with the stranger one is reminded that intimacy and alienation are equally part of being community : “[T]he stranger blurs the location of those who stand inside and outside of the church, dismantling the imagined divide that distinguishes host from guest.”52 This tension between strangeness and recognition brings us back to Sara Ahmed’s description of the stranger as the one who is known in their nonbelonging, with which I have opened these reflections. LGBT Catholics are strangers insofar as they are known to be (the) other, and at the same time, known as the other, they are fixed in their sexual otherness and what that is presumed to entail, such as feeling alienated, indifferent or inimical towards the Catholic Church, or being in denial about their sexual desires. In contrast to this colonizing assumption of “sameness in difference,” queer theology underlines the importance of surprise and the willingness to be permanently unsettled by human beings (and God) in their unknowable uniqueness. Queer theology aims at integrating the sexual subject and their experiences as 49 50 51 52

Althaus-Reid: 2000. Reck: 2008, 25. Tonstad: 2016, 3. Sepidoza Campos: 2014, 160 resp. 161.

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foundational sources into theological reflection – a scandal in itself! – yet rejects the essentializing definition of who this subject is as same or other, straight or queer, what their experiences might be, and what the appropriate theological and human reaction should be. In the next section, I will follow this move and shift from reflections about LGBT Catholics to an encounter with their own experiences of being “same” and “other” at the same time.

Church, Listen to Us! The Initiative and Its Context The initiative #chiesaascoltaci (Church, listen to us) was organized by Cammini di Speranza,53 a national association of LGBT Christians, as a way to present the experiences of LGBT Catholics, their parents, siblings and other allies to the church through the public media of Facebook and Twitter so that the church “diventi finalmente casa per tutti, capace di inclusione e accoglienza” (may become a house for all, capable of inclusion and welcome).54 The initiative started with the first posting on 27 February 2016 and concluded with the Jubilee of Mercy at the end of November 2016. With this campaign, the association responded to Pope Francis’s statement that Christians should build bridges, not walls. While this statement was made in a different context during the Pope’s visit to the US in fall 2015, in relation to plans of the then US presidential candidate Donald Trump to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, Cammini di Speranza reappropriated the notion of building bridges to focus on the boundaries that exclude LGBT persons from the church and to begin to bridge these differences. The Jubilee of Mercy as a space of reconciliation, inclusion, and equality was seen as an appropriate opportunity to launch the initiative and to present these stories. It is important to consider for a moment the cultural context of the campaign, Italy.55 The Catholic Church has played and still plays a prominent role in Italian society. With the Church being the only major social institution remaining after World War II, with close ties to the then ruling Christian Democrats and guaranteed to be the sole religion in Italy in the Lateran Pacts included in the new Constitution after 1945, Italy could well be called “The Papal State of the Twentieth Century.”56 Over the last 40 years or so, Italy, like other western European societies, has become increasingly secularized, with the Church losing much of its moral power, especially with regard to the 53 54 55 56

See for a self-presentation http://camminidisperanza.org [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. #chiesaascoltaci: 2016. See for an overview of the role of Catholicism in Italian society and politics Pollard: 2008. Richard Webster, quoted in Pollard: 2008, 117.

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regulation of sexuality. Legally, its position has also changed with the new Concordat of 1984 which removes some of its privileges, in particular its position as sole religion. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church maintains a prominent role in Italian society and politics. It continues to exercise a strong influence across all political parties, if not formally then through its presence in the public sphere, and formal affiliation remains high among the population, with 86.1 % of Italians being baptized into the Catholic Church according to a 2007 survey.57 Also, popular piety, in the form of pilgrimages, public festivals, devotions to saints and so on, plays an important role in Italian culture. Franco Garelli’s study of Catholicism in Italy shows that being Catholic has come to mean a variety of things to different people but substantial numbers still draw on the offers of the Church to satisfy their religious needs – whether out of conviction, habit or family tradition – even if they disagree with the Church on issues of faith or morals.58 On 5 June 2016, as the last country in western Europe, Italy recognized same-sex civil unions, a sign that the impact of the Church on matters of lifestyle and sexual morality has decreased significantly, although its continued cultural presence was noticeable in public statements by the Pope and bishops against the legalization of same-sex unions.59 The presence of a national organization of LGBT Christians, in addition to numerous local groups, and a campaign that tells their stories in public social media is therefore a significant part of these social and political developments in Italy. It underlines that the Church is no longer the sole authority when it comes to the understanding of sexual orientation, models of partnership and forms of family life. At the same time, the campaign also testifies to the continued importance of the Catholic Church and of religion in the lives of individuals, even if they feel excluded, judged or misunderstood by the Church. The 25 chapters published in the course of the campaign60 offer some insight into how individuals who are “different” according to official teachings negotiate this difference and define their place in the church, and in the process even redefine the meaning of “church” itself. The narratives are of various length, although none is very long. Mostly, they are first-person testimonials of individuals or couples with a narrative, autobiographical character, although some represent more theoretical, general reflections (ch. 13), and one (ch. 6) is a creative rewriting of the Beatitudes (Matt 5:1–12). Several are directly addressed to the Pope, thus explicitly responding to Francis’s statement about building bridges. Of the 25 posts, the majority are 57 58 59 60

Garelli: 2013, 5. Garelli: 2013, 12–13. Povoledo: 2016. All posts are now gathered in an e-book (#chiesaascoltaci: 2016) and can be downloaded from the webpage of Cammini di Speranza. In the following, I will refer to them parenthetically in the text by quoting the chapter.

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written by gay men, four by lesbian women, one by a trans woman, and three by allies of LGBT people; two authors don’t specify their sexual orientation. Thus the posts represent both the diversity of the individuals gathered in Cammini di Speranza, and the over-proportionate presence of gay men also noticed in other studies of LGBT Christian communities.61 Each post includes, apart from the narrative, a photo of the writer, either chosen by themselves or taken by the photographer Simone Cerio, which often visually underlines the concerns they express in their narratives: Mauro and Paolo, a long-term gay couple, choose a photo showing them both close together, arms around their shoulders (ch. 10), Aurelio, a self-declared Catholic traditionalist, is shown in front of St Peter’s Square (ch. 8). Davide, who compares being gay within the church to living in the shadows, chooses a photo in which only his face, with downcast eyes, is visible against a dark background (ch. 14). An allied couple post a photo of their wedding day which is the anchor of their reflections on why the joy they experienced on that day is denied to LGBT couples (ch. 9). Together with the names of the authors, the photos also contribute to rendering the stories concrete and personal: these are real people who share their stories, pains, hopes and dreams as LGBT Catholics. Although the posts were liked and shared and received comments on Facebook, the e-book publication that collects all 25 posts does not include comments, and so I will not take them into account in the following analysis of the material. I approach the narratives through a qualitative thematic analysis which allows me to identify and group together themes and sub-themes as they emerge in the posts.62 I then discuss these findings in conversation with the magisterial and theological sources discussed above as well as other studies of LGBT Christians in order to highlight how the authors experience difference and how they negotiate their being known as “other” in the church with their own sense of belonging.

Sharing Values and Appreciating the Gift of Difference The persons posting their narratives appear to negotiate their LGBT identity with their Catholic identity mostly through countering the appearance of difference due to sexuality63 with an emphasis on shared values and sameness. Experiences of exclusion and discrimination due to the position of the church 61 Wilcox: 2005; Radojcic: 2016. 62 Braun/Clarke: 2006. 63 The Italian term “diverso” appears in various posts and often seems to be used as a code word for any form of sexual identity or orientation “different” from that promoted in official Catholic teachings; it is also used to describe difference in ability, yet interestingly, none of the posts uses it to describe gender difference – an issue that is of particular interest in the Catholic church where women continue to be excluded from ordination.

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regarding homosexuality emerge clearly next to a sense of belonging and, indeed, an insistence on the right to belong. This ambivalence of belonging and exclusion is affectively coded across the majority of posts: accounts of experiences of being judged, excluded and discriminated by their religious communities are described as deeply painful and a source of suffering, whereas the authors express overwhelmingly a sense of serenity – achieved not without struggle – in their knowledge of themselves as LGBT Christians and members of the body of Christ through their shared faith (e. g. ch. 10, 19). Five themes emerge as particularly relevant with regard to the questions explored here: most prominently, the themes of love and family are emphasized as common ground for a shared Catholic identity in spite of disagreements about sexual orientation, a phenomenon also observed in other studies of LGBT Catholic movements.64 Reflections on the nature of the church represent a third theme. Also, a theology of creation is used to develop an understanding of LGBT identities as wanted by God and a vocation to be lived for the benefit of the individual and the community. A final theme is the discussion of experiences of difference as both enriching and a source of suffering. Overall, the authors combine what can be described as anthropological, theological, and ethical arguments and draw on experience along with biblical and theological texts to make their case for the possibility of an integrated Catholic and LGBT identity and consequently, their full welcome and belonging to the Catholic Church. The theme of love is prominent throughout the posts and appears in several sub-themes as (erotic and familial) love between human beings, love between God and humans, love as the essence of human and divine being and as the center of Christ’s message. Love is introduced as a value shared by queer and straight Christians alike, and equally expressed in their relationships and family situations. It thus represents an important example for the slippage between sameness and difference experienced by these LGBT Catholics: sameness in the central importance of love, difference in the forms love takes and the gender of the beloved. Whoever loves, and whomever one loves – one participates in God’s project and God’s grace, as Edoardo (ch. 2) and Mauro and Paolo (ch. 10) underline. Similar to Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus caritas est,65 the authors stress the essential relationship between human love and divine love, when God’s love is experienced in human love relationships and vice versa, and the experience of being loved by God opens up to the possibility of sharing this love with other human beings – with the decisive difference that in their posts, love may take the form of queer relationships. For Mauro and Paolo (ch. 10), the experience to live their love in and through God’s grace allows them to relativize and even falsify homophobic arguments about the validity of their love: “Su di noi c’H o non 64 Radojcic: 2016, 1300. 65 Benedict XVI: 2005, no. 1.

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c’H la grazia di Dio? Ma ovviamente c’H, perch8 lo sperimentiamo” (Is God’s grace on us or not? But obviously it is, because we experience it). Love is not just the essence of God’s being, but also of human existence in the world: to love and be loved is a fundamental human need, as Davide (ch. 14) underlines, and to prohibit somebody (or oneself) from forming loving relationships and thus fulfilling their human potential is an infringement of their human rights (ch. 22), or, put in religious terms, a sin (ch. 16). Antonio’s rewriting of the Beatitudes (ch. 6) further underlines the religious importance of being able to love in freedom when he describes all those who seek a “different” love and suffer for it as particularly blessed. Conversely, to be able to live one’s love is described as being filled with an energy and motivation that reach beyond the intimacy of the couple and open up to the community (ch. 10, 14). This description of love within the couple as an experience that “spills over” in order to include others can be understood as a way to counter arguments about the sterility of homosexual relationships and to claim for LGBT persons the idea of the spiritual fertility of those who are not biological parents introduced in official teachings.66 An important aspect in these reflections on love is the need for public recognition of their loving relationships in church and state, and not just the unofficial blessings that individual priests might be willing to offer, but the full, official and spiritual recognition that is bestowed in the public celebration of the sacrament of marriage, as Francesco writes: “[P]retendo dalla mia Chiesa la dignit/ della Navata centrale, non di piF, non di meno” (I demand from my church the dignity of the central nave, not more, not less, ch. 8). Love is presented as the highest value that overrides all human notions of who it is appropriate to love, and thus love is described as revolutionary and transgressive of human norms and schemata (ch. 2). The model of this revolutionary love is Christ who loved and respected all persons, no matter their social standing (ch. 2), and thus invites all to imitate Christ’s and God’s absolutely inclusive love (ch. 20). This call to emulate Christ’s model of love can be understood to reach in two directions: to appreciate queer love as an expression of God’s being of love, and to welcome LGBT persons within the community of the church that is distinguished by its being a community of love (1 Jn 4:7–12). Love is, thus, the condition of and path to the full inclusion of all those who are different and love differently in the church. In their posts, the authors mobilize the central Christian notion of love to make several points: they underline their sameness as human beings whose essence it is to want to love and be loved, and the moral goodness of their love as a reflection of the divine love in which all humans are loved first. Furthermore, they use love as an ethical argument by citing the model of Christ’s all-inclusive, revolutionary love and demanding full inclusion in the community of the church on the grounds of the ethical command of 66 John Paul II: 1988, no. 21.

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neighborly love and because of the transgressive power of love capable to overcome social, moral or ecclesial barriers. These reflections about the centrality of love to Catholic beliefs and practices are presented as a common ground strong enough to sustain the difference of the authors’ queer loving. At the same time, in their reflections, the authors further develop the theological meaning of the notion of love in order to include the love of LGBT persons. The theme of family further develops the idea of the integration of queer love into the social and ecclesial community and again is represented as a common ground among believers. By underlining the central importance of the family to queer life, the authors appropriate an argument frequently used against homosexual relationships represented as infertile, disruptive and inimical to the family.67 In their testimonies, the authors show themselves to be perfectly aligned with the family values of their critics, as Francesco writes of his desire to create “una famiglia intesa come supremo valore di condivisione sacro e profondo” (a family understood as the supreme sacred and profound value of community, ch. 7). The authors appreciate the loving, supportive families in which they grew up and cite them as models for themselves and others (ch. 2). They want to create their own families as the context in which to live love as God’s gift and realize the Christian community (chs. 4, 24) and express support and love for LGBT family members (chs. 3, 20). For the LGBT allies Cinzia and Giampaolo (ch. 9), the joyful experience of their wedding and family is the center of their narrative as they acknowledge the pain of exclusion of those who will not be able to experience the same publicly recognized happiness. In addition, by underlining the support received from their own families, the authors subtly criticize those who do not live up to the same standards. Edoardo (ch. 2) draws a direct comparison between his own father, who promises to support him with the strength of familial love in any difficulties he might encounter as a gay man, and the Pope (called Papa in Italian), who delegitimizes the gay family, between his own family marked by love and support, and the family of the church that is involved (at least in parts) in the “battaglie fratricide” (fratricidal battles) surrounding events like the Italian Family Day, an initiative that promotes the traditional heterosexual family and is marked by homophobic rhetoric. The authors’ strategic reference to the bourgeois heterosexual family as a model for queer relationships helps to establish the common ground shared with other Catholics and to make a case for LGBT persons’ belonging on the basis of shared values. However, this strategy contributes to a process that Jodi O’Brien also notes, namely the paradoxical expansion of heteronormativity to include LGBT persons, rather than the challenge of the hegemony of heteronormativity.68 The challenge posed by the difference represented by 67 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: 2003, no. 7. 68 O’Brien: 2014, xx.

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queer persons is dissolved, by the authors themselves, into the sameness of a shared model, that of the traditional, monogamous family, now slightly expanded to include rainbow families, but not fundamentally transformed. Instead of challenging heteronormativity with its family ideal, adaptation to heteronormative values and lifestyles thus seems to be the price to be paid for acceptance in society and church. Insofar as the family is often described as “the domestic church,”69 it seems natural that the authors use the theme of family also to discuss their understanding of church, and what they mean when they ask the church to listen to them and to welcome them. They imagine the church as a family, based on an ideal and sometimes experience (ch. 2) of family as welcoming, mutually supportive and non-judgemental. Caterina and Eugenia understand their own family explicitly as related to and building up the family of the church, and hope that the church will be able to overcome prejudices as their own biological families did (ch. 24). For Daniele, the ideal of the church as family, however, has so far not been realized as he fears that he will not be made welcome with his gay family and he regrets the internal division within the one family of the church that this reflects (ch. 4). Another metaphor often used in reflections about the church is that of a shared house whose doors are opened to all and in which all are made welcome (e. g. ch. 9). The spatial metaphor of the house whose doors represent the boundary between those who belong inside and those who should stay outside relates to Ahmed’s and Simmel’s description of strangers as those who reside in one’s space even as they are known as not belonging – who somehow sneaked through the closed doors.70 It has been used frequently in descriptions of the situation of LGBT Catholics as finding themselves in front of the closed doors of the church, wanting to get in.71 Using the metaphor of the church as a house, queer Catholics claim their belonging to this space whose boundaries – its doors – need to be opened to let in those who are considered strangers and outsiders. In the opening of doors, the distinction between inside and outside becomes blurred as the boundary that separates the two is made porous. In Gianni’s post, this idea meshes well with the understanding of the church as catholic in the sense of “universal:” excluding some from the communal house of the church is, according to him, a betrayal of the church’s mission to universality (ch. 19). However, this image is presented as an ideal or goal, which has not yet been realized in the experience of most authors. In fact, the actual experience with church is also described as excluding and judgemental (ch. 5), as a house where LGBT persons are not made welcome (ch. 14). Beyond the use of these metaphors, the authors further reflect on the nature of the church and offer a very complex understanding of it. They distinguish 69 Vatican II: 1964, no. 11. 70 Ahmed: 2000; Simmel: 1950. 71 Althaus-Reid: 2000, 116.

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between the perfect church as the body of Christ that includes all and the present imperfect realization of this ideal (ch. 19), between the hierarchy of the church with its homonegative statements and the often much more welcoming attitude of individual Catholics (ch. 12), between the church as institution and as a community of faith (ch. 4), and among the different realizations of the church in local parishes (ch. 9). They also describe the church as realized in different ways in its teaching, liturgy and service (ch. 8), and understand church as a reality-in-becoming, a people on the way and thus open to change (ch. 19). This differentiated understanding of what “church” means, which some authors support by references to the Bible and the Catholic tradition (ch. 19), provides an opportunity for LGBT Catholics to create a space to situate themselves “within” the space of the church in spite of the official teachings that place them “outside” it. For the authors, in order for the church to become a house with open doors, a space of welcome, it has to return to its roots in Christ and his message of inclusion. Thus any transformation that the authors demand is, in fact, represented as an opportunity for the church to become what it was meant to be and realize its true nature, with the current situation taken as an aberration from its original institution by Christ (chs. 17, 19). In the analysis of the themes of love, family and church, it becomes clear that the posts focus on an underlying sameness of values, lifestyles and relationships as the condition for equality and respect, but they also introduce shifts in how these notions are understood so that they can be inclusive of LGBT persons. Overall, LGBT identities as an explicit marker of difference are secondary in comparison to the sameness perceived in the shared profound commitment to love, family or church. This does not mean, however, that the authors deny their self-understanding as LGBT persons, and they are firm about the possibility of integrating sexual with religious identity, even if it is not always an easy journey (chs. 1, 4). In this negotiation of the wish to establish one’s “sameness” together with the appreciation of one’s “different” desires, two related sub-themes emerge: the belief in being created by God, and the idea of queer identities and sexualities as a gift given by God. Being created by God is used as an argument both to affirm a person’s inherent value (ch. 5), and to underline that sexual orientation is a part of an individual’s created nature and thus wanted by God: “Dio non commette errori” (God doesn’t make mistakes, ch. 1). Giulia, a disabled LGBT ally, underlines this notion in her post (ch. 16) by drawing a comparison between her disability and a person’s LGBT identity, implicitly presupposing a framework in which disability is not thought of as a deficiency but rather as a form of diversity, as are homosexuality, bisexuality and trans identities. As Giulia asks, if the church is able to recognize disabled persons as being created and loved by God as they are, why not also queer persons? This recourse to the doctrine of creation is often used in Christian LGBT communities to make sense of one’s sexual orientation within a context of

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faith,72 even if it might be problematic because it essentializes sexuality and promotes a deterministic idea of the human being.73 In the posts analyzed here, it becomes clear that this self-understanding as God’s creature is used with subtle complexity as it allows to underline at the same time sameness because all humans are created by God (ch. 7), and singularity because each human being is created as precisely this person and known and loved by God with their particularities (ch. 21). Connected with the idea of being created by God is the understanding of LGBT identities as a gift of the Creator God. As Daniele writes (ch. 4), God created him gay because God has a plan for him that will be fulfilled in the realization of this gift in his relationship with his husband. Vinicio (ch. 11) develops this idea further by drawing on the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:14–30). He understands being gay as his “talents,” the coins given him by God in order to use them and multiply them, and not to hide them, and he invests his talents in friendships, service, and witnessing his faith to other LGBT believers. Similarly, Gianni (ch. 19) understands the integration of his gay and Catholic identity as a vocation to be realized in following Christ as a gay Catholic. Graziano’s post (ch. 21) adds a further dimension as he writes about the conflict between his vocation to the priesthood and his identity as a gay man because the church does not admit gay men to the priesthood.74 When faced with the choice to follow his vocation, but hide his sexual orientation, or give up on his vocation to the priesthood but be able to be coherent with himself in his identity as a gay man, he chooses the latter – a painful process that leaves his unrealized vocation for the priesthood like a void in himself because he is not able to realize both gifts because of church regulations. Thus the posts argue that being (created as) an LGBT person is not a mistake, but rather one’s destiny and part of God’s plan for each individual. This also means that in contrast to magisterial teachings that speak of homosexuality as a cross to be borne and a desire to be denied in a life of chastity, one cannot hide or suppress this aspect of one’s identity without damaging one’s integrity and denying God’s will, and thus should not be asked to do so. With this argument, the tables are turned: it is not LGBT persons who contradict God’s created order in their unruly desires, but those who discriminate against them and inhibit them from living their lives according to God’s plan for them. Thinking of LGBT identities in terms of createdness and gift or vocation provides the theological grounds for an argument for difference in equality : as God’s children and creatures, all human beings have equal dignity, yet as each person is gifted with different talents by their creator, their differences are equally a part of God’s creation and thus should be affirmed and allowed to bear fruit for the individual and their community (ch. 20). 72 O’Brien: 2014, xix. 73 Jakobsen/Pellegrini: 2004, 94. 74 Congregation for the Clergy : 2016, no. 199.

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A final theme to explore here is the notion of difference or diversity as it is used by the authors to make sense of their identity and their relationship with the church. As mentioned before, the overarching tendency in the posts is to underline the common ground in terms of shared values and equal dignity in order to make a case for the inclusion of LGBT Catholics in the church. Yet difference also plays an important role. Primarily, the posts discuss the differences of sexual orientation or identity (ch. 1, 3), but occasionally also refer to the different being or singularity of each individual (ch. 12). Giulia argues for the recognition of all forms of diversity as valuable and “un meraviglioso dono della creazione” (a wonderful gift of creation, ch. 16). In his post, Gustavo affirms the need for difference, in particular the presence of the “different” (LGBT persons) in the church, as a gift because accepting diversity helps individuals to become better human beings and better believers as members of the all-inclusive people of God (ch. 12). Difference is thus, for Gustavo, not something to tolerate or even overcome, but something to appreciate as it contributes to the fulfillment of the potential of human beings as beings in relationship with others, whether believers or not. Yet the posts do not gloss over the ways in which being different can lead to suffering, exclusion and discrimination. In the first post, the lesbian author recognizes how being judged for being different has hurt her at the same time as it taught her respect for the stranger. She also acknowledges how being “different” helped her to become who she is and the richness that difference brings to the universal church (ch. 1). In a striking image, Antonino compares those who suffer from prejudice and discrimination for being different to those who live Holy Saturday without being able to see the dawn of Easter Sunday with its promise of the resurrection (ch. 6). In particular, the rhetoric of magisterial pronouncements that delegitimize homosexuality and same-sex unions is experienced as hurtful (chs. 2, 10). Vinicio recounts his realization of being gay and different as a painful moment when all certainties were destroyed, with the word of God as his only anchor (ch. 11). In fact, when faced with homo- and transphobic exclusion in church and society, the experience of an intimate, loving relationship with God and the biblical promise that each individual is loved by God exactly as they are offers important support for LGBT Catholics (ch. 4).75 In their reflections on queer sexuality as difference, the authors move between an affirmation of diversity as enriching and the acknowledgement of the negative consequences of discrimination that being different can have, even if those, too, might be appreciated as elements in the process of individual maturation (ch. 12). The difference that an LGBT identity represents in a heteronormative context such as the Catholic Church is, thus, acknowledged as a value in itself, but the authors also make it clear that it can develop its 75 For the relationship between the image of God and self-image of LGBT Catholics, see Deguara: 2018.

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positive potential only in a context that shares this appreciation of difference. Most of them do not yet see this realized in the church, but instead pose it as a goal for its future transformation. Writing as “strangers within,” those known as not belonging according to official teachings, yet claiming membership in the church because of their faith, the LGBT authors and their allies move in their posts in a “delicate dance”76 between acknowledging (and even foregrounding) shared values such as family or love, yet with the decisive difference of their love and families being queer; imagining the church as a house with open doors, while differentiating between church as hierarchy and the people of God; appreciating difference in all its forms, yet also denouncing the pain caused by discrimination for being different; hoping for inclusion, yet also realizing the need for change; drawing on biblical, theological and magisterial texts from the Catholic tradition, yet reinterpreting them in light of their own experience.

In Conclusion Crossing and recrossing the boundary between sameness and difference, LGBT Catholics represent the stranger in maybe its most problematic form for a hegemonic group, when the stranger can no longer be clearly identified and confined to the other side of the boundary. Instead, LGBT Catholics are strangers within, thus always threatening the subject and its identity by pointing out the inherent strangeness within any community.77 LGBT Catholics are known as strangers in a twofold sense:78 they are known in their not-belonging as those who diverge from the norm in their queer desires and identities, and they are known in their belonging as fellow Catholics who share beliefs, values and practices. Yet being known is not necessarily a path to inclusion, as Ammicht Quinn points out.79 Instead knowledge might be a means of oppression: in the case of LGBT persons, “knowing” often means knowing them only as sexual “deviants,” limiting their multifaceted identity to this one component, which then provides the cause for exclusion. Not surprisingly, then, the narratives written by LGBT Catholics and their allies in response to the initiative #chiesaascoltaci and addressed to the Catholic community at large, and the Pope more in particular, represent a careful negotiation of the known and the unknown. The metaphor of the stranger is used explicitly in only one post (ch. 19) in which the author references the story of the destruction of Sodom (Gen 19:1–29) – one of the 76 77 78 79

Delgado: 2014, 107. Sepidoza Campos: 2014, 161. Ahmed: 2000, 21. Ammicht Quinn: 2008, 10.

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texts traditionally used to condemn homosexuality – and discusses it as a story about hospitality and the commandment to welcome the stranger.80 However, the authors repeatedly describe themselves and their desires as “different,” while at the same time underlining their identity as members of the church. Thus the authors ambivalently position themselves at the same time at the outside asking for inclusion and welcome – for the doors of the church to be opened to let them “in” – and at the inside as members of the body of Christ in their own self-understanding as believers, loved by God and welcomed in the spaces of local parishes or lay communities. In negotiating this situation, they use two strategies in particular : one is the tendency to underline shared values and common ground, with difference mostly being subtly woven into the familiar, and only to a lesser degree explored as a theme of its own. Thus love is prominent as a shared value and ideal, yet in a way that opens it up to include queer love; family values are underlined, yet in order to make space for rainbow families; the doctrine of creation is used as an argument for the equal dignity of each human being, and to make the case that queer desires and identities are a part of creation and not a contradiction to the created order. The other strategy is to complexify concepts and ideas in order to open up spaces that allow the “other” to place themselves in an inside that is no longer coherent and unified. In particular, this is achieved through the complication of what it means to be church and thus the problematization of a presumed unified identity of the Catholic community. By distinguishing hierarchy from the people of God, the institutional church from the mystical body of Christ, official teachings from local pastoral realities, the church as it is imperfectly realized in history from its ideal as instituted by Christ, the authors question the idea of a predetermined space of belonging and become participants in outlining the space of the Catholic community in a new way so that the church becomes a space for LGBT persons to belong. In doing so, the authors make use of the instabilities of the church’s sexual teachings that I have outlined above, using their own experience as a source for theological reflections that become a lever to further open up the already existing gaps and fissures. The posts are thus also a reflection of a theology “done in the streets” and emerging from the experiences of loving and desiring which queer theology recognizes as an important contribution to the overall endeavor of “thinking God.” In doing so, the authors claim for themselves the authority to further develop the sensus fidei according to the doctrine of reception that Hornbeck and Norko discuss.81 Not least, the posts contribute to both knowing and unknowing LGBT Catholics as strangers within the Catholic Church. The testimonies offer insights into the life stories and experiences, hopes and desires of a group 80 On the interpretation of Genesis 19 see Bird: 2000, 147–149. 81 Hornbeck/Norko: 2014.

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considered strange and different and thus permit the reader to get to know them as individuals, an impression further reinforced through the use of names and photos in the posts. This movement of knowing is accompanied by one of unknowing as prejudices and presumptions are undone in moments of surprise, for example when some authors reveal themselves to be quite conservative in their desire for monogamous life-long love, or surprisingly loyal to a church that is considered by many to be the natural enemy of queer folk, or as individuals for whom the apparently contradictory identities as Catholic and queer are fully integrated. In their ambivalent “dance” (to return to Delgado’s metaphor) through pain and serenity, doctrine, theology and experience, LGBT Catholics move back and forth across the boundary that divides inside and outside, Catholic and LGBT identity. But as they reflect on what it means to be church, to love, to build community, to be created, they do not just move back and forth across a stable boundary, but blur and shift this boundary itself, and in doing so challenge the meaning and identity of those considered to be inside and out, creating new possibilities through their strange presence within. The analysis of the testimonies of LGBT Catholics thus shows that the presence of the stranger within the community does not necessarily have to reinforce boundaries and differences, but challenges the ways how “inside” is defined and what “sameness” means. Going beyond a rhetoric of the inclusion of the other into a community that does not have to change itself, the posts show in their reflections on values such as love or family and especially the meaning of “church,” that a fully inclusive church will be a different church, that sameness will no longer mean the same.

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Douglas, K. Brown (1999), Sexuality and the Black Church. A Womanist Perspective, Maryknoll: Orbis. Farley, M. (2005), Just Love. A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, New York: Continuum. Francis (2016), Amoris Laetitia. https://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/ apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amo ris-laetitia_en.pdf [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. Garelli, F. (2013), Flexible Catholicism, Religion and the Church. The Italian Case, in: Religions 4, 1–13. Goertz, S. (2016), Theologien des transsexuellen Leibes. Eine moraltheologische Sichtung, in: G. Schreiber, ed., Transsexualität in Theologie und Neurowissenschaften. Ergebnisse, Kontroversen, Perspektiven, Berlin: De Gruyter, 517–532. Gross, M./Yip, A.K.T. (2010), Living Spirituality and Sexuality. A Comparison of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Christians in France and Britain, in: Social Compass 57.1, 40–59. Hopkins, J.J. (2014), Sacralizing Queerness. LGBT Faith Movements and Identity Development, in: Y. Taylor/R. Snowdon, eds., Queering Religion, Religious Queers, New York: Routledge, 159–177. Hornbeck, J.P./Norko, M.A. (2014), Introduction, in: J.P. Hornbeck/M.A. Norko, eds., More than a Monologue. Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Volume II: Inquiry, Thought, and Expression, Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 1–24. Jakobsen, J.R./Pellegrini, A. (2004), Love the Sin. Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance, Boston: Beacon Press. John Paul II (1988), Mulieris Dignitatem. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/ en/apost_letters/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19880815_mulieris-dignitatem. html [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. Jordan, M. (2000), The Silence of Sodom. Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jung, P. Beattie (2014), God Sets the Lonely in Families, in: J.P. Hornbeck/M.A. Norko, eds., More than a Monologue. Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Volume II: Inquiry, Thought, and Expression, Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 115–133. Loughlin, G. (2007), Introduction. The End of Sex, in: G. Loughlin, ed., Queer Theology. Rethinking the Western Body, Oxford: Blackwell, 1–34. Massingale, B.N. (2016), Beyond “Who Am I to Judge?” The Sensus Fidelium, LGBT Experience, and Truth-telling in the Church, in: E. Hinze Bradford/P.C. Phan, eds., Learning from All the Faithful. A Contemporary Theology of the Sensus Fidei, Eugene: Pickwick Publ., 170–183. McGinley, D. (2004), Acts of Faith, Acts of Love. Gay Catholic Autobiographies as Sacred Texts, New York: Continuum. Meek, J. (2014), Conversations with God. Reconciling Religious Identities with Sexual Identities among Gay and Bisexual Men in Scotland, 1950–1999, in: Y. Taylor/R. Snowdon, eds., Queering Religion, Religious Queers, New York: Routledge, 101–116.

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Murphy, C. (2015), Most U.S. Christian Groups Grow More Accepting of Homosexuality, Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/ 18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/ [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. O’Brien, J. (2014), Outing Religion in LGBT Studies, in: Y. Taylor/R. Snowdon, eds., Queering Religion, Religious Queers, New York: Routledge, xi–xxii. Pollard, J. (2008), Catholicism in Modern Italy. Religion, Society and Politics Since 1861, London: Routledge. Povoledo, E. (2016), Italy Approves Same-sex Unions, The New York Times 11. 05. 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/europe/italy-gay-same-sex-un ions.html?_r=0 [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. Primiano, L.N. (2005), The Gay God of the City. The Emergence of the Gay and Lesbian Ethnic Parish, in: S. Thumma/E.R. Gray, eds., Gay Religion, Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 7–29. Radojcic, N. (2016), Building a Dignified Identity. An Ethnographic Case Study of LGBT Catholics, in: Journal of Homosexuality 63.10, 1297–1313. Reck, N. (2008), Dangerous Desires. Catholic Approaches to Same-sex Sexuality, in: M. Althaus-Reid/R. Ammicht Quinn/E. Borgmann/N. Reck, eds., Homosexualities, Concilium no. 1, 15–28. Salzman, T.A./Lawler, M.G., The Sexual Person. Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology, Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Sedgwick, E. Kosofsky (1990), Epistemology of the Closet, Berkeley : University of California Press. Simmel, G. (1950), The Stranger, in K. Wolff, ed., The Sociology of Georg Simmel, New York: Free Press, 402–408 Sepidosa Campos, M. (2014), Embracing the Stranger. Reflections on the Ambivalent Hospitality of LGBTIQ Catholics, in: J.P. Hornbeck/M.A. Norko, eds., More than a Monologue. Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Volume II: Inquiry, Thought, and Expression, Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 156–163. Tonstad, L.M. (2016), God and Difference. The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude, New York/London: Routledge. Tushnet, E. (2014), O Tell Me the Truth About Love, in: C.F. Hinze/J.P. Hornbeck, eds., More than a Monologue. Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Volume I: Voices of Our Times, Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 26–31. Vatican II. (1964), Lumen Gentium. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. Wetzel, D. (2014), Is It Possible to Be Queer and Catholic? Overcoming the “Silence of Sodom”, in: Y. Taylor/R. Snowdon, eds., Queering Religion, Religious Queers, New York: Routledge, 61–81. Wilcox, M. (2005), A Religion of One’s Own. Gender and LGBT Religiosities, in: S. Thumma/E.R. Gray, eds., Gay Religion, Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 203–220.

Hans-Günter Heimbrock/Trygve Wyller

Difference and Contested Humanity The Crisis of Migration and the Relief of the Preethical

Introduction Theology needs to reflect on the meaning of human dignity. This is especially important when it comes to discussions on migration and theology. Currently, the tense situation in migration politics in Europe is shaped especially by a rhetoric of us/them distinctions. The distinction is being used in the growing movements of right-wing populism (“we” do not want “them” in our country and culture). But theologians are also often quick to develop a discourse where “we” should act in support of “them.” Confronted with the still-challenging critique of possible epistemological violence,1 the theological task is to respect the distinction between a purely religious/spiritual language and a “philosophical” or universal discourse. We argue that observing this distinction helps to avoid binaries like us/them, and that a phenomenological analysis of encounter and difference can further contribute to achieving this goal. Our argument starts with a short discussion about migration as a fundamental threat to life. We then look at attempts to achieve an answer to this threat using the formula of “shared humanity” in important documents of religious dialogue. We proceed by taking up two narratives stemming from the practices of working with refugees, one from a language teaching project for migrants in Frankfurt and one relating a seemingly insignificant episode in Lampedusa. The narratives and their interpretations are the central part of this article. Continuing from this type of phenomenologically inspired fieldwork, we then focus on the nature and hidden illusions of “encounter.” We conclude by developing a type of theology of difference in connection with the above analysis. In spite of this clear outline, an ambiguity always remains in this field of research. We always need to remember that we do research on migration, one of the most precarious parts of human life. To be conscious and aware of this context is one way to address and be permanent conscious of the threat of epistemological violence.

1 Castro-Gomez: 2002.

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Damaged Life: Action and Recognition The first European drama did not tell a harmless and exciting adventure story. Instead, it told a story about flight and asylum-seekers, about the violation of the rights of refugees, attempts to appeal to the divine, and the catastrophes resulting when the rights of refugees were disregarded. The oldest surviving play in the European literary tradition, the Suppliants by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, tells the tragic story of fifty young women who fell victim to the reason of state. The women have to flee across the Mediterranean Sea and find shelter in the Greek city of Argos. King Pelasgos has to make a difficult decision: either he refuses to give the women asylum and thus violates divine right, or he grants them protection and consequently risks war with the powerful Egyptians who are following the refugees. The tragedy deals with the fundamental constellation of displacement, flight, and asylum, connecting these issues with the obligation of the state to grant safety to its own citizens as well as to those seeking protection. The piece ends in a catastrophe. In 2013, the famous Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek took this ancient piece of Aeschylus as inspiration for her own piece, The Suppliants, in order to criticize the inhumane internment of refugees in Austria, connecting the issue with the protest camp in the Vienna Votivkirche in 2012. Since the days of Aeschylus, literature has most sensitively mirrored damaged life. The parallel between the antique drama and today’s reality is shocking. There is something threatening and ethically fundamentally wrong in the way in which Europe deals with migration on the national and international level. What is lacking is a discussion in which current politics is related to some basic knowledge of what is common to every life. Even if the political solution is not to accept all migrants, it has to be recognized that rejecting migrants contradicts some fundamental insights that have been a part of the European legacy for many centuries – even if the idea of a common ground of universal values of humankind has also been a contested issue throughout European history. On the one hand, the growing number of people risking almost everything to escape from civil war, oppression, and terror mobilizes huge efforts in civil societies, national administrations, NGOs, churches, and individual citizens to provide integration, better living conditions, housing, and educational programs. On the other hand, one cannot neglect the fact that there are also counterforces at work that aim to separate foreigners from one’s own nation and close (and keep closed) the borders, mental as well as geopolitical. The attempt of the current US president to build a wall along the Mexican border is only one striking example. Conservative right-wing populists, and to some extent even racist, groups, are growing in almost all European countries (Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, France, the Netherlands,

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Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Serbia). They try to influence political decisions by founding new parties and/or by putting pressure on governments and established parties. And they stimulate a political climate in which hostility, racism, and brutal violence against migrants is no longer a taboo. The late Zygmunt Baumann called this challenge: “Strangers at our door,”2 in his last, posthumously published book. Life is in danger. As we are confronted with the images and the concrete experiences of people being fenced in, drowned, deported, etc., how is it possible to develop a normative framework that offers a critical reflection of the living conditions of migrants beyond the trivialities of everyday politics? Does an ethical demand emerge from life itself, a demand to prevent atrocities against other human beings, despite any and all cultural and political differences? This crucial question challenges especially religions and religious individuals and groups. How to develop the normativity inherent in life itself and at the same time not fall into the trap of exerting epistemological violence by using certain forms of describing life circumstances? Epistemological violence occurs every time a researcher describes or presents refugees in ways they would never use themselves, forcing them into categories that are the researcher’s, not their own.

A Shared Humanity? We can recognize prominent attempts of religious leaders to respond to the ways in which migration threatens humanity by declaring shared values of humanity. In the Joint Statement of Pope Francis, the Swedish Archbishop Antje Jackel8n and the General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, from October 2016, the issue of migration is addressed in the following way : “We urge Lutherans and Catholics to work together to welcome the stranger, to come to the aid of all those forced to flee because of war and persecution, and to defend the rights of refugees and those who seek asylum. More than ever before, we realize that our joint service in this world must extend to God’s creation, which suffers exploitation and the effects of insatiable greed.”3 Ecumenical statements like this one are often formulated in a very general and abstract way, in a language that needs some high-level insider knowledge in order to understand their implicit messages. But the passage above also clearly shows that the church leaders were trying to find a common ethical ground as the motivation for welcoming the stranger. Refugees have rights because all human beings are part of God’s creation. This reasoning seems to represent a sincere effort to overcome the inhumane us/them binary by 2 Baumann: 2016. 3 Joint Statement: 2016, 3.

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developing a more general ethical argument. There is a reason why “we” should welcome the stranger, and this reason is that we all have one common ground – and that is creation, even if creation as the normative ground is also a contested issue in the challenges posed by migration, because not everybody shares the biblical faith of humankind being created by God. Furthermore, the human rights of refugees and the right to asylum also represent a common ground, even if the far right sometimes does not accept them. Nonetheless, the “natural law” is there. Thus both from a religious (creation) and from a more secular worldview (rights), there are traditions that address the common ground of a shared humanity as motivation for why one should or could act in support of refugees. The same attitude may also be found in other, parallel traditions. One example is The St. Andrews Declaration on a Shared Humanity. In September 2016, a group of high-ranking religious, diplomatic, and community leaders from Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist backgrounds came together for an interfaith meeting at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. During their meeting, they developed and proclaimed a solemn eleven-point declaration to foster a “shared humanity.” The formula of “shared humanity” in this declaration is used to overcome difference, to foster connectedness, and to promote encounter and mutual respect of all human beings irrespective of their particular religious affiliation. The declaration states important shared values such as the equality of all human beings and everybody’s fundamental right to individual religious freedom. Based on these common convictions, the document deals with religious diversity in a particular way that respects other religious orientations, on the basis that “we share a common path towards the Absolute.”4 Like the Joint Statement between Pope Francis and the Lutheran leadership, the St. Andrews Declaration is based on an ethical common denominator : we need to act in support of strangers because we share something with them. And what we share is part of the common humanity not restricted by a confessional border. Both statements are united in their reliance on an abstract principle of universality. In our following reflections, we sympathize with the efforts reflected in these two statements in a search for a shared humanity, efforts that argue from the position of ethics, not from the position of morality. What is important in these two statements is that they postulate that the humanity all share can be discovered from within a religious tradition. Their position is that there is a universal ethic inherent in all religions. In our view, such a position is an important contribution to overcoming epistemological violence. Migrants should be able to expect to be treated with dignity because all human beings are connected in mutual interdependence. This experience of mutual interdependence is crucial. If we are interdepend4 St Andrews: 2016, no. 4.

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ent, the we/them binary should not happen; we need to meet people not as alien guests, but as fellow humans. Strangers but, nevertheless, fellow humans. This is one ethical platform that helps to avoid epistemological violence. Yet, different from the two statements discussed above, in the following we do not argue on an abstract level. The statements refer to a common humanity (called “creation” in the discourse of faith), but they do this in a utopian, abstract way. It is the nature and purpose of official statements and declarations such as these not to go into concrete details. Without blaming them for this, however, we have to note that they do not only leave out practical steps, but what concerns us more, they do not ask for further clarification about the epistemological basis of “shared humanity,” and they do not clarify whether this shared humanity is to be achieved in terms of “sameness” or “otherness.” Thus, we think that the ethical argument must be developed further in two ways: First, by paying attention to lived life, to the lifeworlds of real encounters and real contexts. Under such concrete circumstances one should look for the practices that implicitly open up and comment on the ethical argument. Second, by reflecting on how to conceive and understand the encounter with the “other” in a philosophical discourse. And here, we need to take a closer look at how to understand “difference.” One inspiring contribution to these theoretical reflections comes from the French physician and anthropologist Didier Fassin. In his 2016 Adorno Lectures held in Frankfurt, Fassin combines theoretical reflection and reflections on his fieldwork with migrants in the Calais jungle and in the “dark buildings” of Johannesburg.5 These extended case studies (like several others before) enable, or better, force Fassin to describe “forms of life” (Ludwig Wittgenstein) not departing from an ideal humanity but as cases of “precarious life.”6 Fassin’s way of encountering and participating in the lives of other human beings does not result from social romanticism or helper’s syndrome. To participate in a reflective way in precarious conditions of life seems to be a most unusual and even risky way to acquire philosophical insight into “forms of life.” Yet Fassin insists on the intellectual necessity to combine the empirical with the reflective. His theoretical project has a farreaching aim for social theory : “Dabei handelt es sich darum, eine Lebensform zu beschreiben und zu analysieren, die das Imaginäre der Gesellschaft der Gegenwart heimsucht und ein Sinnbild für die zeitgenössische Welt darstellt: das prekäre transnationale Nomadentum, das Flüchtlinge und Migranten, Asylsuchende und Ausländer ohne gültige Papiere verkörpern.”7 5 Fassin: 2017. 6 Butler: 2004. 7 Fassin: 2017, 61. “The question is how to describe and analyze a life form that haunts the imagination of modern society and represents a symbol of the contemporary world: the precarious and transnational nomadism embodied by refugees, migrants, asylum-seekers and undocumented immigrants.” (Translation by the authors.)

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This form of critical anthropology might offer an important impulse for theology. We cannot recognize life without encountering it, namely, life in other forms than those of the white, Western middle-class. Fassin’s interpretation of the precarious life of modern nomads is a good starting point to finding a position based on real encounters because nomads and natives also share many conditions of life. They live connected lives, life forms responding to other life forms. This lived response is prior to any more reflective and cognitive discourse. This kind of primary response among people is what phenomenologists often call “the preethical.”8 This notion is meant to convey that, even before we act (ethically) we are predisposed by immediate, largely embodied responses9 and touch.10 These embodied responses are what the phenomenologists name and analyze in order to understand the basis of “shared humanity.” Being part of the other’s skin, meeting their eyes, opening our hands – all these things are small preethical elements that shape our lives. They are called “preethical” to signal that the responses and touches come before we even think of acting ethically. They are also called “preethical” in order to indicate that they are the starting points of ethics. Departing from this embodied ethical framework, Ahmed (2000) distinguishes between stranger and alien. The migrant traveling to “us” is not an alien, but a stranger because we share a preethical sensory connection with them. We do not know them, and so they are strangers, but they are not alien because of our shared preethical connection. Therefore, there is a need for preethical reflections that go beyond beseeching ethical values like those in the declarations mentioned above, and beyond the mere “diversity management” of contemporary societies. We must go back to (or underneath) an ethic that represents the migrant as the alien and accordingly develops forms of epistemological violence but not ethics. Instead, it is important to reflect on the cultural experience of otherness and interactions with the stranger. Universality is, phenomenologically speaking, not part of the surface; it lies beneath. Thus, one can easily be a stranger and still be connected to others through touch and response. Therefore one might be connected by sensory experiences and still be a stranger. This is why to start with the concrete encounter of “damaged life” prevents from the na"ve subscription of “shared humanity.” It also prevents theology from engaging in the age-old abstract talk about human beings as sinners. The aim of theological reflection on the current situation of people forced to flee might not be identical to that of anthropological reflection. Like critical anthropologists, theologians would have to get in touch with concrete embodied forms of “precarious life.” In addition, theologians ab ovo try to 8 Løgstrup: 1990; Merleau-Ponty : 1945. 9 Løgstrup: 1997. 10 Ahmed: 2000; Rivera: 2007.

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recognize fellow human beings in need as “created in the image of God,” even when their concrete deprived lives and our poor attempts to get into contact with them seem to contradict the idea that human beings really are images of God. If a theological answer wants to avoid the pitfalls of naive solutions, one has to be aware of a fundamental epistemological problem regarding “difference.” Is there something that might connect persons without colonizing them at the same time? How does one balance the fundamental norms of charity and hospitality with a new interpretation of what encounter and connectedness mean? Is there a way to reinterpret “shared humanity” in a less naive way, say, through the concrete experiences of the ever-present violation of humanity? A sufficient answer will be achieved only through experiences of difference.

Case Studies In order to elaborate these questions further, we analyze two cases, one from the context of German language classes for migrants and the second from reggae rehearsal in a basement in Lampedusa, Italy. The cases are completely different, but they both respond to the same question: where is an ethics of migration situated? Or even: where do we start with a theology that faces the miseries of migration? Both cases provide an opportunity to reflect on encounter and connectedness in a fresh way. Linda During the Winter term 2015/2016, the first author of this article (Heimbrock) took part in a voluntary project organized by Frankfurt University called “Smarter Start ins Deutsche” (Smart Start into German), which provided additional language training for refugees who were staying in provisional housing in Frankfurt. The educational background of the refugees participating in the project was very diverse, including persons illiterate in any language, those who could write and read Arabic or Farsi, and those who had an academic degree in their countries of origin. The five-month project asked every participating student to teach six hours per week of language instruction at one of the refugee centers, with two students-team teaching a two-hour lesson each. In addition, each volunteer had to take part in a supervision group that met every third week. This case study focuses on some moments in one of the supervision groups in which I took part. Linda is a graduate student in the humanities. In this project, she works together with Anne, a third-year law student. She and Anne are sent to offer courses in a former gym next to the university campus, a huge hall where more

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than 300 refugees from various countries found a primitive shelter and are now waiting for what the city administration can offer to make their living conditions more acceptable. Linda is very motivated to play an effective role and to help people to learn at least a small bit of German, and she is highly sensitive about what is going on and also about what is going wrong in the classes she teaches with Anne. In several supervision sessions she volunteers to discuss her work and problems. At first she talks about her utter frustration that, time and again, despite her time-consuming preparation, only three of the fifteen students (mostly with Arabic ethnic backgrounds) that gather in a side room to the large hall really follow her instructions on the blackboard or on a handout with words and simple pictures. Some are busy on their mobile phones looking up translations of German words in Arabic or Farsi, some look as if they do not understand a single word, some are obviously illiterate and try hard to sort of paint the letters at the blackboard, others simply look bored. Linda feels uneasy in her role as a teacher in this situation. She realizes that the instructional material in the textbook does not work as expected because of the diverse educational backgrounds of the students. Uneasy with what she feels to be her obligation, after a while Linda decides to just skip what she takes to be the prescribed material and spontaneously proposes to her co-teacher to take the whole group of fifteen students and visit the famous Frankfurt Senckenberg Museum of Natural History. It seems to be a good alternative activity. According to her, most members of the group appreciate this excursion. At the end one older male student emphatically shakes hands with her to say “thank you” and “good-bye,” an unexpected gesture with which Linda is particularly impressed. Nevertheless, she has strong feelings of guilt and feels unhappy to have switched from language instruction to mere entertainment. “That can’t be it, this is no longer proper teaching. I felt more like I was doing animation on a cruise ship,” she resumes emphatically. She is at the point of leaving the project. It takes the supervision group almost an hour to help Linda become aware of the underlying inner conflict between feeling obliged to fulfill her role as a language teacher and taking the initiative to give this role up for an hour and do other things with the refugees for one afternoon. At the end of the session, Linda seems open to the idea that her flexible approach was not completely irresponsible regarding the overall project goals. A month later it is again Linda’s turn to present a case for our supervision group. In the meantime, she and Anne have done a mixed program with bits of the German courses using the textbook and some alternative offers. For that day, two hours before our meeting, they creatively and carefully prepare a visit to another famous Frankfurt museum of children’s books. They buy the tickets for the bus trip, make clear announcements for everybody when and where to gather in order to be on time (because two hours later the group

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should be ready again to take their normal language class in the gym). They even persuade the director of the museum to do a guided tour for the group. However, this time, it is again a very frustrating experience for Linda. Not everybody is there on time, some are considerably late which makes it stressful for Linda and Anne to get through their program and be back on time. And not all members in the group are truly enthusiastic about this excursion; some display their lack of interest quite bluntly to the director. Linda is very disappointed and angry. Eventually, the group conversation touches a sensitive point. Tentatively, we ask Linda about her contacts to the migrants. One of the supervisors puts forward questions such as: “What do you know about your group members’ experiences of their life in their gym today? What are they going to do when you leave them back in their hall?” Linda is completely perplexed. And the whole group of five students shares this perplexity. During the following conversation, the students are invited to think about the refugees’ background, for example, their experiences of war at home, their flight under the most difficult circumstances, having to wait for months at the border in order to get into Germany, and now their experiences of a daily routine in collective housing without any privacy, with very little structure, waiting all day long to get the desired documents and a job and better housing; waiting, waiting, waiting. The students pick up on this topic with growing engagement, and all of them agree rather quickly that it would be highly desirable for them to know at least a little bit more about the living conditions of the migrants in their groups. But they confess that, so far, they have not tried to do so. It is the first time during the whole project that we share experiences about encountering others, successful and less successful ones. However, up to the end of the session there remains blank astonishment that the challenge to encounter the refugees personally never has seemed to be a major problem for them, nor has it been of interest in the preparation for their job. Lampedusa The second case is from Lampedusa. It is a very moving experience to walk and drive on a bright and innocent day through this symbolic place where so many people have drowned just beyond the shore. The second author (Wyller) visited this island for a short period in 2016, invited by a religious organization called Mediterranean Hope. This organization is run jointly by Catholics and Protestants, and the goal is to facilitate, improve, and assist, to inform and advocate. The island belongs to Italy and thus Europe, but the distance to Libya to the South is in fact shorter than to mainland Italy. For many years Lampedusa has been one of the main landing sites for North African migrants. They usually come in small boats, and many of them drown while trying to

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cross the Mediterranean. When Pope Francis was elected, his first visit, a very symbolic gesture, was to Lampedusa. At the very top of the island, there is a deep narrow valley that cuts between the rocks. If one walks up to the top and looks down one can see the reception center. It is a long way from the peak down to the buildings of the refugee center, so one can sit on the top and watch people walking, looking tiny at a distance, some children playing and cars moving. The center is closed in with fences and guarded by police as well as visually prominent military guards. Although it is called a “reception center,” it looks very much like a policed space, like a camp – and indeed it is a camp, in the Agambian sense of a state of exception.11 One sees a fenced space, but one observes it from the outside and cannot enter. And this is the goal and intention of the center. It is organized to fence people out and not to let them in. It is a colonial, untouchable space that separates the “others” from many sensory perceptions, from the sounds, scents, and sights of everyday life. The colonial power persists in the very structure of the reception center. The other, the refugee, is a fetish one is not supposed to touch. Here we find, in a glimpse, the concrete illustration of what the colonial is in a phenomenological interpretation: being prevented from touching other bodies because implicitly the embodied encounter would raise awareness of the level of the preethical. In Lampedusa, I also encounter a lot of classical, visible religion. The dominant religious institution on the island is the Catholic Church – in fact, the only church on the island is Catholic. Inside the church building one finds symbolic artifacts relating to migration. There is the sculpture of a small boat with people almost falling out of it, a gift to the church from the Pope when he visited. The boat is obviously meant to signify both the boat of the disciples and one of the dangerous refugee boats. However, this is not the only representation of religion on Lampedusa. Another kind of religious presence is that of the organizations working on the island, such as the organization called Mediterranean Hope, which invited me to visit. The organization is co–chaired by the Protestant Chiesa Valdese and the Catholic community Sant’Egidio. They do advocacy work, provide information, and assist when the boats with exhausted people come into the harbor at night. One of the goals of the organization is to empower those migrants who can leave the reception center for some hours during daytime, and one of their offers is music recording. Three musicians from the island and from other European countries constructed a professional recording studio in a basement of the city center. They invite interested migrants to sing and record their songs with two goals in mind: to provide the opportunity to experience a different life, life elsewhere, and to sing as a subject, not only as a fenced-in migrant. The other goal is obviously to collect and document 11 Agamben: 2005.

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migrant music, both for the migrant community and for research purposes. Thus, the church-based organization Mediterranean Hope facilitates solidarity work among the local population and music recordings for selected refugees. On the day I was in the recording studio, two young migrants from two different North African countries had come to the basement. One of them was particularly good, a great rapper who rapped some songs in his native language, taking advice and critique from the musicians in the project. The lyrics were not that creative when translated, but the rhythm and his embodied presence were very impressive. What I remember most of the encounter are sensory perceptions, sounds, scents, sights, touch, and very little conversation. During the recording, the refugee rap artist constructs, for a short while, a new post-refugee identity and subjectivity. All of us in the dark basement room share an embodied, sensory presence, as we all, albeit in different ways, become part of something bigger, something that stretches beyond that specific event. The joy and the relaxed atmosphere among us in this symbolic room reflects our proximity to a form of life that reveals the preethical experience in embodied responses and touch. In other words, it is a moment to experience the basics of life and the joy of being a part of it, being part of “something more.”

Embodied Encounters These two cases represent concrete situations and circumstances, when people come together from entirely different backgrounds and lifeworlds in order to help with activities for the human beings in refugee camps and shelters. A closer look at these two scenes provides insight into the complex dynamics of the practices of caring and support. Both cases can be interpreted in accordance with our overall goal of understanding the encounter with the other as supporting the ideal of a “shared humanity” discussed above. However, neither of them focuses on an abstract ethical discourse. The cases realistically indicate the ambivalent and even contradictory elements of how to practically live “shared humanity” during an encounter. The case of the German language course shows that in itself an encounter is not enough; there is something missing. In the Lampedusa case, the anticipation of “something more” emerges, and the implication is that the embodied and sensory dimension lies at the basis of this “more.” In political and ethical discourses about intercultural relations and migration, “encounter” is often used as a key term to point toward the practice of mutual understanding, rather than separation or even racist segregation. However, this term is used in a highly normative way with the promise of a positive change in attitudes and relationships. The encounter that we remember from our own experiences or those of others is more than just

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indifferently passing by somebody, it is more than just a chance meeting. It has a value based on positive connotations, even if not all encounters make us happier and some are even “mis-encounters.”12 Often, “encounter” functions as a conceptual wildcard to promote a conglomerate of new and old goals and projects. The subtext is that nobody but right-wing populists could really object to encounter with its promises of understanding and peace. Thus, we first need to offer a broader analysis of the notion of encounter, including its deficiencies.13 In addition, we should move away from the normative understanding of “encounter” and see the concept in light of the actual experiences of people in situations of encounter. Our two case studies are instructive in this respect. Linda’s experience of shaking hands with one of the refugees and their visit to the museum as well as the sensory experience of the migrant musician in the basement reveal a space for taking the embodied ways of togetherness seriously and for feeling differently. Thus, it is necessary to reflect on the embodied, sensory dimension of encounter, not the least in the context of migration and religion. It is helpful to contextualize the two cases in a broader phenomenological understanding of encounter. We can identify several characteristics of encounter as a basic phenomenon in life.14 Encounters take place in everyday life; some might be unimportant to us, others are very memorable. In itself, an encounter is an unspecific situation. Experiences of encounter are part of everyday life experiences. Their quality can be described more precisely as reaching from a “fleeting” meeting to “deep” contacts. An encounter is a social situation in which a human being is involved in a specific way, namely, as a subject. It is I who experiences something or somebody in more or less close contact, coming into contact with him or her. Human beings do not encounter something or somebody in their mind only, but in their mind-body unity, with their senses and feelings. Encounter presupposes a face-to-face contact in which one turns one’s front toward what one is encountering. One cannot encounter something or somebody with one’s back. An encounter, though not explicitly marked, takes place in a specific moment in space and time. The ingredients of encounter are perception and movement. Coming into contact via an encounter demands my moving from myself toward an external point of reference, or vice versa a movement by something toward me. It has a beginning and an end. It might be as fragile as a handshake or something more long-lasting, but in any case, it is a passing event. An encounter always includes a moment or an element of otherness, of strangeness, or even opposition.15 Germanic as well as Romanic translations of 12 13 14 15

Van Manen: 1990, 84 quotes Buber (1986) in a Dutch translation from 1970. Heimbrock/Scholtz: 2016, 92–99. Cf. Heimbrock: 2009. Buitendijk: 1950.

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“encounter” convey this dimension: “en-counter,” “Be-Gegnung,” “encontrar,” “in–contrare,” “ren-contre,” “ont-moeting” “møte.” One can hardly encounter oneself. Encounter presupposes an elementary acknowledgment of otherness. Again, this leads us to the idea that there is something more involved and experienced in an encounter, that is, in the preethical aspects that condition our lives. This “something more” is the joy and the surprise of being part of the encounter. Especially encounters between human beings demand moving from the detached observation of another person toward acknowledging them as another human subject. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber elaborated the essence of encounter in terms of an I-Thou relationship.16 According to Buber, another human being is “the being counter.” In the I-Thou relationship, there is neither I nor Thou, but instead the encounter leads to the acknowledgment of the difference between the two who meet and even to the realization of this difference as a third within or by way of close contact. However, no single encounter between human beings as “I” leads to complete and total contact. Human encounter on earth always consists of disclosing oneself toward the other and at the same time of closing oneself off, of intimate proximity and distance. The difference between I and Thou continues, but on a higher or deeper level. In Buber’s view, encounters often happen between the I and other persons, but as he points out, they might also be possible with nonhuman objects, nature, or even impersonal phenomena within nature. These are encounters only if the things we encounter are no longer only material things as “objects” but develop a will (or presence) of their own (“Eigensinn”). As the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty states: “La chose […] s’offre / la communication perceptive comme un visage familier dont l’expression est aussitit comprise.”17 In an encounter, one is not directed toward an object with the goal of acquiring a specific content of reality perception. Instead, it reflects a general attitude toward reality. Encounter is a specific kind of interaction, a specific kind of dialogical movement. To encounter something or someone is a part of human behavior that reaches beyond transitive or strategic activities. Or, at a minimum, it might, with the Dutch anthropologist Frederik Buytendijk, be called an action with a “twofold intentionality,” combining an active and passive mood.18 An encounter, presupposing an I, likewise presupposes the ability of the person to step beyond the self and to enter into an exchange with another person or a nonhuman element and to be affected by the atmosphere.

16 Buber: 2008. 17 Merleau-Ponty : 2008, 372. “The thing offers itself to the perceptive communication as a familiar face whose expression is immediately understood.” (Translation by the authors.) 18 Buytendijk: 1950.

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Thus, the result of an encounter is not the dissolution of the I and its center but a sort of transformation. This closer look at the concept of encounter and in particular at its experience allows for a more differentiated analysis of the phenomenon, going beyond value-laden intellectual ideals. An encounter is always a fragile event with ambivalent expectations about the other. Our analysis especially underlines the point that encounter is fully understood only if we realize its nature as an embodied event. But even this element of embodiment contains ambivalences and incongruencies. As already mentioned, Sara Ahmed focuses on the significance of the body in human encounters.19 For her, the body, not consciousness, comes first. Ahmed’s reflections on embodiment are useful for the analysis of the two cases presented above. Both Linda and the nameless rapper are narrated in such a way that the narrating subject or the observer (i. e., the authors) is part of the narrated encounter. This means, according to Ahmed, that both Linda and the rapper are “strangers,” but not absolute others. And this again implies that Ahmed and the phenomenology of encounter represent significant ways to move beyond epistemological violence. The phenomenologically conscious observer who is also a participant experiences the embodied (or preethical, what we called “something more”) connections between the rapper/Linda and himself. This leads to an analysis in which we avoid seeing the migrants as others because they are in fact a part of a shared preethical embodied awareness. The joy of the “something more” experienced in the encounter is that migrants are strangers, but not others. Our body is not something we have; our body consists of our meeting others, perceiving others, touching others. In addition, and most importantly in our context, because my body is my act of sensing the other, I can no longer speak about the other as someone totally outside me. I sense the other and become aware of both myself and the other in this sensing. This is why Ahmed warns against perceiving the other as an object. Because I am already connected to the other through my senses, the other is not totally outside me; rather, our senses connect us so that the other becomes part of my lifeworld before I even notice it. This is the so-called preethical basis for phenomenology. The decisive moment is that we sense each other before we think. Our embodied connectedness is the crucial point, meaning that no one is totally other, because the senses connect and bind us without even knowing it. Therefore, the blunt binary of us/them is insufficient because it does not reflect the complexity at stake when an encounter is experienced. One specific argument from Ahmed further reinforces the ambivalence of the encounter just mentioned. Ahmed claims that our sensibility and intentionality prevent us from looking at the other as a fetish, as a thing we 19 Ahmed: 2000.

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can operate on. Here is an opening to rediscover what we called “shared humanity.” With this point, Ahmed (2000) offers a critique of Levinas. Ahmed thinks Levinas paradoxically has contributed to the othering of the other by postulating that the other is out of our reach. Ahmed disagrees based on a phenomenology of the body. Skin, touch, taste, all senses connect and make us different, but not other. Ahmed’s reflections are important contributions to understanding the normative impact of the case of the migrant rapper in Lampedusa. The fundamental point here is precisely the significance of the phenomenological basics, namely, that we sense before we think and speak in a cognitive way. The rapper in the basement connects with me (Wyller) because, through our being here together in this room, we share the awareness of sound, smell, and sight. So, the (Mediterranean) hope, to refer back to the name of the organization that made this event possible, is that the rapper can leave the exceptional state of the camp and experience that humanity is about sharing and being connected, without neglecting the fact that as people come together, they still remain subjects from different lifeworlds. This is true despite the fact that the present right-wing and populist Italian government is trying to prevent just such embodied encounters. The Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, has called for a ban on NGO ships landing in Italy. But Salvini’s position is the most utopian position ever. There will always be rappers who respond to sound and sight and touch; there will always be refugees who touch people and shake their hands. The migration “threat” cannot simply be made to disappear or willed away.

Taking up Difference: Experiencing and Reflecting on “Shared Humanity” Our phenomenological analysis of the two case studies above and our subsequent reflection on embodied encounters leads us to a bottom-up understanding on “shared humanity.” We need a methodological and hermeneutical approach that allows us to move beyond the simple binary of us/them and its implicit epistemological violence. In this section, we now combine the input of critical anthropology and phenomenology with theology. We want to contribute to a reflective type of theology that does not start with proclamations of doctrine but with both the insights of empirical analysis and more philosophical presuppositions that shape our theological discussion and the conception of the ethical dimension of discussions on migration. Thus, our question here is: what would be the benefit of introducing the reference to God into the reflection on the embodied encounters narrated in

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the cases above? Does this truly lead to new insights into what “difference” is and means? Migration and “God-talk” Some substantial theological contributions attempt to deal with the challenges of the migration crisis. One of them was formulated by Hans Joachim Sander (2015) from the perspective of Catholic post-Vatican II fundamental theology. Sander does not start with the question of what to do or which human values to share, but instead of how to conceive of the situation theologically. His project aims at connecting the ethical issue of the disregard of human rights with the issue of discovering God’s presence in the world. His point is that the phenomenon of forced migration must be reread as a “sign of the times,” to which not only action but also faith has to relate. The age-old question of where and how to know God and recognize God’s presence on earth cannot be answered with reference to scripture and tradition only. The attempt to answer this question can find new motivation not in the utopia of “shared humanity,” but instead in the heterotopia of life – in places at the margins of power. “It is not that difficult to search for God in places like Lampedusa […] Such belongs to God’s preferred spaces.”20 Consequently, the Christian churches must perceive migration as a central issue in the attempt to understand current life in its relation to faith. Sander claims that such a theology is capable of overcoming “a severe deficit in God-talk.”21 This is obviously also an ethical and not a moral position. Sander does not argue morally for a specific action but discusses why an action is ethically valid from a theological position.22 Yet, we ask what follows from such a theological rereading of “God” for overcoming the deficits in conventional discussions about human life? Sander’s argument does not remain hermetically closed off in religious language; he opens up theology for philosophical reflection, in his case Foucault’s phenomenological concept of “heterotopia,” in order to reinterpret “God-talk.” Yet do these reflections maintain an awareness of “difference” in Ahmed’s sense? We are not absolutely convinced. The problem is that Sander’s point of departure is not located in embodied experiences. Consequently, he loses the embodied common ground that we have found in the cases above. In Protestant theology, there is a broad theological consensus about God as the radical Other. However, some theological traditions refuse to develop this idea further beyond the language of faith and are therefore never able to approach the intentional level of embodied sensibilities. God’s otherness, these authors argue, demands confessional language and cannot be captured 20 Sander : 2015, 42. 21 Sander : 2015, 42. 22 See also Sander: 2014a and 2014b.

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in the language of “the world.” John Milbank is an example of this position.23 Other scholars – Catholic as well as Protestant – who attempt to formulate theological answers to migration24 can also be associated with this position. They represent migration as a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jesus, as a second exodus, etc. Other traditions within Protestant (especially Lutheran) theology, however, claim that theology has an inherently philosophical dimension. Theology as an academic endeavor cannot argue with a specific reference to “faith” alone; it also needs to disclose the philosophical positions to which it is committed. Twentieth-century theologians like Gerhard Ebeling and K.E. Løgstrup belong to this tradition.25 The basic argument is that, since God is the God of all humanity and all nature, the language of faith needs to recognize languages that seemingly are not those of faith. Faith is precisely the discovery of what we already share, in the sharing of God self. This theological reference to philosophy is particularly relevant when we try to explain the reference to God in the context of migration, precarious life, and shared humanity. Based on the phenomenological positions discussed above, we claim that these phenomenological observations and interpretations are also crucial when the embodied material belongs to religious practices. Religious discourses and practices need to seek for what is most inherent to the preethical. This position is crucial if we are to avoid the epistemological violence of the us/them binary,26 when “we” interpret the experiences and subjectivities of “them” (migrants) too quickly as traveling in the footsteps of Jesus, for example, instead of discovering the embodied connectedness that both migrants and researchers share. By using Christian language in this unreflective, globalizing way, one contributes – maybe even unintentionally – to epistemological violence simply by reducing someone to “them” and thus dehumanizing them. It might very well be that “they” are human like “us.” This means that the issue of religion and difference also is an issue of potential violence. Religions need to permanently reflect on how their proud spiritual discourse can end in something that is no reason for pride, namely, the creation of us/them binaries.

The Epistemological Violence of Binaries This issue of epistemological violence belongs, then, to a broader discussion. It leads us back to critical anthropology. Above we referred to Didier Fassin and 23 24 25 26

Milbank: 1990. Groody : 2002; Snyder: 2012. Ebeling: 1995; Løgstrup: 1990. Castro-Gomez: 2002.

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his critical anthropology of migration.27 Fassin concludes that these projects often remain within an us/them binary despite all good intentions. Migrants continue to be thought of as others, not as our kin, and thus we attribute them less than “shared humanity.” The French anthropologist Michel Agier takes the same critical approach.28 Agier and colleagues studied North African refugee camps run by some of the big NGOs in the area. His conclusion is that the NGOs manage the camps according to what Agier calls “humanitarian governance,” with reference to Foucault’s concept of governance. However, Agier also finds another tendency that goes in the opposite direction. Humanitarian governance runs the camps like small states and with the same kind of discipline and control described in Foucault’s concept of governance and biopolitics. In that way, Agier’s study is deeply pessimistic. Yet his analysis also shows traces of hope from inside the camps, from the lifeworlds of those living there, and from the concrete, liberating practices that the migrants themselves perform despite their disciplinary context. In these lifeworld practices, Agier finds an implicit resistance against the us/them binary. Migrants connect with each other in embodied and inclusive ways. They organize cultural groups, they experience spirituality, they produce certain goods, etc. Even if the two cases we presented above are not narratives from the camps, they do show a similar tendency concerning difficulties to respect migrants as human beings and do not take them predominantly as objects of other peoples’ caring activities.

Again: “Shared Humanity” This brings us back to the St. Andrews Declaration on a Shared Humanity, the Joint Statement of the Vatican and the Lutheran leadership, and indirectly also to Hans-Joachim Sanders’s notion of God’s privileged presence in the precarious spaces of migration. As stated above, we share the ideal of shared humanity. But we are not convinced that this sharing succeeds just by postulating it. A reflective theology facing the challenges of migration needs to start from below, from the practices where humanity can be discovered, performed, missed, or brought to flourish. Therefore, we think phenomenology is a good companion for a theology of migration. The phenomenological focus on the embodied performance of the (shared) preethical is a fruitful way to become a part of the embodied experiences of the shared non-binary humanity amid difference. Finally, the perspective we developed also opens a renewed discussion with theologies reflecting on migration in the midst of precarious life, where God is 27 Fassin: 2012. 28 Agier: 2016.

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supposed to have a privileged presence, where people encounter and share embodied copresence while recognizing their difference. This is the outcome of our analysis of the German teacher Linda and the nameless Lampedusian rapper. This could imply that God’s privileged presence should be first narrated and represented as an implicit presence, through the bodies and the lifeworlds of people living completely other lives in these precarious spaces. Following Agier and our own interpretation, maybe these people can deal with their precarious lives in ways that we cannot imagine. However, this does not exclude God‘s presence there, on the contrary. A patient God who lets humans develop and experience their shared and embodied experiences is a God who encourages us to avoid epistemological violence. This patient God aims at reducing all violence, of which the us/them binary is one of the most tempting. So, we conclude that privileging embodied encounters represents one of the most decisive contributions to understanding what theological respect for difference in the context of migration means.

References Ahmed, S. (2000), Strange Encounters. Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality (Transformations), Abingdon: Routledge. Agamben, G. (2005), State of Exception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Agier, M. (2016), Borderlands. Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition, Cambridge: Polity Press. Baumann, Z. (2016), Strangers at Our Door, Cambridge: Polity Press. Benedict, H.-J. (2008), Barmherzigkeit und Diakonie. Von der rettenden Liebe zum gelingenden Leben, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Buber, M. (2008 [1923]), Ich und Du, Stuttgart: Reclam. Buber, M. (1986), Begegnung. Autobiographische Fragmente, Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider. Butendjik, F.J. (1950), Zur Phänomenologie der Begegnung, in: Eranos-Jahrbuch XIX, Zürich: Rhein, 431–486. Butler, J. (2004), Precarious Life. The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London: Verso. Castro-Gomez, S./Martin, A. A. (2002), The Social Sciences, Epistemic Violence, and the Problem of the “Invention of the Other” in: Nepantla: Views from South, 3/ 2, 269–285. Ebeling, G. (1995), Wort und Glaube, Bd. 4, Heidelberg: Mohr Siebeck. Fassin, D. (2012), Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present, San Francisco: University of California Press. Fassin, D. (2017) Das Leben. Eine kritische Gebrauchsanweisung, Frankfurt Adorno Lectures 2016, Berlin: Suhrkamp.

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Groody, D.G. (2002), Border of Death, Valley of Life. An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefoot. Heimbrock, H.-G. (2009), Encounter as Model for Dialogue in Religious Education. in: S. Miedema, ed., Religious Education as Encounter, Münster: Waxmann, 83–97. Heimbrock, H.G./Scholtz, C. (2016), Kirche: Interkulturalität und Konflikt, Berlin: EB-Verlag. Holquist, M. (2002) Dialogism. Bakhtin and His World, London: Routledge. Joint Statement on the Occasion of the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration of the Reformation (2016). https://www.lutheranworld.org/content/resourcesjoint-statement-occasion-joint-catholic-lutheran-commemoration-reformation [accessed 01. 03. 2019]. Kearney, R./Treanor, B., eds. (2015), Carnal Hermeneutics, New York: Fordham University Press. Løgstrup, K.E. (1997), The Ethical Demand, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Løgstrup, K.E. (1990), Schöpfung und Vernichtung. Metaphysik IV, Heidelberg: Mohr Siebeck. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945), Ph8nom8nologie de la perception, Paris: Gallimard. Milbank (1990), Theology and Social Theory, Oxford: Blackwell. Rivera, M. (2007), The Touch of Transcendence. A Postcolonial Theology of God. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Sander, H.-J. (2014a), Menschen im Versteck. Von der tödlichen Gefährdung zur Hoffnung auf Gottes Gegenwart, in: T. Keßler, ed., Migration als Ort der Theologie, Weltkirche und Mission 4, Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 189–207. Sander, H.-J. (2014b), Vom religionsgemeinschaftlichen Urbi et Orbi zu pastoralgemeinschaftlichen Heterotopien. Eine Topologie Gottes in den Zeichen der Zeit, in: C. Böttigheimer, ed., Zweites Vatikanisches Konzil. Programmatik Rezeption Vision, Freiburg: Herder, 157–169. Sander, H.-J. (2015), Migration as a Sign of the Times, in: J. Gruber/S. Rettenbacher, eds., Migrationas a Sign of the Times, Leiden: Brill. St. Andrews Declaration on a Shared Humanity. https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/ news/local/fife/289802/religious-leaders-unite-st-andrews-sign-declarationshared-humanity/ [accessed 23. 01. 2019]. Snyder, S. (2012), Asylum-Seeking, Migration and Church, Farnham: Ashgate. Van Manen, M. (1990), Researching Lived Experience for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Waldenfels, B. (1995), The Other and the Foreign, in: Philosophy & Social Criticism, 21, 5/6, 111–124. Wiese, C., ed. (2017), Diversität – Differenz – Dialogizität. Religion in pluralen Kontexten, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

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Difference and Contested Caricatures Reaching out for Religious Complexity through Metonymies

In the morning of January 7, 2015 the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked by two Islamist terrorists. At first, they entered the wrong building but unfortunately quickly realized their mistake. The building of Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris was secured by guards but the gunmen killed one of them and entered the building. Then they went through office after office looking for the main editors of the magazine. These sat together in the same room at that time because they had a regular editorial meeting. Only two staff members were not present: the cartoonists R8nald “Luz” Luzier and Catherine Meurisse. They were late that morning simply because they had overslept: that day was Luz’s birthday, and Meurisse was in the midst of a relationship crisis. Most of the magazine’s other major employees did not survive the morning after the terrorists got into the meeting room. At the end twelve people were killed and about twenty wounded. The attackers were brothers, Ch8rif and Sa"d Khuachi. They escaped and then were hunted by police and Special Forces. A second attack by another terrorist followed in order to support the two men on the run. Amedy Coulibaly shot a man jogging in a park who was seriously wounded, but survived. Then Coulibaly killed a policewoman at a street corner where he also heavily wounded a street sweeper, and finally took hostages in a Jewish supermarket. He killed four of them, all Jewish. Coulibaly was a friend of Ch8rif Khuachi with whom he had unsuccessfully tried to liberate a convicted Islamist from prison, a crime for which he had been convicted. Neither the Charlie Hebdo terrorists on the run nor the killer in the supermarket survived the attacks. All three were shot dead by French Special Forces. Coulibaly’s wife Hayat Boumeddiene, obviously heavily involved in planning the terrorist attack, had left Paris shortly before. She fled to ISIScontrolled areas in Syria. Currently she is considered France’s most wanted woman. The events around this terrorist attack are important in various respects. We will concentrate on the secular confession that emerged in response to the attack and its highly complex linguistic and religious identifications. This will lead us to consider a triad of religion, faith and spirituality which offers insight in working with religious differences with a positive outlook.

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“Je suis Charlie”: The Secular Confession of a Hybrid Religious Identity After the attack most of the people in France and millions elsewhere publically expressed their horror, grief and solidarity with the magazine’s editorial program. On January 11, in Paris alone more than a million people marched from the Place de la R8publique to the Place de la Nation to demonstrate against Islamist terror. A whole nation was heavily shaken and demonstrated their identity as an open modern society. Most of the people on the street identified themselves with the magazine through the slogan “Je suis Charlie,” a confession of modern French laicit8. This secular grammar of daily life was suddenly involved in a war at home for which it was not prepared. This war was religiously motivated on the side of the Islamist terrorists and provoked the strictly a-religious reaction of the French state. Yet at the same time, the demonstration after the terrorist attacks was a visible reaction against those who did not want to say that they are Charlie because they felt attacked in their religious identities by Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures. Thus the slogan revealed a complex zone of contact between strictly religious and strictly secular dimensions of a modern society. The 2015 attack was not the first time that Charlie Hebdo had been physically attacked. In 2011 there was an attempt to set its new offices on fire, but nobody was hurt. The attack in 2005 was part of the Muslim uproar against the Danish caricatures of Muhammad of that year. Charlie Hebdo was the only magazine in France that reprinted them. At that time secular caricatures challenging sacred religious representations became a sort of normality for a modern society on the intellectual battlefield where strictly secular and moderate religious options clashed. But after 2015 this discourse has largely disappeared. The magnitude of the 2015 attack triggered a deep identity crisis for secular as well as religious individuals. The magazine takes a radically secular stance, a stance that does not allow religion to escape accountability for its effects on modern society. For years the magazine had dealt critically with religions, religious behaviors and religious individuals – as it had with every other powerful social institution. One cannot argue that the deadly attacks were the logical consequence of this editorial program. Terror is never a logical consequence. Religiously motivated terror gives priority to the deadly force of religion over the public discourse about the place of religion in an open society. Terror is a completely new level of reacting against an editorial program that makes no distinction between religious representatives or central symbolic figures of any religion. At various points, all of them were the focus of satirical comments by the magazine. Charlie’s caricatures are complex challenges to religious sentiments, but they are not deadly. It would be completely irrational to consider

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terror as a possible answer to them. Yet, the mentioned hybrid identity of secular options and religious resistance is not stable. It can bring out the worst in a religion or reveal the best of it. Charlie Hebdo used traditional prominent religious figures like Jesus and Muhammad, the Pope and Khomeini as representatives of this hybridity, and with good reason. Prominent religious figures and symbols are an essential part of the matrix of power shaping religious commitments. They belong to the backbone of the public existence of religion which always aims at establishing its power. From the point of view of a secular magazine belonging to a tradition of radical laicism such as Charlie Hebdo, there is no reason not to involve figures like Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Buddha, and the Dalai Lama into its satirical approach – no matter how sacred they might be to the respective faith community. On the contrary, the more sacred they are in public religious practice, the less reason to exempt them from being caricatured as secular figures. Yet, religious individuals have no reason to accept this satirical treatment of their sacred figures since indirectly they are also targeted by this satire, and they have every right to resist being mocked through caricatures of their sacred figures. The question is only what kind of resistance is chosen – a deadly one that results from resentment and religiously dominated homogeneity, or a discursive one that accepts the secular public discourse of a pluralistic society. The hybrid identity mentioned above demands a decision in this respect, and it is a decision that religious individuals have to make, not secular ones. They have to make a decisive stand against deadly religious force which is truly considered a terrible threat for secular peace. Or they have to stand up against the freedom of speech experienced by religious individuals as offense. Confronted with offensive religious difference one must decide whether one accepts violence as sacred within religious practice or despises it as an attack on human dignity. Either way, this religious difference demands a precarious self-revelation of religious individuals. Do they praise their esteemed spirituality, do they follow a deeply-held true faith and do they obey a sacred religious practice above all others? Or are they capable to contrast all that with the relativity of all matters which is, of course, secularly encouraged, yet ultimately self-imposed for the sake of the good of all humankind? A secular magazine like Charlie Hebdo is in a much better position than religious people. It can easily establish stark positions of opposition against autocratic public habits including religious communities claiming public power. For that reason, it must act indifferently to the religious feelings of others. Otherwise it would accept that religious feelings have a privilege not to be confronted with their inclination towards autocratic habits. One might even go one step further. It is not just acceptable but in fact a public necessity to accept that such a magazine must operate without concern about whether individuals feel attacked in their religious feelings by its cartoons. It has the privilege not to respect central religious figures. In fact, if it did not disrespect

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them, the magazine would lose its reputation to resist autocratic power above all else. But there is a fine line here. In its resistance against autocratic power, a magazine is obliged not to create secular resentment by triggering hatred and violence against those which are exposed by its caricatures. The people who resent the religious feelings of those attacked by the caricatures of Charlie Hebdo are not a small problem. They capitalize on the inevitable humiliating effect of the caricatures on religious individuals. Nobody can control what events or reactions the resentment evoked by these caricatures may lead. The editors of a magazine like Charlie Hebdo can only appeal to public reason and good will, and hope that the public accepts the satirical character of the cartoons. The caricatures cannot be indifferent to what they satirize. Therefore, they create a public space for religion and religious power.

Religion in Society : Ordinary Power in Need of Public Criticism Two goals are involved here which do not fit together : disrespecting power and respecting religion. One cannot have both: resisting the activities of selfish political, social, economic power and accepting an exemption for religious actors at the same time. For a modern, open society this sounds reasonable, and it is reasonable, because religion belongs to the public sphere, and it cannot claim the privilege to be spared from the criticism of its power relations. And everything in the public sphere can be the subject of criticism of its weaknesses. One cannot stay silent about them, whether one offends religious feelings or not. Yet it is surprising that religion is still such a prominent subject in modernity. For almost a hundred years it has been expected that religion would not survive as a major public power in modern societies. The longstanding secularization theory expected religion to survive only in the niche of the private sphere. This expectation has not been realized, although some still believe in this theory. Religion is a major public power on a global scale and there is no power capable of stopping it. So it must not be excluded from being criticized for whatever power relationships it is involved in. It has even increased its power base since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and diversified its zones of influence. Of course, it is not religion as such that has this power. Its power is that of a multiplicity of religious communities capable of activating the symbolic capital they still have for a large number of people. A major part of this influence comes from religious individuals who are eager to argue in modern society for the idea of religious exemption. They do not want to shield religion from public criticism per se. But they expect an exemption from

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criticism for their religious faith since they are convinced that the others owe their religious truth respect. Such people do not accept right away that their own religion can be a subject of public discourse, especially not if it is the subject of a public scandal. This expectation can trigger resentment against secular people if it is not fulfilled. For this reason religious people who claim that their own beliefs ought to remain untouched by public criticism cause strong and even violent reactions on the secular side. This leads to even more criticism and further resentment. But both attitudes, on the religious and the secular side, increase the power matrix of religion. Attraction and distraction ultimately serve religious beliefs; they demonstrate that one cannot be publicly neutral towards religion, no matter what one’s private position towards a religious faith may be. Again, the two goals of religious exception and public respect do not fit together. But they have to be followed both at the same time, and thus a precarious field is created for a satirical magazine and for society in general. Satirical caricatures like those in Charlie Hebdo may minimize direct religious power but they increase indirect religious power. Its secular habitus energizes the public rejection of religious power and this intensifies the public focus on religion, which does not stop with an ordinary public dispute. The caricatures and their purely secular habitus are able to create extreme reactions including violence. And this is what happened in the terror attacks against the magazine’s lead editors and writers. But of course, Charlie Hebdo is not responsible for the attack. It cannot publish caricatures which are indifferent to religious feelings and to violence at the same time. It has to stand up against resentful violence if it is determined to be indifferent to religious feelings, which was the editorial line of Charlie Hebdo. Of course, a different program would have been possible, namely, to respect what is sacred to people. This would include resisting resentment against the religious feelings of others. But then Charlie Hebdo wouldn’t have been a satirical magazine but a religious paper that tries not to get involved in heated disputes between its own religion and the power of other religions. It seems impossible to be respectful towards religious feelings and to be indifferent to their possible resentment at the same time. Charlie Hebdo was going into the opposite direction. It clearly resisted resentment and for this reason, it had to act indifferently to the religious feelings of individuals. But this turned its caricatures into something more than simply a metaphorical tool for public debate on religion. Even if intended as such, its cartoons cannot simply be seen as part of critical communication in modern society. They open one’s eyes for a different sphere where the complexity of religious power is revealed. Religions are capable of bringing together what is normally strictly separated: power and powerlessness. Religions turn power into powerlessness, for instance by presenting higher forms of life which transcend all human power or by worshipping Gods that relativize political power. And they can lead to power out of powerlessness, for example in

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sacrifices or the promotion of a justification one has not earned. Religion is not the only human activity capable of doing this but it is one of the most powerful ones. All major religious communities use (or are even built on) this transition from powerlessness to power and thus they very often deal with the interrelatedness of life and death. In the case of the christology of Christian theology, religion does not confuse powerlessness and power but it does not keep them apart either. For that reason only a small part of religious power can be made visible, and that is the part that was revealed by Charlie Hebdo’s public criticism. But the major part of religious power is present in a much more anonymous form – it is the power of powerlessness which is easily overlooked. This mode of power establishes a difference to the abuse of power by empowering powerlessness. This part usually cannot be revealed by criticism since criticism focuses on power and not on powerlessness. For a long time this was the case in Charlie Hebdo. Its caricatures focused on the religious abuse of power and they did not realize the other side of religious power. Yet, the attack on the magazine changed that. In a terror attack powerlessness is inflicted on the victims. Nobody falling into the clutches of terror is untouched by that. This powerlessness is very dangerous. It is destructive even for a long time after the attack. Luz and Catherine Meurisse, the two members of Charlie Hebdo lucky enough to be late on that fatal day, have drawn impressive cartoons about their experience of slow destruction through agonizing powerlessness.1 Both demonstrate that powerlessness has to be directly confronted, otherwise its destructive force cannot be stopped. They used caricatures to do that. But religion provides a tool box for that as well. It was surprising that Charlie Hebdo was capable of realizing that and to use some tools out of the religious tool box. But for that, it had to go beyond its usual metaphorical mode of caricaturing.

Religion in Difference to Society : A-normal Power Structures in Need of the Public Acceptance of Powerlessness Charlie Hebdo usually expresses its criticism through cartoons and caricatures. Those in the editorial team left after their colleagues’ deaths continued despite the brutal attack. The issue produced immediately after the attack was sold 5 million times. Its front page (fig. 1) showed the prophet Muhammad in tears expressing his solidarity with the magazine and those who died, just like millions of others did at that time by holding the then famous sign saying “Je 1 Luz: 2015b; Meurisse: 2017.

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suis Charlie.” The header above Muhammad says “Tout est pardonn8” (All is forgiven).

Fig. 1. Cover of Charlie Hebdo, January 14, 2015.

The front page was designed by cartoonist Luz. He had met the terrorists when they escaped from the building onto the street, but they didn’t recognize him. He could have expressed all kinds of resentment against the attackers and their religious cause, but he chose not to. Instead he created an extraordinary piece of art in order to come to terms with the traumatic experience. A couple of month later he left the magazine commenting “Je ne serai plus Charlie Hebdo mais je serai toujours Charlie.”2 (I won’t be Charlie Hebdo anymore, but I will always be Charlie.) In 2011, one of his front pages had provoked an arson attack on the magazine’s office. That time, as well, the prophet Muhammad was the subject of the cartoon which showed Muhammad threatening “100 2 Luz: 2015a.

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coups de fouet, si vous n’Þtes pas morts de rire!” (One hundred lashes if you don’t die of laughter!). There are major differences between these two front pages. It is the same Muhammad, of course. Luz didn’t change his style. In 2011, his Muhammad speaks and wags his finger to get the reader’s attention. In 2015, he is silent and depressed, holding the mentioned sign towards the reader. In 2011, the header above Muhammad simply says “Charlie Hebdo.” But in 2015, it says “Tout est pardonn8.” The line “Tout est pardonn8” above the head of a Muhammed in tears is a masterpiece of political cartooning. It is humorous and serious at the same time. It attacks the attackers by refusing to attack them. It confronts them with the powerlessness of their own figure of power. Luz’s Muhammad from 2011 does not accept the secular terms of society but his second one from 2015 does accept them. He uses the slogan through which a secular society expressed its solidarity with the victims of terror. The second Muhammad becomes a member – even a front-page member – of secular society. This cartoon is more than a piece of art. It is a space of encounter between secularity and religiosity, between religious violence and social peacemaking, between religious truth claims and secular criticism. It reveals a grammar for coming to terms with the complexity of religious differences. In order to grasp its effect, one can take the phrase “Tout est pardonn8” literally : Everything is to be forgiven which advances these religious differences, otherwise a society ends up in terror. The phrase points towards dangerous religious differences capable of triggering resentment, violence and civil war. And it advances religious differences beyond their deadly power as an important global dimension of plurality. Religious differences can only resist violent consequences if their religious power dimension is neutralized. The religious practice to do that is powerlessness. Pardoning them is an important aspect in this practice. By not pardoning everything in this precarious field of religious differences, religiously motivated violence and terror will be accepted and advanced. Without forgiveness for challenging differences, modern societies will turn into – not least religiously – empowered dominions which will always go after other religious faith claims that are oppressed by the religious majority. Modern societies have to fight the cultural other in order to empower the religion which empowers them. At the same time secular forgiveness is not the same as religious forgiveness. Secular pardon always expresses the social and juridical sovereignty of a state. One can only be pardoned after having been subjected to a harsh sentence. Religious forgiveness is different. It is linked to the relativity of a religiously motivated order. The religious person or ritual through which forgiveness is realized disrupts the universality of that order and creates the space for forgiveness. One cannot forgive without respecting the others’ strengths despite the weaknesses which brought them into this powerless position in the first place. Pardoning is a practice that relativizes religion on religious terms. In Christian terms it cannot be offered

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without atonement. Christ’s blood offered in atonement on the cross or at the Last Supper represents ultimate powerlessness which cannot be turned into power without creating violence, as Christian anti-Judaism demonstrates. Atonement is a bloody but powerless practice that shares the powerlessness of those who are in need of it. Its power cannot be separated from its powerlessness. For that reason, it disrupts all temporal and causal structures. In Christian theology, bloody but powerless atonement is always prior to the deeds that need to be forgiven. This powerlessness is not a strictly religious dimension of life. It is part of secularity, especially of its plurality. For this reason, religious forgiveness as in the case of Charlie Hebdo goes beyond activities purely based on religious freedom. This forgiveness accepts that a secular space like the front page of a satirical magazine might be decisive for keeping the peace between religions and evoking their peacemaking power in society. The simple will not to interfere in religious matters is no longer an option in a globalized civilization where religions are an important factor. The peaceful separation of the public secular realm from the private religious one was a modern utopia which never came into being and will never have the chance to realize its promises. And thus, “tout est pardonn8” can no longer be a metaphor for complex secular realities which are untouched by a struggle with religion. The forgiveness mentioned here is a metonymy of complexity in secular contexts triggered by religious presence. We have to start with the metaphorical interpretation in order to understand the metonymy.

Power Quests for Identification At first, “Tout est pardonn8” was simply the title of a film from 2008 about a broken family and the difficult but finally resolved relationship between a daughter and her father. In the film, forgiveness is used metaphorically, as a fictional narrative of family life and fictional personal relationships. But on the cover of Charlie Hebdo the phrase is read as a ferocious political statement that advances both a secularist and a religious position. It is desacralizing a sacred image by respecting its religious importance for the secular context.3 Here, it has a political impact by challenging the selfunderstanding of some Muslim communities and relativizing as a selfdeception their idea to be privileged as an exception. Under this sign, the Muslim identity of Muhammad is subjected to the claim of secular identity, i. e. “Je suis Charlie.” The slogan then represents a higher value emerging from an open secular society that accepts the public importance of religious statements. This was probably the intention of most of the people identifying with 3 Kyrou/Fatmi: 2015; Kermani: 2016.

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the slogan: a public statement of secular national solidarity, especially in the wake of the big public events in Paris on 10 and 11 January 2015.4 As a metaphor, the slogan can also be used for a variety of other goals. After the enormous public success of the demonstrations in early January 2015, it acquired completely different meanings and this continues until today. “Je suis Charlie” stands no longer for the freedom of expression which does not exclude religious freedom of expression but relativizes the right of religious freedom. Today, it represents the harsh political fight against religious plurality and cultural differences.5 In this respect the slogan is a metaphor for the division in modern society regarding the question how to resist religiously motivated terror and how to deal with the cultural plurality resulting from global migration. The identity claim behind “Je suis Charlie” is a last cry for the secular dream of a homogeneous community undisrupted by religious positions. In this respect, the phrase represents the longing for an overarching common goal that overcomes the identity claims of a significant minority. Then a religious minority is resented as a religious and cultural other which “does not belong here.” But the original intention of the slogan can be twisted even further. Shortly after the huge public demonstrations in support of Charlie Hebdo, “Je suis Charlie” was also read as a sign of the misleading and illusionary political correctness that was heavily attacked by right-wing populists in Europe and elsewhere. Commentators not believing in the egalit8 of everyone mocked the slogan’s naivety. In the pro-Islamic part of society, the reaction was basically the same. Emmanuel Todd claimed that the identity demonstrated in the slogan was nothing else than the expression of a majority resenting culturally others, especially Muslims. Todd argues that this majority is a mix of middle-class individuals, elderly people and “Catholic zombies” afraid of losing their overarching power.6 Muslim intellectuals, too, are suspicious of the antiIslamic resentment on the part of the majority of the French population expressed in the slogan.7 They see “Je suis Charlie” as a statement of rejection of the Muslim presence in France which, in the tradition of la"cit8, should be treated like any other religious community. Thus, these Muslims cannot be Charlie – unfortunately, as they say. They claim that they would not be accepted by such a statement as truly French citizens. This critical position towards “Je suis Charlie” does not oppose a secular society but supports the cultural plurality on equal terms that this secularity is not capable of developing itself. Fighting against the slogan by saying “Je ne suis pas Charlie” can also be used by right-wing activists to take a stand against the liberal plurality of 4 5 6 7

Meister: 2015; Klug: 2016. Walter/Demetriades/Kelly/Gillig: 2016; Cox: 2016. Todd: 2015. Kacem: 2016.

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democratic societies that support religious freedom. This could be observed already shortly after the terror attack. Marine Le Pen’s claim not to be Charlie was not meant to defend the privilege of religious sacred figures to be exempt from satire. On the contrary, it stands for an identitarian grammar that creates a culturally homogeneous society which has to exclude the religious and cultural other. Such an identitarian position claims that only a culturally homogeneous society has no reason to fear Islamist terror. Tolerating religious plurality endangers European society because it empowers Islamism to fight in Europe against Europe’s cultural roots in Christianity. The proposed homogeneous identity is threatened by the dystopia of a massive Muslim immigration that will destroy European identity.8 Those who support this last turn in interpreting the slogan do not believe that one can fight the dangers of fundamentalist religion through cartoons. Is it possible at all to overcome this seemingly never-ending fight over “the right identity” in a secular society, especially when the fight happens on the basis of religious preconditions? It is very likely that this is not possible. Obviously there is no such thing as an identity appropriate for all people and for solving all problems in a pluralistic society. It is not possible to identify with a one-size-fits-all secular identity. There will always be differences and the struggle over the best option, and religious identity politics fuels this struggle. Yet, there seems to be no alternative but to struggle. It is not by chance that secular societies cannot be stopped by religious fundamentalism in a globalized civilization. They are the only ones willing and capable to guarantee and live religious freedom. But one cannot have this one human right without all the other rights. For that reason, religious freedom challenges the power claims of religious communities. The more that religious identity politics wants to create a homogenous society, the less it accepts secularity and the more it proposes a “truth” which must not be challenged by others. Religiously homogenous societies are not only intolerant but heavily involved in disciplinary tactics against others. But for a religious identity in a secular society, it is inevitable to accept that one’s own truth can only be a relative one. This is a challenge for religious individuals. Thus, religious involvement in the quests of secular identities usually empowers an authoritarian temptation. This is a precarious historical reality. Identity claims will always be entangled in power claims by accepting religious preconditions. There is no religion which is not willing to dominate if it is capable to do so. At least this is the case in an open secular society where open access to religious preconditions for identities has inevitably to be secured. At the same time, religious identities are not able to overcome their differences without creating a hierarchy between them. Claims of religious identities inevitably transport a sort of implicit ranking which will trigger the suspicion that one identity is 8 cf. Scholz/Heinisch: 2017; Nitsche: 2015; Schuhler: 2015.

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ranked higher than the other. And one cannot resolve this dynamic through tolerance since tolerance places secular identities above religious identities and thus merely shifts the power claims towards another field. And history tells us that religions do not seem to be capable to handle their differences without opening the doors towards violence. What do we do with that? I see a chance in confronting identity claims with relativity and their power claims with secular powerlessness. In the case here this means to use the formal difference between “Je suis Charlie” and “Tout est pardonn8.” This is, of course, a small point compared with the problem of identity quests in secular contexts mentioned above, a much larger problem even than religiously motivated deadly terror. Yet, in separating “Je suis Charlie” from “Tout est pardonn8,” a difference becomes obvious which may contribute to solve the religious will to power. It is the difference between metaphor and metonymy which puts these two sentences on two different levels. “Je suis Charlie” is a metaphor for a secular identity in the turmoil of religious terror, whereas “Tout est pardonn8” is a metonymy for a different, unusual approach to the struggle between freedom of religion and freedom of expression. In the metaphor “Je suis Charlie,” people search for an identity which cannot be destroyed by religiously motivated violence and terror. In the metonymy “Tout est pardonn8,” a victim of terror reaches for religiously possible answers to overcome the deadly violence of religion, knowing that there is no easy solution at hand. A metaphor cuts short a heated debate over the possible place of religion in an open secular society. A metonymy accepts the complexity of the search for an answer nobody really has, but that a society urgently needs. A metonymy can only connect to a much bigger picture whereas a metaphor gives a clue to the whole of the picture. The metaphor “Achill is a lion” reveals everything about Achill’s fighting skills. The metonymy “Vienna has had an election” opens the door for further inquiries. So, a metonymy such as “All is forgiven” cannot function without a zone of contact with the problem at hand, whereas a metaphor like “I am Charlie” can make a statement while remaining distanced from conflict. Using a metonymy, the person becomes part of the problem which is not yet solved. With a metaphor, instead, the person formulating it enters into solidarity with those trying to solve the problem. It is very important to realize that religious identity quests cannot enter these two formulas without accepting the form in which they are expressed. “Je suis Charlie” is a declaration of solidarity with the people attacked by religious terrorists. One cannot declare such solidarity without resisting and rejecting the religiously motivated violence against the magazine whose satire does not stop before religious authority. In being Charlie one affirms that in a secular society religious identity claims have to accept that they are only very relative ones which cannot dominate others. There is a higher cause touched upon by the metaphor “Je suis Charlie.” This higher cause is a society which stands in solidarity against religiously motivated terror.

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There can be no identification with Charlie without resisting the religious will to dominate others. Thus the same is true for the opposite view. In refusing to identify with Charlie, one inevitably accepts that there are religious privileges in a secular society that prioritize religious freedom over the freedom of speech. The metaphorical nature of the claim forces one to decide between these two options because it is linked to solidarity with the victims. As soon as this solidarity is refused by denying this metaphor, one stands on the side of those who accept the agenda to religiously dominate every secular identity quest. With this acceptance, the victims of the attack are considered to be necessary sacrifices for the value of religious privileges in a secular society. There is no way out. For that reason people in France were very sensitive about Todd’s refusal to be Charlie, Muslim lobbyists’ criticism of the slogan and right-wing politicians’ attack on it, as different as their motivations had been. In refusing a metaphor, one accepts the devaluation of the higher insight this metaphor permits. The second phrase “Tout est pardonn8” operates in another mode. One cannot take it as a metaphor because of the word “tout” (all, everything). What should this “everything” mean in reality? It cannot mean to accept terror. That would be much too easy and only increase the problem. This “all” that is pardoned does not refer to a higher value or insight. It opens towards a closer look into a complexity that has to be understood. The phrase “All is forgiven” can only refer to a more complex problem than what we are able to express right now. Thus the very sentence “All is forgiven” inserts relativity into the meaning it expresses. The header “Tout est pardonn8” above a cartoon which is mocking Muhammad relativizes its own satire. It creates a difference to what is said by the cartoon itself. Muhammad is standing above the satire against himself. And even more than that: the cartoon’s header creates a difference to the overarching narrative of the lethal terror by which everybody feels attacked. So, the metonymy “All is forgiven” stands in difference to the metaphor “Je suis Charlie.” This “tout” is a pars pro toto for a possible solution of which we know only very preliminary steps. It represents an even more complex problem than that which is expressed. This is theologically very valuable.

The Complexity of Forgiveness Originally, “Tout est pardonn8” is a very Christian statement about general forgiveness (Hebrews 10:18). But the forgiveness promised on Charlie Hebdo’s cover represents a strictly secular statement. It states that religion does not enjoy the privilege not to be caricatured. It is Muhammad who forgives all cartoons directed against him. This is, of course, a cartoon itself that aims at any form of Islamism that ferociously struggles against secular ways of life. In a secular society no religion has a reason to claim the privilege not to be the

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subject of the satire of its power claims. The Muhammad in tears about the deadly attack accepts this. He is transformed into a representative of powerlessness who has no other means than caricatures to express his involvement in religious terror. Muhammad advances a precarious stance: the need to forgive even religiously motivated violence in order to disrupt the vicious circle of violence and counter-violence. Forgiving this violence cannot be confused with accepting violence. On the contrary, the reason for forgiveness is precisely the refusal to accept what has been done and the desire for a new start to overcome resentment and revenge. Muhammed’s forgiveness is a caricature of religiously motivated violence, nothing more and nothing less. It reveals the destructive force of religion which cannot be stopped simply by counterviolence. There is a temptation for religious individuals to accept violence for the sake of the truth claims of their religion. They usually think that they are in possession of a truth that raises them above all others. Self-righteousness is a dangerous religious temptation when it is always the others who have to forgive, but never the other way round. This is more than a religious position. It is a destructive spiritual force. Such spirituality cannot be stopped without the means religion has in its hands. But this is a complex enterprise because religion cannot stop this destructive force on its own. It needs help. The freedom of speech demonstrated in the Muhammad caricature is helpful insofar as it resists religious self-righteousness but not religious freedom, which, on the contrary, it empowers. A much more complex process than simply a caricature is needed to forgive everything that triggers violence. One has to use religious means to resist religiously motivated violence which attacks the religious freedom of others. Charlie Hebdo and other critical media rely on the secular principle of the freedom of speech. It is not their task to go beyond that and become a part of a religiously motivated coalition that advances religious freedom. But their criticism asks the decisive question: how can religious communities expand their own right of religious freedom to others? It is not Charlie Hebdo’s task to answer this question. Its cartoon simply says that it can be done by pardoning everything which furthers the criticism of a religious community. Certainly, this is too simple, but at least it opens a door towards dealing with the complexity of this problem. Religious means are needed to fight against religious violence, but they are not easily available, especially not for a secular magazine. That is “all” that has to be pardoned. This “tout” stands as a pars pro toto for an internal religious debate and fight on a completely secular field. Charlie Hebdo’s cover after the terrorist attack is a good step in this direction. This issue immediately sold out in France and only very few copies were sent abroad. People didn’t buy the magazine because of its content but out of solidarity. They made a statement in favour of a pluralistic society. There was an almost global wave of moral support for the liberal ideal of freedom of

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speech. The issue had to be reprinted, and in the end 5 million copies were sold which caused a lot of internal struggle about what to do with this strange and unexpected economic success. Today, the magazine is considered to be a paradigmatic example of a publication that provokes an open pluralistic society. The trajectory of Charlie’s religious entanglement is not yet finished. Of course, the magazine could not stop publishing radical anti-religious caricatures after the deadly attack. In January 2016, for the first anniversary of the terrorist attack the magazine published an issue with a bearded God Father on its cover. This God has a gun behind his back and he has a weird expression in his eyes. The symbol of the trinity is pictured over his head. The header of the cover says “1 an aprHs: l’assassin court toujours.” (One year later : the murderer is still on the run.) The cartoon was not only a commemoration of the Islamist terror against its staff but also a response to the second deadly terrorist attack by Muslim extremists in Paris on November 13, 2015, when 160 people were killed in a coordinated action, most of them at the theater of Bataclan. In the tradition of radical laicism, Charlie Hebdo unites Christian and Muslim monotheism and argues that both deal with the same God, and that this God is the true murderer of the two attacks on January 7 and November 13, 2015 in Paris. This God is a metaphor for all the problems caused by religious terror. Fortunately, this statement with its lack of theological complexity was not the only laicist voice at that time. After the November attack, the French President Hollande, who has to represent laicit8 ex officio, spoke of “le Dieu trahi” (the betrayed God). With its anniversary cover, the magazine remained within its usual frame of metaphorical caricatures of religiously motivated terror. One does not have to criticize that. But this leaves the task to come to terms with “le Dieu trahi,” which is possible on the basis of the metonymical approach which Charlie Hebdo originally used. Where does this lead? First, one has to understand the effects of metonymies. A metonymy leads to the acceptance of the complexity of a problem and, even further, the intellectual solidarity with the people involved in it. A metonymy can only touch upon the complexity but it creates a zone of contact with it. A famous example is the metonymy the former US-President Kennedy used during his visit in Berlin after the Wall was built. His statement, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” was an expression of solidarity, although it also made clear that the President was not capable to force the Soviet regime to tear down the Wall. No “Berliner” was capable of doing that. Metonymies express precarious identifications and at the same time the powerlessness to change the situation. Secondly, this powerlessness does not contradict empowerment. A Muhammad in tears saying “Tout est pardonn8” shows that what was done cannot be changed. But he demonstrates that the results can be transformed through a different attitude towards the past. Religious differences expressed through metonymies such as the confession of evil and the forgiveness of all

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guilt create powerlessness not in others, but in oneself. They realize the complexity of one’s own involvement in the problem. However, religious difference that creates powerlessness for others reduces complexity because it presumes that only the others have to deal with it. Such a difference cannot be expressed through a metonymy. This leads to the third effect of metonymies: They enforce an internal difference caused by the increased complexity with which one enters into contact. Kennedy’s statement “Ich bin ein Berliner!” encourages a policy in support of Berlin in order to prove that he is on the side of the city divided by a wall. He cannot continue to be the President of the United States if he keeps a clear political distance in order to avoid tensions with the Soviet Union. The cover of Charlie Hebdo with the phrase “Tout est pardonn8” must establish a difference to its own previous caricatures about religious figures which have to be forgiven by religious individuals. Metonymies express an otherness which is linked to realities, problems, ideas etc., and open up a distance towards those who use metonymies themselves. This self-confrontation leads to a higher complexity than expected before. This is the case with Charlie Hebdo’s “Tout est pardonn8.” It involves religious individuals in a complex self-confrontation about their position in a secular society. Are they only willing to defend their own religious freedom without respecting the freedom of speech and the freedom from religion of others? They cannot remain religious without accepting the irreligiosity of others. This self-confrontation is much more complex than a purely laicist grammar or a purely religious position. Following this complexity we are lead to an internal triadic plurality of religion that religious positions cannot avoid when confronted by differences.

The Complex Triad of Religion – Faith – Spirituality In modernity, complexities have been reduced to binary codes, such as secularity versus religiosity. These codes are seen as simple bifurcations. A mutual relativity between them could not happen. But in a globalized civilization, this reduction is no longer appropriate. Instead, complexities are transformed into pluralities. Religion is no exception. It is internally pluralized by faith and spirituality. Traditionally they had more or less the same meaning as religion. But now we have reached a situation in which religion can no longer be identified with faith and spirituality because their internal plurality leads to tensions between all three which cannot be reduced into some sort of vague unity. This has an important consequence: each of the three terms reacts to the others like a triangle, but at the same time each is situated in opposition to the relationship between the other two.

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Empirically, this development is visible in the rise of spirituality as independent from institutionalized religion in secular societies. This rise is not simply a phenomenon occurring within faith communities but is linked to the individual’s quest for distinction.9 Further evidence for the disarticulation of faith, spirituality and religion is the rise of charismatic groups within faith communities which do not accept the common discipline of the overarching community. Theologically, this is linked to the extraordinary history of the discourse about the Holy Spirit. These are examples of differences within communities which can be linked to the situation of multicultural societies but are not necessarily dependent on it. And this situation is not completely new in Christian history. In the Early Church and Middle Ages, mystic currents were persecuted by mainstream religion, and sectarian groups preferred exile to submission to church discipline. Yet, a new phenomenon can be observed today. The difference between religion, faith and spirituality creates a triangular model which constantly changes because of the opposition of one term over against the other two. Spiritual people are not simply spiritual individuals, but they criticize the mainstream of the faithful and the power mechanisms of religious institutions. At the same time, one can observe traditional religious hierarchies trying to maintain their hegemony over progressive or traditionalistic groups which have begun to fight for their independence or to push for their own counter-hegemonies. I argue that one can establish productive relationships between two corners of the triangle religion-faith-spirituality, while the third corner is in contrast, resistance or even conflict over against the others and their mutual relationship. My own denomination, the Catholic Church, is a good example of that. The majority of the faithful in the Catholic Church no longer firmly believe what the hierarchy of their religious community holds as their shared creed. They agree on the basics but combine their Catholic beliefs with a variety of other religious ideas. What individual Catholics – and even members of the hierarchy – believe is much more diverse than the hierarchy is used to accepting. The official creed is the facade of a reduced complexity the hierarchy can use in power struggles against internal revolts. But the hierarchy is no longer capable of ruling the majority of the faithful by these means. The faithful are willing to confess a shared Catholic creed but at the same time claim their spiritual freedom to interpret their belief in their own way. This difference between official creed and personal truth claims is also valid the other way round. In the case of liberation theology, valid truth claims of faith, such as the preferential option for the poor, are combined with political liberation based on spiritual convictions. This has lead to a strict opposition between the Catholic hierarchy against the spiritual practices of liberation theology. The internal ecclesial struggle has lasted for more than 40 years. 9 Müller 2016; Streib/Keller : 2015, esp. 231–249.

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Today, Pope Francis does not care so much about the dogmatic insistence on truth claims as represented by his Congregation of the Faith. He emphasizes mercy for individual lives over against official claims about moral values and dogmatic creeds and uses his papal power to stop dogmatists’ attacks on people who are not in line with official morality. Francis combines spiritual freedom with religious power and ignores the traditional truth claims of faith if they impede his goal to inspire people spiritually by means of surprising religious moves. One needs not to be a prophet to expect him to continue to go beyond dogmatic differences in reaching out to Protestantism. The purity of the faith of the faithful is no longer that important for Catholic dogmatics. Concern about the lives and struggles of ordinary people dominate the positions of Pope Francis’s Catholic religious network. Yet the traditionalist part of the Catholic hierarchy – especially the Congregation of the Faith – insists on their old truth claims in order to break the opposition of the liberal, reform-oriented side of Catholicism. These attempts are limited to the bishops who hold the ecclesial power to define the public dimension of Catholic faith. But beyond that, the Vatican Curia and the episcopal community loyal to it outside of Rome are no longer capable to dominate or even criticize the spiritual freedom of their opposing brothers and sisters in faith. Yet, there is no mainstream flock willing to believe any more that Catholicism is of higher importance than other denominations. And now there is no pope willing to use that for his representation of Catholic messages. The current situation of the Catholic Church provides an example of the internal contrasts which even powerful dogmatic truth claims cannot overcome. These complexities broaden the chances of spiritual freedom within the same religious setting. This freedom cannot be dominated by stubborn dogmatic habits. The tensions between religion, faith and spirituality can be illustrated in the following triadic taxonomy. Religion

Faith

Spirituality

power

truth

freedom

society

community

individual

cult

culture

art

visible independence

convincing presentation

invitation

societas perfecta

communio

people of God

Catholic mission of vera reli- confession of a diaco- evangelization through gio nal and prayerful the open invitation to a Christian Church universal ecclesia

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(Continued) Religion

Faith

Spirituality

insistence on the higher rank faithful community in pastoral community in of one’s own community over dialogue with others mutual respect against others moral discipline

acceptance in daily life resistant consciousness

singularity

unity

mutual understanding

utopia

heterotopia

atopia

One can combine two elements at every level, such as cult and culture in the case of the truth claims of faith using religious power in their relationship with society. Somebody like a former head of the Congregation of Faith, Cardinal Müller, for example, can use the traditional respect for his former office for a public cult of dogmatic stubbornness. But he cannot rely on the former habitus of respect and trust toward his highly ranked hierarchical position in order to dominate the internal ecclesial debate. Respect doesn’t mean any longer acceptance of truth claims. One can extend this analysis to the use of language in this taxonomy.

In Search of a Language of Difference in Terms of Religion What sort of language is necessary to represent the different relationships in this triangular religious landscape? What kinds of linguistic forms are capable to express the opposition towards the relevant binary in the triangle one has to resist? I propose the following schema: Religion & Faith

faith & Spirituality

Spirituality & Religion

power through metaphors empowerment through metonymies

resistance through parables

defining a society’s identity through utopian religious metaphors (e. g. “the Christian Occident”)

pluralizing identities with the help of parables pointing to the atopic singularity of the relevant person (e. g. “the uniqueness of Moses, Christ or Muhammed”)

opening up the identity of a community trough heterotopic contact zones in metonymies (e. g. “The Gospel is the cultural heritage of all humankind”)

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I concentrate on just the issue of power here since the second one is nothing more than speculation at this point. For the combination of religion and faith, i. e. power and truth claims, public demonstrations of power are important, whether in the form of an impressive building, very well organized lobbying efforts, huge crowds at liturgical events, positive headlines on the front page of a newspaper, impressive numbers of people on pilgrimage routes, and so on. Publications can also function as displays of power, such as the recently published book about hope by the former head of the Roman Congregation of Faith, Cardinal Müller, which contains “Gedanken über den Kern der christlichen Botschaft.”10 This “center” is a metaphor. It relates faith to the powerful truth claims of a religious counter-reality which is only supported by tradition but not necessarily by acceptance. It claims a higher ground, built on ecclesial doctrine. The center of faith wants to create special attention for certain truth claims emerging from doctrine and for personal interpretations of faith situated at the center. It aims to reduce a whole universe of truth claims to a few aspects for which a true Catholic should fight. This can only be achieved by metaphorical language. The metaphors of truths demonstrate an important shift in Vatican conservatism of which Cardinal Müller is an important representative. This conservative truth claim was once eager to keep a strict distance to subjective interpretations and now closely collaborates with the modern divisionism of a religious minority. In the relationship between religion and spirituality, power claims and the claim to freedom in a broad sense have to be negotiated. It is hard to find a lot of examples in Church history, but it is a sign of our times. In a global civilization, power is only acceptable if it empowers individual freedom. Power is part of the resistance against overarching disciplinary intentions. Here, power means counter-power. Thus one needs a narrative which cannot reduce complex issues to a few central positions but a story about how to resist unjust subjugation. The appropriate form for such narratives is the parable. Usually a parable has has two meanings, an obvious one linked to the events and characters of the narrative and a second, implicit meaning which must be found by the reader and which results from the transfer of the narrative into a completely different context. The first meaning comes with the story told. The second meaning develops a lesson to be learned if the narrative is put into the wider context of an urgent problem.11 This second meaning is not hidden but is quite obvious, and yet it has to be discovered by the reader. Thus parables are closely linked to allegories although not many allegories are parables.12 Parables use the main characters of the narrative to communicate their message, which allegories do not do necessarily. 10 Streib/Keller: 2015, esp. 231–249. 11 Elm: 1991. 12 Zymner : 1991,130–135.

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Two further observations support the thesis that parables are a factor that allows for the combination of religion and spirituality, and of power and freedom. In recent literature parables are used as resistance against the powerful truth claims of systems of faith, especially fundamentalist ones, for example in the work of Octavia Butler, a famous science-fiction writer and recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards and the MacArthur Fellowship. She wrote a parable series on “earthseed,” as she calls the alternative to fundamentalists’ truth claims that have been powerfully imposed on public debates and political decisions since the 1990s. In Butler’s parable series the counter-power of personal freedom is supported by religious truth claims. Her Parable of the Sower (1993) and the Parable of the Talents (1998) challenge the context of the 1990s through a dystopia set in California in the 2020s.13 In her parables, California is completely corrupted by unresolved environmental and social problems and is heavily pressured by national politicians of a sort of right-wing populism which even reinstitutes slavery. Donald Trump had not yet entered the political scene in the US when Butler wrote her series. But today her parables are like prophecies about the current political developments in the United States and the influence of fundamentalist Christian minorities. Butler imagines what our world might be headed for if it cannot solve its political, social and environmental problems. According to Butler’s parables the one and only hope comes from small groups guided by an interior spiritual wisdom and open religious activity. A second observation about the negotiation of power and freedom in parables comes from the Bible. Some of Jesus’s parables, like that of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) or the Master of the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16), discuss issues of power and the struggle about freedom. The religious messages of these parables obviously violate normative truths and justice. But the real goal of the parables is to transform religious normativity into the empowerment of the powerless. This empowerment is of a spiritual nature and does not deal with matters of dogmatics. The third relationship in the triangle negotiates truth claims with spiritual freedom. An example of this is the first public appearance of the newly elected Pope Francis. He did something rather surprising even though it was quite a normal thing to do. He said “buona sera” to the crowd waiting for his appearance on St Peter’s Square. One might see this greeting as an attempt at normality while trying to come to terms with the rather strange position of being the newly elected pope. And this might have been the case for the individual Jorge Bergoglio. But for a pope, it is more than that. It is a spiritual statement and a presentation of truth claims to a faithful community. Bergoglio’s “good evening” puts him as the pope at the same level as those waiting for him and his blessing of Urbi et Orbi. And in just a second, it gives the waiting people an idea of what will be important for this pope. His truth 13 Butler : 2007a and b.

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claims want to empower people to come to terms with the problems of their lives. With his “buona sera” the newly elected pope tried to enter into spiritual contact with the normal life of ordinary people. His “buona sera” was more than simply an extraordinary act of self-representation, but the embodiment of an important position about what the speaker believes in: the spiritual equality of everybody. This is not a normal occurance in the ecclesial tradition but here it is a faith position which accepts all the others at the same level as the first in rank in the Catholic hierarchy. Thus by saying “good evening,” this pope made a claim to be a different pope than his predecessors. “Buona sera” is a metonymy, of course. It is a form of language chosen to empower ordinary people in their individual lives and emphasize the truth claims of Christian faith that are capable to do so. “Mercy” is another truth claim like that and has been an important concept in Pope Francis’s doctrinal teaching so far. At the same time this connection between faith and spirituality creates a tension with the traditional attitude of the pope as a ruler with enormous religious power. Francis’s “buona sera” on the evening of his election is a form of language suitable for the dimension of resistance in the combination of faith and spirituality over against the power claims of religion. This metonymy creates a special sort of contiguity which we have already observed in the case of the phrase “Tout est pardonn8.” This contiguity shifts religious differences towards another field.

A Category Shift in the Analysis of Religious Differences What does this reflection mean for religious differences? It has already become clear in the analysis of Charlie Hebdo, and the triangular matrix of religion, faith and spirituality that one should avoid metaphors because they charge religious differences with a power dynamic which cannot be stopped after accepting the differences. One may use parables to open an alternative field but parables alone cannot stop the religious power achieved through metaphors of differences. One has to be careful to establish differences through metonymies in order to counteract religious power. Metaphors would trigger violence and destruction through establishing differences. Through parables one can search for an alternative and find a different contact zone. Metonymies are necessary to realize this contact. One can resist difference with a parable. An example for that can be found in the Vatican II declaration Nostra aetate about the relation of Christianity with other religious communities, especially Judaism. In Nostra aetate (4), it says about the tradition of opposition against the Jews:

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True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.

This is a counter-narrative developed out of a “true – but” argument. In this narrative, God did not reject nor curse the Jews. Thus, contact is established with a different truth claim. Yet, this parable is not enough to stop the deadly Christian tradition of cursing the Jews which is still present in Catholic fundamentalist traditionalism. Another step is needed and it happens through metonymies: “All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ” (Nostra aetate 4). The negative rights mentioned here stand for a highly complex matter. One has to look for an alternative truth claim in the Gospel and that is not an easy task because the metaphor of the devil as father is proposed in the Gospel of John (John 8:44). But the metonymies “the Gospel’s truth” and “Christ’s spirit” are providing contact zones for solving this problem and these contact zones oppose the devil metaphor and establish a strict difference to Christian antiJudaism. This energizes Nostra aetate as a counter-narrative against antiJudaism as pars pro toto against all discrimination on the basis of religious truth claims: No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between [human being] and [human being] or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned. The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against [human beings] or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion (no. 5).

Here, human rights and faith in Christ are combined in a process which turns differences between religions into the avant-garde of a civilization more attentive to human rights than any other before. Differences are the basis for this combination. Through them one cannot deny other truth claims or disrespect the values of other religions. Through metonymies one can create contact zones of mutual respect across the differences between religions, such as in showing respect for places of worship like synagogues, churches and mosques, temples and sacred groves. Furthermore, parables can function as transformative narratives moving from one religion to another and relativizing their truth claims and power mechanisms. This is the case in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–29), in Paul’s famous mission statement in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 which is a parable of his own conversion and – not the least – in Lessing’s Parable of the Ring.

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One can use parables to relativize truth claims and power mechanisms categorically for taxonomies about the relevant differences. The observation of the linguistic forms used can provide a sense of the way in which differences in religious matters are practiced. Power struggle is dominant if metaphors rule. The normalizing effects of truths which are taken for granted are disrupted and a higher sort of knowledge is sought if parables are present. And contact zones are explored in which to share the mutual fragility of metonymies. The highest complexity of religious differences results from metonymies. A metonymy about differences will push towards contiguity. It cannot guarantee that the problem will be solved. For that reason failure is more likely, but the individuals involved in these contact zones are rewarded by the intensity of the shared search for the most adequate religious practice. Metaphors of difference will end up in religious power claims whereas metonymies of difference motivate to go beyond power claims. Metonymies of difference establish contact with powerlessness in a higher complexity which cannot be avoided. That is the best option for contemporary religions to come to terms with differences.

References Literature Butler, O. (2007a), Parable of the Sower, New York:Warner. Butler, O. (2007b), Parable of the Talents, New York: Grand Central. Cox, N. (2016), The Freedom to Publish “Irreligious” Cartoons, in: Human Rights Law Review 16, 2, 195–221. Elm, Th. (1991), Die moderne Parabel, Parabel und Parabolik in Theorie und Geschichte, München: Fink. Kacem, A. (2016), L’Occident et nous. Et vice–versa, pr8face de Chedli Klibi, postface de Pierre Hunt, Paris: L’Harmattan. Kermani, N. (2016), Wer ist Wir? Deutschland und seine Muslime, mit der Kölner Rede zum Anschlag auf Charlie Hebdo, München: Beck. Klug, B. (2016), In the Heat of the Moment. Bringing “Je suis Charlie” into Focus, in: French Cultural Studies 27, 3, 223–232. Kyrou, A./Fatmi, M. (2015), Ceci n’est pas un blasphHme, La trahison des images: des caricatures de Mahomet / l’hypercapitalisme blasphHme, Paris: Actes Sud Editions. Luz (2015a), “Je ne serai plus Charlie Hebdo mais je serai toujours Charlie”, La Lib8ration, 18. 05. 2015, https://www.liberation.fr/ecrans/2015/05/18/luz-je-neserai-plus-charlie-hebdo-mais-je-serai-toujours-charlie_1311812 [accessed 21. 12. 2018].

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Luz (2015b), Katharsis, aus dem Französichem von U. Aumüller und G. Osterwald, Frankfurt: Fischer. Meister, Ch. (2015), Je suis Charlie. Drei Tage in Paris, Norderstedt: Book on Demand. Meurisse, C. (2017), Die Leichtigkeit, aus dem Französischen von Ulrich Pröfrock, Hamburg: Carlsen. Meller, G.L. (2016), Die Botschaft der Hoffnung, Gedanken über den Kern der christlichen Botschaft, Freiburg: Herder. Nitsche, S. (2015), “Je suis Charlie” oder “Je ne suis pas Charlie”, das ist hier die Frage!, in: Münchener theologische Zeitschrift, 66, 4, 334–351. Scholz, N./Heinisch, H. (2016), Charlie versus Mohammed. Plädoyer für die Meinungsfreiheit, Wien: Passagen. Schuhler, C. (2015), Alles Charlie oder was? Religionskritik, Meinungsfreiheit oder Schmähung, Köln: PapyRossa. Streib, H./Keller, B. (2015), Was bedeutet Spiritualität? Befunde, Analysen und Fallstudien aus Deutschland, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Todd, E. (2015), Qui est Charlie? Sociologie d’une crise religieuse, Paris: Seuil. Walter, N./Demetriades, S./Kelly, R./Gillig, T. (2016), Je suis Charlie? The Framing of In-group Transgression and the Attribution of Responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo Attack, in: International Journal of Communication 10, 3956–3974. Zymner, R. (1991), Uneigentlichkeit. Studien zu Semantik und Geschichte der Parabel, Paderborn: Schöningh.

Film Tout est pardonn8 (Mia Hansen-Løve, F/DE, 2008).

Figure Fig. 1: T Charlie Hebdo, 1178, 14 January 2015.

Hans-Günter Heimbrock

Difference and Contested Commitments How Do Religious Education Teachers Take Position?

In modernity, “culture” inevitably occurs in the plural, as a set of several cultures, as the encounter or even concurrence of various systems of worldview orientations. Consequently public education participates in the cultural task of providing the next generation with orientation for how to deal with religion and worldviews. Thus it inevitably also contributes to educational offers for how to deal with the plurality and diversity of religious traditions and worldviews. In this article I will analyze some contemporary attempts in public schools to deal with difference and diversity, particularly focusing on individual and personal aspects of this issue, specifically the way in which RE teachers take position in their classroom practice. The discussion starts with a brief sketch of the cultural background and relevant historical developments. The second part presents and discusses a German empirical study of Protestant RE teachers’ ways of developing personal religious commitments. In the third part, I re-evaluate the empirical study in order to gain new insight into the variety of ways of dealing with personal commitment and religious difference.

Context Religious Education and Confessional Orientation in a “Post-Christian” Era All religions, although not identical with culture, contain and develop cultural traditions. Public education, which among other objectives is an introduction to cultural traditions, depends heavily on the religious part of culture. In Europe, it has been self-evident for centuries that religious instruction has the task to transmit fundamental social values and overarching worldviews, mainly taken from Christian traditions. Moreover, in nearly all European societies the religious factor has had a great impact on the development of education, both in terms of fundamental values of education understood as the “formation” of a whole human being, and concerning the institutionalized forms of education in the public school system.

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The transmission of fundamental values has happened for centuries alongside and within the framework of collectively shared confessional characteristics, rather than being a purely individual decision for a value system. A very instructive example for this complex of questions is how European nations dealt with religious plurality at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. The Thirty Years’ War, which started 400 years ago, was caused by the conflict between different Christian denominations. In the name of their “true religion,” Catholics and Protestants each tried to exterminate the very existence of “the other,” the heretical Christian denomination. The violent confessionalist conflict ended with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 which accepted the existence of other Christian confessions. The peace accord made an important step towards the recognition of religio-political differences within a Christian imperium that had, until then, been understood as religiously uniform. It introduced the coexistence of different and diverse collective religious identities in accordance with the religious affiliation of the particular sovereign of a given state, city or region (cuius regio eius religio), but it did not recognize the individual freedom of choosing one’s religion. Subsequently, in Protestant territories (e. g. Württemberg, the free city of Frankfurt or the Kingdom of Sweden) the Lutheran Catechism was prescribed as the basis for elementary education, whereas in the Catholic territories, it was the Catechism approved by Catholic bishops and Rome. Thus, the 1648 peace treaty resolved some of the problems of early modern European religious plurality by way of recognizing an internal difference between confessions. It did so on the level of diverse collective religious convictions, but not on the level of the individual’s convictions. In educational matters, just as in religious and political ones, the 1648 treaty did not actively deal with plurality on the individual level, but maintained a regional monoconfessionalism. For centuries, public education has maintained this monolithic structure of the cultural and religious value system of states, more or less neglecting internal religious differences. And simultaneously the peace treaty caused new forms of internal religious marginalization and numerous waves of migration, such as when Protestants were forced to leave the Catholic region of Salzburg.1 Four centuries later, the situation has changed considerably. Due to the advanced cultural pluralization and polarization, what might be called a formerly homogeneously Christian identity of European culture has dissolved. Whether this change should be described as “secularization” is still a question of heated debates.2 Nevertheless this development has also had an important influence on the domain of schools and the presence of religion in schools. Today the role and influence of collective religious convictions and religious 1 Münkler: 2017. 2 Habermas/Ratzinger: 2008; Taylor: 2007.

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practices of groups like churches, synagogues and mosques on education in European societies (like any others) is highly debated and contested.3 Contemporary sociology of religion and migration research has provided detailed insight into the dynamics of migration, and the cultural and religious traditions of migrant groups.4 Within largely secularized cultures, minority groups show an increasing tendency to relate to their traditions (cultural and religious), even if critical analysis identifies this reference as a process of reconstructing and even inventing traditions rather than revitalising them. Within the migrant population, especially among young people, there are many forms of relating to the religious traditions of their ancestors which provide support in times of the dissolution of personal identity. Therefore the role and place of religion in present-day German culture (as in other western societies) can no longer be described adequately by concepts like “secularization” or “loss of tradition.” Due to pluralization and the loss of traditional cultural identity this situation provides special challenges for public education, in particular regarding the formation of values and worldviews. In many European countries during the last decades there has been a heated debate in parliaments, public media and schools about how to offer an appropriate educational answer to demographic changes and increasing cultural pluralization. There is a substantial controversy about how to express specific religious convictions in schools in secular democratic societies.5 When opting for the possibility to do so, the question is whether this can be done without violating the neutrality of public education or an individual’s freedom of religion. Evidently this issue has significant consequences for religious education (RE) as one of the subjects in German public schools and for the presence of religion in schools in general. In times when it is no longer plausible for all that religious traditions be passed on because of their value as seen from a position of religious conviction, RE teachers as well as relevant pedagogies engage in a more open approach which relates the content and methods of RE to the lifeworld of their pupils and the cultural context in general. This contextual RE goes along with a hermeneutic or interpretative approach that relates particular religious traditions to fundamental questions and positions, instead of the older type of RE which mostly functioned as catechetics. There is an ongoing discussion about the appropriate way of dealing with the plurality of religious traditions and worldviews in the curriculum of public schools. This struggle has reached a new quality with the increasing presence of Islam in all its different denominations and cultural adaptations within western societies. On the one hand, political authorities in the religiously 3 Agbaria/Alexander : 2010. 4 Apitzsch: 2003. 5 Jackson: 2004.

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pluralized German society appeal to the neutrality of the state or to general educational principles. Some even argue for a non-confessional approach to religion in education as a matter of principle in order to prevent Muslim faithbased RE in public schools. On the other hand, many Muslim groups raise their voice, even in courts, to have their faith recognized and represented in the schools to which they are required to send their children on the basis of constitutionally prescribed compulsory school attendance for all children in these democratic societies. Complementary to these efforts to offer confessional Islamic RE as part of the curriculum, there are political-educational attempts of those responsible for public education to introduce subjects like ethics, citizenship education, and intercultural education in addition to (or substituting) traditional monoreligious forms of RE. Partly this curriculum development is an attempt to secure the participation in generally accepted moral value education of the growing number of pupils without religious affiliation who are allowed to withdraw from confessional RE. This increasing split between RE and the subject of citizenship education including intercultural education has been addressed in previous studies.6 All this does not only affect the presence of religion in societies, but also basic educational patterns concerning RE. It leads to a loss of plausibility of the older concept of education as the “transmission” of a particular confessional position.7 If western cultures undergo an extremely rapid social change due to pluralization and globalization, the question is urgent which traditions the educational system should pass on as the cultural heritage, and which not. Concerning RE as a core mode of passing on traditions to the next generation, the notion of “transmission” is put into question because the model does not do justice to the situation of cultural diversification. Religious commitment in education is becoming obsolete as it is seen as a contradiction to individual religious freedom and an inadequate way of dealing with religious differences in the globalized world.

Formation and Taking Position Seen from the outside, the confessional concept of RE has met with highly critical judgments more than once. Some accused it of inevitably leading to intolerable heteronomy. Church and religious communities would necessarily oppress RE teachers due to the obligatory connection between subject and confession.8 It has been frequently claimed that both teachers’ and pupils’ freedom of religion is in danger whenever RE is understood and taught in such 6 Jackson: 2003. 7 Miedema/Wardekker : 2001, 25. 8 Hull: 2005.

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a way. In addition, a confessionally fixed approach could hardly prepare students to meet the demands of a post-Christian society and to provide access to the plurality of worldviews and positions.9 In response to these critical challenges, however, thorough theoretical reflections on the goals and need of formation (Bildung) in many public educational systems in Europe have clarified an elementary need to actively include attempts to enhance pupils’ religious competence instead of just dropping any attempt at religious education in favor of an apparently neutral secularist outlook. If there is any good sense to the idea that religions do not only develop abstract catalogues of meaning, but provide ultimately valid, ineluctable positions that a person can claim in relation to her life and values, then education would require methods which enable young people to acquire religious knowledge and judgment in order to make choices about their own positions, while at the same time avoiding indoctrination and paternalism. To realize the very idea of formation in educational practice it is necessary that public schools in civil societies deal with positions of truth, in the horizon of cultural and lifeworld conditions for religious dialogue, among the variety of school subjects and in the context of a broader culture of schooling. This understanding of religion and of the role of religious education then comes down to a crucial task of RE: to understand and to give practical forms to the subject of religious convictions, to deal with the process of “taking position” and to make personal choices in religious matters, for both teachers as well as pupils in their classroom practice, without forcing anybody to adopt a particular religious conviction. As long as the whole system of public education was organized by confessional parameters the element of personal convictions seemed irrelevant, or was included in the overall confessional orientation of the school system. But now, the growing diversity of religions and worldviews contests this collective confessional model. In addition, this debate is also a matter of power. Which group or groups are in charge of maintaining the confessional orientation of schools and RE? Which groups can “emancipate” RE from this “confessional domination”? Current attempts to implement Islamic RE as an independent classroom subject clearly display how old questions and controversies are by no means outdated.10 A number of studies have described the relevant developments in different countries concerning confessional identity versus the neutrality of RE, as well as a mono-religious or a more inclusive model of RE .11 It is important to note that the notion “confessional” has been used rather broadly in past debates about the pros and cons of the confessional orientation of RE. Gradually in RE theory the insight has developed that a more precise 9 For the English discussion see also Grimmit: 1981; Thompson: 2004; Doble: 2005. 10 Veinguer/Dietz/Jozsa/Bakker/Jackson: 2009. 11 Franken: 2018.

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definition of the term is important. “Confessional,” in the context of religion, school, and education might stand for quite different things: – membership in a religious group, specifically a Christian church – the basics of a particular faith deposited in a shared text and interpreted in a dogmatic fashion (e. g. the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith) – the level of the constitutional and legal organization of confessionality in RE – a pedagogical orientation of how to deal appropriately with the relation of RE to various elements of confession(s). When considering the relationship between confessional orientation and educational theory, it is also important to take into account relevant distinctions concerning the educational process. Decades ago, the English RE scholar Michael Grimmitt – working within the British system of RE as a non-confessional school subject – already argued for a substantive distinction between dimensions of commitment. Teaching religion in an appropriate way does not always require the personal religious confessionality of the teacher involved, however it presupposes an educational commitment: But this is not to say that ‘commitment’ is a taboo subject in R.E.: the contrary is true. The process of religious education […] specifically allows for pupils to be offered an ‘education in commitment,’ i. e. an understanding what ‘commitment’ or ‘making a faith commitment’ involves and an awareness of the way in which their own identities are shaped by the commitments they have made and will make. But the maintenance of the educational integrity of this process is dependent upon the religious educator being willing to make a professional commitment to fulfilling its educational goals.12

Connected to this more nuanced use of “confession” is a cultural development. Sociologists and cultural anthropologists describe the growing divergence between beliefs, convictions and confessions held by a community and the different interpretations of these beliefs by the individual members of this particular religious group.13 Some scholars described this phenomenon provocatively as “the heretical imperative.”14 Consequently, the importance of a general creed decreases for more and more members of a religious organization. While still identifying as a member of the Protestant, Lutheran or Catholic Church, many are no longer able to define what it means to be a Protestant, Lutheran or Catholic. One might describe this process in a complementary way. One can observe the growing divergence between the teachings and beliefs of a religious group on the one side and the personal ultimate convictions and commitments of 12 Grimmitt: 1981, 51. 13 Davie: 1994. 14 Berger: 1979.

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individuals and their expressions of them on the other side.15 Some “prophets” among sociologists even announced the decline of the interest in religious beliefs as a medium to express truth alongside a growing relativism and indifferentism. In our analyses, we should therefore stop talking about Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim identities (of schools or individuals) because of the heterogeneity of each of these groups. In addition, the developmental aspect should not be neglected.16 Obviously the overall process does not stop at the doors of a school; it involves pupils as well as teachers. Especially the latter, RE teachers, continue to play a vital role in the educational process of enhancing pupils’ competence to make their own choices concerning their personal religious orientation. Working at the crossroads of religious institutions and secular public schools (at least in Germany), they are one of the crucial groups enabling the next generation to deal with personal truth and convictions and to develop their worldviews. At least in this context, their institutional role requires of teachers to deal with religion according to the principles of confessional orientation. Given the cultural changes resulting in the dissolution of the formerly homogeneous confessional identity of a society and its public schools sketched above, teachers come under pressure in their daily praxis, because the very logic of the subject they are teaching is questioned. Empirical research on the interconnection between profession, person and religion in the case of RE teachers has increased considerably in recent years.17 Research on RE teachers, in Germany and other contexts, has demonstrated a shift away from narrow clerical paternalism in the teachers’ understanding of their subject. This shift has also been shown in a representative study of the situation of RE teachers in the German federal states of Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg.18 Studies seem to imply a different understanding of religious truths among contemporary RE teachers, exhibiting vast individual differences of how teachers understand confessional orientation and how they realize this understanding in their didactic choices.19 The variants found in empirical research reach far beyond the simplistic opposition between “confessionally oriented RE” on the one hand and a neutral “teaching about religion” on the other. All these developments and discussions result in a new challenge for the study of RE and teaching practices to develop models for how to deal with difference and religious diversity in education beyond indoctrination or the neutralist neglect of existing differences. This requires a theoretical reflection about how to understand difference in culture and religions, which can be 15 16 17 18 19

Kuhlmann: 2010. See Miedema: 1995; Kuhlmann: 2010. Feige/Dressler/Schöll/Lukatis: 2000; Feige/Dressler/Tzscheetzsch: 2006. Feige/Tzscheetzsch: 2005. Kießling/Günter/Pruchniewicz: 2018.

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achieved only through a bottom-up strategy of research. Thus it is necessary to gain valid insights about how people deal with religious orientation and religious differences.

Teachers’ “Lived Confessionality :” the Empirical Study Given these more general issues of education in public schools, cultural change and dealing with religious difference, the next sections present an empirical study of Protestant RE teachers’ personal religious commitments that was carried out in the German city of Frankfurt/Main and the surrounding area between 2012 and 2015. The study was conducted in cooperation with and with the administrative and financial support of the regional Protestant Church (Evangelische Kirche in Hessen und Nassau). Essential parts of the study were carried out by Felix Kernkte.20 As public education in European schools is organized on the basis of national and regional legal regulations, this study is designed with attention to the specific legal and institutional conditions at work in the region of Hessen, Germany.21In Germany, a formalized and systematic learning approach to the subject RE in the curriculum has existed for more than a century. Its roots date back to the Christian system of education in schools that has been in existence from the late Middle Ages on. Due to constitutional regulations, since World War II confessional RE has been taught as a regular school subject in German public schools in cooperation between state authorities and recognized religious bodies, usually the Christian churches.22 The German Basic Law states in article 7 (3): Religious instruction shall form part of the regular curriculum in state schools, with the exception of non-denominational schools. Without prejudice to the state’s right of supervision, religious instruction shall be given in accordance with the tenets of the religious community concerned. Teachers may not be obliged against their will to give religious instruction.

Exemption from attending RE is guaranteed on the constitutional basis of the individual’s freedom of religion in German Basic Law, Art. 7 (2).23

20 21 22 23

Heimbrock/Kerntke: 2017. See for more details Schreiner: 2007. Schreiner : 2007. Grundgesetz: 1949.

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Research Interest and the Design of the Study The general research interest of the study is to gain valid empirical insight into the personal ways in which RE teachers describe, and enact in their didactical practice, what it means for them to be Protestant. In the post-secular, pluralistic society of contemporary Germany, teachers show little interest in the clear-cut principles of propositional religious doctrines. Yet, this does not mean that they exhibit only relativistic pedagogical convictions. Conceptually, the study is rooted in a lifeworld-based understanding of confession which tries to combine religious content with a phenomenology of everyday life. Our understanding of confession is related to traditions of the practice of confessionality without identifying confession exclusively with the correct citation of confessional formulas. Rather, the construct “lived confession” attempts to focus on the existential act of making a confession. To trace this difference between doctrinal prescripts and personal orientation in empirical research, the leading concept of the study is “lived confessionality,” which is foundational to the ways in which teachers express religious truth via personal and experientially dense articulations, how this position impacts their classroom activities and how their intentional deployment of these sentiments is embedded in their pedagogical practice. Based on the understanding of religion as “lived religion,”24 the empirical analysis intends to diagnose the rationale that teachers employ in order to constitute a “position” as part of their teaching practice and through the very practice of teaching itself. The project looks for preferences and obstacles in dealing with one’s own and others’ religious truths in teaching and learning. Our expectation was that the results of the study would provide insights and impulses that could be used to improve future teacher formation programs. The central research questions of this study are: – How do RE teachers describe in their own language the importance of confessionality in their teaching? What do they see as the essentially “Protestant” element of RE? – How do they deal with “taking a position” in their classroom practice, in terms of conversations with pupils as well as concerning their teaching methods? The empirical study of teachers’ “lived confessionality” consists of a quantitative and a qualitative part that are organized in a circular way. The quantitative part consists of an online survey of 1400 teachers with permission to teach RE in the school district of the city of Frankfurt and a more rural district north of the city. The sample included all relevant school types, from primary to upper secondary and vocational schools as well as schools for 24 See Weyel/Gräb/Heimbrock: 2013.

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children with special needs. The teachers’ educational background included all relevant types of academic and non-academic preparation: teacher formation programs at several levels, academic degrees in theology, and in some cases individuals coming from other professions. The survey consists of semi-standardized questionnaires with 107 items (closed and open questions), relating to the following issues: – – – –

Professional education Attitudes towards the practice of RE Teachers’ understanding of dialogue in the classroom Personal and professional attitudes towards the church

Data collection and statistical analysis was carried out by Heinz Streib, University of Bielefeld, and his team. For the qualitative part, 13 in-depth interviews were conducted between March and September 2013. The interviewees included again representatives of all school types (elementary, lower secondary, higher secondary, vocational, special needs), all age groups (25 to 61), and all types of teaching formation and professions (teachers, pastors, religious educators). The interviewees were sampled from the exploratory online questionnaire that provided us with some initial information regarding their educational and religious orientation. The interviews were conducted in a semi-open guideline style with extensive advance training for our interviewers including an introduction to our research question, methodological models and interview coaching. We developed these instruments in a circular process, starting with exploratory interviews to specify and adapt our items for the online survey. For the interviews we used a survey analysis to decide on what should be emphasized. Methods Given the general progress in methodologies for empirical studies in RE, it is widely accepted to use a multifaceted methodical design, including quantitative as well as qualitative approaches. In order to gain empirical knowledge about “lived confessionality,” about individual teachers’ commitments in their teaching practice, it is obviously not sufficient to remain on the formal level of defining these commitments explicitly. Rather, they are a part of our “tacit knowledge.”25 Thus, using interviews with a closed questionnaire will not result in an understanding of the substance of teachers’ convictions and their way of taking position. Consequently, it was necessary to develop adequate methods to study the relevant phenonema empirically in order to achieve a more detailed understanding of the nature and background of teachers’ personal confessional orientations and commitments. These methods have to 25 Polanyi: 1964.

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be able to evaluate the interplay between the teachers’ personal positiontaking, their classroom practice, and its constitutive factors (pupils, contexts of school and schooling etc.). The concept of “lived confessionality” served thus as a strategic rather than operative concept in the study : in order to gain valid information about teachers’ “lived confessionality” it doesn’t make sense to use this concept in the interviews themselves. An essential element of our methodical tools was the constant reference to elements of the teachers’ lifeworld, attentiveness to their individual ways of expressing deep convictions and commitments and the creation of the possibility for the interviewees to thematize their presuppositions in the openness of the interview situation. The quantitative part of the project offered an overview of the existing variety of dealing with “lived confessionality” and allowed for further corrections of the guidelines for the in-depth interviews. At the same time it provided the basis for the choice of interviewees for the qualitative part. The in-depth interviews in the second part of the study followed the same structure as the online survey. In the interview situation, it was much easier to pursue the lifeworld orientation of the study by paying attention to not only verbal but also non-verbal messages, and other important elements of the particular encounter between teacher and researcher, the conditions of the interview situation, as well as the particular emotional relationship between interviewer and interviewee. The survey asked for basic information on the respondents’ training, their philosophy of teaching, their attitudes towards interreligious dialogue and corresponding concepts of RE as well as their personal and professional attitude towards their own religious community. In addition, the in-depth interviews also included questions about memorable and important classroom episodes where teachers were challenged to reveal their own religious positions, and their willingness to teach ethics classes. We also asked them about their expectation of how RE in Germany will develop in the next decade. The qualitative data was interpreted by a group of five persons, using an adapted version of “incident analysis.”26 The interviews were analyzed in a circular fashion, with tentative hypotheses being adjusted and validated through multiple re-readings of the texts. The interpreters identified a center or core of the interview as an interpretational key to large portions of the interviews. Sometimes this could be a certain concept, the style of the argument or the response to a given question. Departing from this central aspect, we reconstructed the main mode of positioning, i. e. the way the interviewees use their own convictions as positions made available in the teaching process.

26 Knauth: 2011.

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Main Results The four-year study resulted in a large body of data which was analyzed according to statistical and hermeneutical methods as discussed above.27 Here, I will concentrate on the most relevant results in terms of the research interest pursued in the study. Quantitative Study The statistical analysis of the responses to the online survey (167 out of 1400) via factor analysis resulted in a cluster which served to structure the material. Three factors are clearly dominant to which the different items of the questionnaire can be linked: – openness to commitment (OC) – professional church affinity (PCA) – teachers’ goals in teaching RE Especially the first and second factor show a clear correlation with the different types of professional education of the respondents. By and large teachers in upper secondary schools score low, lower secondary and primary school teachers show figures in a middle section, pastors score considerably high. One would expect there to be a progression in the degree of commitment leading from primary school to lower secondary to upper secondary to pastors. However, this expectation is not supported by the data. The graphic shows that there is no continuous growth but rather a discontinuity in levels of commitment. Those scoring lowest in terms of openness to commitment are teachers at upper secondary schools. We found that among these teachers there is a clearer tendency to relate to a personal creed as part of their understanding of the profession of the RE teacher. Another result of the statistical analysis showed an apparent paradox. A considerable number of participants estimated their personal relationship to the church to be significantly closer than their professional relationship. A correlation between the scores in terms of the three factors and regional differences (urban vs. rural areas) could not be confirmed. This negative result is plausible considering that the working place of teachers and their social backgrounds and homes are usually not the same due to high mobility. In contrast to the results of the quantitative study, the qualitative part clearly indicates that the professional context of a particular school type is a substantial influence on the teachers’ willingness to take position in religious 27 Heimbrock/Kerntke: 2017.

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Fig. 1. Horizontal axis: academic degree (Grundschule = primary school teachers, Pfarramt/Diplom = pastors, Sek II. = upper secondary school teachers, Sek I. = lower secondary school teachers) Vertical axis: average result for factorial analysis “openness to commitment” with normalised values. Image produced by H.G. Heimbrock and F. Kerntke

matters in the actual classroom conversation. School types determine modes of commitment. The different educational goals of the types of schools in Germany’s vertically and horizontally differentiated school system impact these modes of commitment. Upper secondary schools (Oberstufe) have propaedeutical goals which are furthered by religious commitment as a religious mode of understanding and describing the world that is to be learned and studied in relation to scientific, aesthetic, and other approaches to the world. Lower secondary schools (Mittelstufe) have pre-vocational goals which are realized through commitment as a competence to be acquired in order to perform in modern society and a resource on which to draw in order to cope with modern society. Vocational secondary schools (Berufsschule) try to implement counselling and lifeworld orientation in their curriculum, therefore the teacher (or oftentimes pastor) becomes a role model of commitment for students. However, it is more difficult to define a characteristic goal and related mode of commitment for primary schools (Grundschulen).

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The statistical analysis of the quantitative part with its clustering according to three factors allowed for classifying all interviewed teachers (marked yellow) within the context of all subjects. The figure shows the distribution in terms of “professional church affinity” on the vertical axis, with “openness to commitment” on the horizontal axis.

Fig. 2. Scatterplot of all subjects; all interviewees are anonymized.

Qualitative Study With regard to the study’s overall research interest to investigate teachers’ personal way to express their commitment and how this relates to their teaching methods, the qualitative part of the study yields even more interesting results than the quantitative one. The evaluation of the qualitative data contains several dimensions. One was to reconstruct the thirteen individual interviews as extended case studies and to develop a profile of their particular patterns of “lived confessionality.” Further, we evaluated the data in terms of “dimensions of lived confessionality.”

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Two Reconstructed Case Studies To indicate the wide range of different individual understandings of personal/ professional commitment I will present the reconstruction of two case studies. The first one is Elisabeth. She is fifty years old and works as a school pastor in a vocational school in Frankfurt. After studying Protestant theology she worked as a freelance writer for some years before starting practical training and working as a pastor. Her motivation for her job is the great joy she felt working in schools during her training which was supported by her mentors. She is used to teaching confessionally and religiously mixed groups of pupils since the vocational system does not have the resources to accommodate those differentiated needs. Elisabeth told us that this is the norm in those schools, although officials would not acknowledge it. One of the first questions in all our interviews is about the teaching philosophy of the interviewee. First, Elisabeth talks about how important her understanding of the justification of the believer, a central element of Reformation theology, still is for her own modern anthropology. Then she describes her acquaintance with a pupil whom she encourages not to underestimate his own abilities. She uses this as an implicit, narrative illustration of her basic idea to see merit in her students’ achievements. When her assessment of this student’s skills later proves to be right, she comments on it saying to herself: “Elisabeth, you’re doing a good job.” This short sketch shall suffice to establish the first type of taking position we found. On the one hand, Elisabeth is used to working in an environment that makes it nearly impossible to teach a specifically Protestant theology to her students. She actually complains about her supervisors who do not acknowledge her conviction that it is right to teach all these students together as a pastor despite their different religious orientations as Protestants, Catholics, Muslims or agnostics, without making it Protestant RE. On the other hand she has a very clear idea of “the Protestant” in her own thoughts and life. She illustrates how this becomes effective in her teaching. She is able to describe herself as committed to a specific religious tradition and does this using Protestant semantics. The second interviewee is Ralf. He is 45 years old and studied and trained to be a physical education (PE) and RE teacher for lower secondary schools. As he told us, at first he wanted to be a sports major, but then switched to a double minor in sports and RE in order to speed up his education to be able to start working. When we ask him if he can recount a situation when his students challenged him to take position, he answers: “Yes, that’s happened many times before. Whenever we deal with certain topics and issues, the first that comes to my mind is the death penalty, specifically. Depending, this always becomes an issue in ninth or tenth grade. My students then expect me that I clearly state my own position towards that issue.” We asked back if he likes to do that: “I always

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do it, as a matter of principle. Because I think, teaching can only be credible and authentic if one takes a clear stance.” – “Also when it’s not asked for?” – “Also unrequested.” From our entire sample, Ralf is most decided when it comes to stating his position. He does it as a matter of principle. His unrequested self-positioning is not unparalleled, but no other interviewee puts it in such strong terms. Some teachers show a missionary agenda to some degree but even they do not resort to such vocabulary. Thus, he seems to be strongly committed to commitment. But we had some trouble finding out to what he is actually committed. All his attempts to define it somehow fail. On the one hand he uses numerous phrases that show some positional commitment: “principally, always, very important, I believe, to me,” etc. But on the other hand the definition of his declared Protestant affiliation becomes fuzzy. He understands himself as Protestant, but he doesn’t understand his Protestant beliefs as something that should be presented with a degree of normativity. Never does he discuss Protestantism as something with a subjective, personal reference. When he talks about Protestantism, he says: “to me the Protestant religion…” In our understanding, calling a belief system “religion” is probably the most distant and depersonalized way of describing it. The spectrum of religious commitment A further step in the qualitative part of our study aimed at elaborating a typology of modes of commitment. The best way to describe Ralf typologically is as “committed to commitment.” Elisabeth could be seen as representing the type: “committed as a believing person to teaching from that belief.” In other words, Ralf is strongly committed to taking position as a principle in teaching, while Elisabeth is committed to teaching from the position of her Protestant convictions. For our question of subjective ways of enacting commitment in practical situations, it is therefore important to analyze the expressions of normativity in positions in teaching. The following provides an overview of the different modes of commitment we encountered in our interviews: – We found a strong conviction among participants that one of the essentials of Protestantism is the freedom of the individual. This conviction becomes especially effective when teaching in our model of RE because it makes it possible to critique or reject teachings and positions of the Protestant community. Interviewees understand their affiliation with the Protestant community precisely through this strong affirmation of individual freedom. – We found a general consensus that positionality has an instrumental value in education towards a society capable to deal with a plurality of

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worldviews. In most cases teachers see their own person as an illustration and mock opponent for this educational process (the role model aspect). – There was disagreement on the measure of proselytization permissible in teaching. Some voiced this concern in the following terms: “It is not my goal to proselytize, but if one or some of my students come to faith it is a compliment for me.” This depends strongly on the degree of plurality in the classroom. – The competence of respondents to explain things in traditional theological language deviates strongly from our anticipations. Some of the teachers define themselves merely as “Christian,” some use rather complex theological reasoning to justify their teaching methods and beliefs. The degree of reflexivity shows interesting correlations (not in statistical terms) with this linguistic capacity. – We assumed that regional contexts would cause differences in expressing one’s commitment. The close proximity of rural and urban areas in Germany at first seemed to deny such a difference. After some fruitless attempts at understanding the situation, we found mobility to be the crucial factor. Some of the teachers live in a different place than their workplace in terms of social structure. Taking this into account and with attention to the amount of professional experience, we found there to be a complex pattern in the interviews. Teachers take social and religious patterns into account when they teach, but they don’t always do this in direct relation to where their school is. Rather, they develop an idea of religious and social plurality or homogeneity that relies heavily on their own lived experience. Nota bene: All different types were identified within the sample, thus were labeled as “Protestant RE teachers.” Thus in the teacher’s view the essence of “confessional” RE might not even be confessional in the conventional formal sense, but “merely” express commitment to a certain teaching style, a detail which corresponds to Grimmit’s argument mentioned above.28

Conclusions Against all the assumptions often found in media, there is empirical evidence that the RE teachers we studied usually do not dream of a neutral approach to the subject of religion. They show little or no interest in worldview relativism. Our study evidences the impact of collective patterns and factors that shape personal convictions and self-positioning. The empirical critical reconstruction of teachers’ comments and practices shows once more that it would be an illusion to assume that the religious position and beliefs somebody is expressing are a deliberate result of personal reflection and decision making. 28 Grimmit 1981.

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However, even in a setting like the Netherlands, a study shows that teachers working within a school officially labeled as “Christian” or “Protestant” are by no means dominated by Christian or Protestant teachings in their professional habits as they deal with commitment and diversity in their actual praxis.29 This study supports our findings concerning the importance of subjective ways of dealing with religious convictions and commitments that teachers in the German sample (all within secular schools) exhibit. In other words, in scientific descriptions we should no longer talk about the Christian/Catholic/Protestant/Muslim identity of a school or an individual because of the heterogeneity within each group. Of course the very idea of “taking position” is normative in itself. To indicate the scope and conditions under which to make use of “taking positions” in the teaching process is itself a normative process. But a closer look at the norms expressed and/or employed by teachers opens up a view on the various discourses that shape teachers’ positions and their inclination to “take position.” Confession and commitment can be investigated and described not only in theological language, but they deserve educational reflection as well. Any conceptualization of the religious profile of individual and collective convictions should also take into consideration non-religious elements. Thus, teachers’ modes and forms of “taking position” are intimately connected to their professional socialization and teaching philosophy. Both perspectives, the theory of education as well as of RE specifically, need to be included in the discussion of the relevance of “taking a position” in RE in a secular school’s curriculum. The empirical results of the Frankfurt study have consequences for teaching RE in German schools: – to improve academic teacher education concerning the relation between references to collectively shared traditions and the cultivation of personal judgment, – to adjust the institutional role of RE teachers as members of state schools and churches, – to reconsider leading models for RE in public schools in times of the advanced pluralization of religions and worldviews.

Comparison to the Current Dutch Situation Usually, in Grace Davie’s expression, “Believing without Belonging,”30 “belonging” is understood in terms of belonging to a religious community. It might be interesting to take a closer look at what our results say about the 29 Bertram-Troost/van der Kooij/Miedema/Versteegt/Nes: 2007. 30 Davie: 1990.

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issue of belonging. One of the puzzling, yet interesting findings in our study regards the relationship between teachers’ individual commitments and collective patterns. The starting point and main interest for us was the individuals’ way to deal with commitments. It is useful to compare our regional German study with current research on RE teachers in the Netherlands. Given the dominant role of the collective factor, i. e. the particular profile of a school, for all education in a particular setting in the Netherlands, there is a rich debate on the importance of the school identity also with regard to RE. For decades, studies have investigated the relationship between the overall school profile and the religious traditions of the group the school belongs to. This relationship is even more central since schools have become aware that their religious education occurs within a multi-religious context and is intended for pupils whose parents by no means choose a given school because of its particular religious affiliation and program of religious education.31 In addition, studies have focused on the particular way in which individual teachers interpret and enact the school’s collective religious identity in a plural society with diverse worldview orientations. There is a wide-spread assumption that schools with a clear Christian profile face difficulties when the school population shifts to pupils with diverse religious backgrounds. Bakker deals with this issue in his article “Teachers in Tension? Teachers Between the Formal Christian Identity of the School and Religious Diversity.”32 In his analysis of a qualitative study of teachers, he makes a distinction between a “deductive” versus an “inductive” approach. Deductive reasoning starts with the school’s official program as following a “Christian identity concept” and from this draws conclusions about the daily practice of teachers and others. The assumption is – that teachers choose the religious identity of their work place, the school, and that this identity remains stable, and – that prescribed religious identity and lived identity are more or less the same. According to Bakker, however, an inductive approach that starts with the analysis of the daily practices of teachers, school principals, members of the board and so on, offers better insights. Understanding the process of inscribing the school’s religious identity not as a formal process but one that happens through daily praxis results in a much more dynamic picture. The factual religious identity of a school can then be understood as a series of ongoing steps in an interactive negotiation between all subjects involved. This inductive way of reflection is applied to the question of dealing with diversity in schools. Bakker arrives at several interesting results: 31 Bakker : 2007; Bakker/Rigg: 2004. 32 Bakker 2007.

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– In their daily practice teachers usually do not perceive a tension between their personal interpretation of the school program’s religious identity because they simply do not reflect on the Christian profile of their school program at all. – When, in the context of the study, the teachers were confronted with the challenge to explain the relation between personal interpretation and school program, they found it very difficult and rather problematic to put this relationship into appropriate words because they experienced the task of explaining as “non-self-evident,” not spontaneous and artificial for the purpose of meta-reflection. – In contrast to explicit comments of the interviewees, in their daily practice teachers perceived religious diversity as quite unproblematic. It is a challenge to be met using professional skills as part of a daily routine, like many other differences among the pupils’ abilities that teachers have to deal with: “Diversity invites the teacher to apply an ‘activating strategy in his pedagogical-didactical behavior’.”33 Bakker’s interpretive conclusion is interesting for our context. When explicitly asked about tensions between the school’s profile and religious diversity, teachers drew on a narrow and rather formal concept of “Christian identity.” “However in their daily practices, they continuously make inductive decisions regarding professional behavior.”34 The direct comparison between RE teachers in different countries makes very little sense, because although using the same words, both groups enact and experience different things and act professionally according to different educational, cultural and religious patterns. However, it seems that our guiding conceptual tool for looking at teachers’ ways to take position and to deal with commitments fits very well with the results of the Dutch studies. In order to gain empirical knowledge about individual teachers’ commitments in their teaching practice, it is obviously not sufficient to remain on the level of formal definitions of these commitments, but it is necessary to investigate the personal ways of expressing commitment in relationship to lifeworld experiences. This short reflection on some Dutch studies emphasizes the impact of collective patterns and factors on personal convictions and self-positioning. The Dutch research results underline again the value of empirical research on RE teachers and on the educational practice in general that pays attention to the teachers’ lifeworld perspectives, their unspoken assumptions about their everyday practice and their experiences of their own professional practice. One has to be very careful about the dynamic of quasi self-evident patterns of action as well as interpretations of practice in terms of 33 Bakker/Rigg: 2004, 188. 34 Bakker : 2007, 303.

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generalized “Christian teaching practice.” Otherwise research is limited by artificial constructions of practice.

Position, Formation, and Difference In this last section, I will develop some results of the empirical study for a more general and theoretical reflection, especially regarding the overarching issue of difference. Taking Position and Enacting Differences Western culture has a long tradition of automatically linking consent to a particular opinion with the rejection of another, contrary opinion. To vote for something implies voting against something else. If this judgement is true, then the other one is false, and vice versa. The classical pattern for this model is found in Aristotelian logic in the law of the excluded third: “either x or non-x, tertium non datur” (Artistotle). Formulating judgements according to this model seems to be the same as, or at least very similar to, formulating differences understood as contradictions. Through the ages, this occidental tradition of logic seems to have been transferred to the field of religion and religious commitments. Either somebody is Catholic or Protestant, either a Christian or a Muslim. Likewise the linguistic metaphor of “taking position” or “taking a stand” seems to suggest a choice for a particular place within a spatial arrangement in which to choose this place automatically implies not choosing that place over there. In this respect the results of the empirical study on teachers and their practice of taking position concerning religious commitments are very enlightening because they show a more nuanced picture. A closer look at how the teachers in the study try to describe their personal commitment in the empirical study offers more detailed insights into the dynamics of taking position in relation to dealing with difference. Due to our phenomenological approach which takes into account the lifeworld perspective of our subjects, we were very attentive to the concrete and situational practice of negotiating one’s position in a large variety of concrete interactions with pupils. Sometimes, a person’s attempt to take position clearly and explicitly expresses the rejection of a counter-position, an element of religious commitment to which one is strongly opposed. Examples would be: “This is Catholic!” Or, as one respondent said: “For me, the Protestant religion does not have to be the one and only saving religion – one of the big differences to Catholicism.” However, this expression of contrasts is by no means a self-evident and necessary element of a person’s attempt to circumscribe their own position.

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Many other dimensions are a part of the process of arriving at one’s own religious commitment, such as describing “what is Protestant for me…,” and enacting it in classroom practices, where the teachers we studied were less or even not at all interested in contrasting their own Protestant position to another one. Thus, who I am and what I represent “as Protestant” is expressed not predominantly according to the binary “x or non x.” The rationale in many teachers’ narratives is much more complex when we take into account lifeworld elements, individual biographical and emotional experiences, patterns of religious attitudes learned in the encounter with important figures, and so on. The most striking example for this seems to be that many of the teachers, when asked to talk about their personal convictions, made a clear plea for the freedom of the believer as the essential element in their understanding of the Protestant faith. Some were able to formulate this idea using theological terms, talking about “the justification of the believer,” many others used other terms. Only some contrasted this understanding with a model of faith as regulated by authorities, but the majority of teachers did not use contrasts to describe their position. Our study of teachers’ “lived confessionality” sheds light on issues of the self-construction of identity. It is not an unchangeable psychological law that one’s own (religious) identity be developed through the clear demarcation of one’s own position over against others, but the formation of one’s identity depends (among other things) on cultural and situational variables.35 There is empirical evidence for a continuum of modes of how taking position and expressing opposite positions can be combined. To arrive at one’s own position of commitment, and sometimes also to leave it, cannot only be described as a process of creating a contrast between one’s own and the ethical or dogmatic propositions of others. Instead, the positive side of one’s own commitment and related teaching praxis has – more or less – its own independent profile. Confessional positions should not be taken as fixed collective “boxes” but as a process in which individual human beings balance the demands of a religious tradition with their personal experiences and convictions, and in the case of teachers, the need to act professionally. From a Protestant point of view, this fits with a long-standing tradition in the theological approach to confession. Therefore, it is both reasonable and necessary to link this project to theologically meaningful ways of arguing in favour of the good sense of talking about “confession.” This includes the personal, existential dimension of the statement “I believe” as a necessary element (instead of a merely neutral description of religious objects), the subjective commitment to unconditional religious truths (instead of relativism), and the free, responsible relation to church as the community of those who share a confession. The internal logic of a confessional orientation has 35 Assman/Friese: 1998.

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always been something else than simply and only the attempt to draw boundaries and express opposition. I think this outcome of the study of teachers’ “lived confessionality” shows the need to adjust the understanding of difference in the field of religion. When it comes to the praxis of difference in lived religion in the context of people’s practice of life, it is not sufficient to limit oneself to abstract considerations and comparisons about disparities regarding the cognitive content of religious propositions of this or that doctrinal content. Dealing with religious differences is not a matter of academic disputes, or at least it is not only that. Instead, the encounter with and negotiation of difference in concrete situations of life is always enacted and lived by human subjects. It certainly includes cognitive processes of thinking about and evaluating truth claims and their logical validity. However, particular activities where people have to face or are even forced to deal with differences in lifeworld situations include other aspects, such as how somebody frames their thoughts in their particular everyday language, the emotional and bodily encounter of somebody with persons with whom they disagree, how somebody might be motivated by concrete challenges or follow a particular interest (ruling out the other, be proven right, showing intellectual supremacy etc.). And dealing with those differences of utmost importance for a person (Paul Tillich’s “ultimate concern”) is rarely a process which comes to a definite end at some point. It is rather the ongoing story of the person, dependent on biographical experiences and their possible challenge to adjust former convictions.

Formation: Ac-knowledgment of the Other This article started with a reflection on the traditional task of public education to transmit cultural and religious values, and the difficulties to fulfill this task in a situation when the mono-religious identity of society has been dissolved in modernity. The advanced plurality of religious and worldview orientations provides a major challenge for education. Results of the empirical studies mentioned above analyzing attempts of dealing with self-positioning as well as with differences are helpful to reformulate the general task of education and the role of religion in this matter. In contrast to wide-spread trends towards “worldview education” either as a completely neutral enterprise or as a comparison of denominational and religious differences (“the general Christian”), the main educational challenge is how to cope with taking position and dealing with differences. My answer, rooted in the contemporary philosophy of education and its leading concept of

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“formation,” comes down to a clear plea for “education as supporting the ‘perception of the Other’.”36 An individual’s process of “formation” includes the extension of their knowledge about things. It requires the competence to read the world and to understand it. However, enlightenment anthropology has shown that the development of the self – understood in terms of formation (Bildung) – inevitably needs more than the awareness of myself. Formation presupposes a process of opening myself towards the world, stepping beyond my own lifeworld, beyond the sphere I know, and coming into contact with new and strange persons, experiences and habits. Formation therefore can be described as “perception of the Other.”37Formation of the person as subject presupposes the acknowledgement of another person in a non-objectivating approach, in a dialogical relation, namely an I-Thou-relationship, as Martin Buber called it. “Der Mensch wird am Du zum Ich.”38 There is an important structural link between encounter and formation. Therefore, one might even say that “encounter” is a key concept for reflecting about the educational process.39 In this sense formation is a mutual encounter between a subject and the surrounding world. It asks for a qualitative shift from knowledge about things to ac-knowledgment of the other which is more than acquiring more information about more things. If the aim of the educational process is not to overcome the other, then it demands a response to otherness instead of its appropriation.40 The concept of formation aims at an ongoing process of human growth towards becoming a subject by way of encountering more than oneself, encountering that which is different. This concept of formation goes beyond the current ideal of instruction and schooling. It provides a qualitative criterion for a successful pedagogical process. It aims at the development of the subject which asks to be enhanced and facilitated by others but cannot be completely “made,” in spite of all professional pedagogical efforts. Meaningful and deep encounters will not happen automatically in the pedagogical praxis. Therefore “formation” in the emphatic sense of an educational concept requires leaving space for meaningful encounters in the learning process. Intercultural encounters demonstrate that this theory of formation is not universal, but it is based on the presupposition that human beings are recognized as persons. Obviously this presupposition is not shared in a cultural ideal of education which does not center on individual but collective identity formation. Consequently it is not surprising to see that the whole basis in educational analysis of the above concept of formation becomes 36 Peukert: 1994. 37 Peukert: 1994. 38 Buber: [1923] 2008, 34: “A person only becomes a self through encountering the other.” (Translation by the author.) 39 Heimbrock: 2009. 40 Waldenfels: 1989.

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problematic when involved in a certain type of encounter of cultures. It is precisely this complex of questions that indicates the necessity for further intercultural dialogue with all its structural difficulties.

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lischer Religionslehrerinnen und -lehrer in Baden-Württemberg, Braunschweig: Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Feige, A./Dressler, B./Tzeeztsch, W., eds. (2006), Religionslehrerin oder Religionslehrer werden. Zwölf Analysen berufsbiografischer Selbstwahrnehmungen, Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag. Franken, L. (2018), Religious Studies and Non-Confessional RE. Countering the Debates, in: Religion and Education, 45, 155–172. Grimmitt, M. (1981), When is “Commitment” a Problem in Religious Education?, in: British Journal of Educational Studies, 29, 1, 42–53. Grundgesetz: Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, http://www.gesetzeim-internet.de/englisch_gg/index.html [accessed 22. 01. 2019]. Habermas, J./ Ratzinger, J. (2008), Die Dialektik der Säkularisierung. Über Vernunft und Religion, Freiburg: Herder. Heimbrock, H.-G. (2009b), Encounters in Diversity. Some Suggestions for a Dialogical Religious Education, in: G. Skeie, ed., Religious Diversity and Education. Nordic Perspectives, Münster : Waxmann, 29–42. Heimbrock, H.-G./Kerntke, F. (2017), Evangelisches Profil im Widerspruch. Gelebte Konfessionalität von Religionslehrern in der EKHN. Eine empirische Untersuchung, in: H.-G. Heimbrock, ed., Taking Position. Empirical Studies and Theoretical Reflections on RE-Teachers Views about their Personal Commitment in RE Teaching. International Contributions, Münster : Waxmann, 23–79. Heimbrock, H.-G./ Kerntke, F. (2017), Positionalität von Religion in lebensweltlicher Perspektive, in: Chr. Wiese/S. Alkier/M. Schneider, eds., Diversität – Differenz – Dialogizität. Religion in pluralen Kontexten, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 379–400. Hull J.M. (2005), Religious Education in Germany and England. The Recent Work of Hans Georg Ziebertz, in: British Journal of Religious Education, 27, 5–17. Jackson, R., ed. (2003), International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education and Religious Diversity, London/New York: Routledge. Jackson, R. (2004), Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality : Issues in Diversity and Pedagogy, London/New York: Routledge. Kiessling, K./Genter, A./Pruchniewicz, S. (2018), Machen Unterschiede Unterschiede? Konfessioneller Religionsunterricht in gemischten Lerngruppen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Knauth, Th. (2011), Incident Analysis. A Key Category of REDCo Classroom Analysis, in: I. ter Avest, ed., Dialogue and Conflict on Religion. Studies of Classroom Interaction in European Countries, Münster : Waxmann, 17–27. Kuhlmann, H. (2010), Konfessorische Identität als Gestalt religiöser Differenz – quer zu den Grenzen von Konfessionaliät und Religionszugehörigkeit, in: W. Weiße/H. M. Gutmann, eds., Religiöse Differenz als Chance? Kontroversen Perspektiven, Münster : Waxmann, 131–143. Miedema, S./Wardekker, W. (2001), Identity Formation between Participation and Distanciation, in: H.-G. Heimbrock/Chr. Scheilke/P. Schreiner, eds., Towards

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Religious Competence. Diversity as a Challenge for Education in Europe, Münster : Waxmann, 23–33. Miedema, S., (2017), Position, Commitment and Worldview from a Pedagogical Perspective, in: H.-G. Heimbrock, ed., Taking Position. Empirical Studies and Theoretical Reflections on RE-Teachers Views about their Personal Commitment in RE Teaching. International Contributions, Münster : Waxmann, 127–138. Menkler, H. (2017), Der Dreißigjährige Krieg. Europäische Katastrophe, deutsches Trauma 1618–1648, Berlin: Rowohlt. Peukert, H. (1994), Bildung als Wahrnehmung des Anderen, in: I. Lohmann/ W. Weiße, eds., Dialog zwischen den Kulturen. Erziehungshistorische und religionspädagogische Gesichtspunkte interkultureller Bildung, Münster: Waxmann, 1–14. Polanyi, M. (1964), Personal Knowledge. Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, London: Routledge. Schreiner, P. (2007), Religious Education in Germany, in: E. Kuyk/R. Jensen/D. Lankshear/E. Löh Manna/S. Schreiner, eds., Religious Education in Europe. Situation and Current Trend in Schools, Oslo: IKO & ICCS, 81–87. Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age, Harvard: Harvard University Press. Thompson, P. (2004), Whose Confession? Which Tradition? in: British Journal of Religious Education, 26, 61–72. Veinguer, A. A./Dietz, G./Jozsa, D.-P./Bakker, C./Jackson, R., eds. (2009), Islam in Education in European Countries. Pedagogical Concepts and Empirical Findings, Münster : Waxmann. Waldenfels, B. (1989), Experience of the Other. Between Appropriation and Disappropriation, in: St. L. White, ed., Life-World and Politics. Essays in Honor of Fred R. Dallmayr, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 4–49. Weyel, B./Gr-b, W./Heimbrock, H.-G., eds. (2013), Praktische Theologie und empirische Religionsforschung, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt.

Figures Fig. 1: Image produced by H.G. Heimbrock and F. Kerntke. Fig. 2: Heimbrock/Kerntke: 2017, 45 (translation by the author).

Carla Danani

Contested Religious Differences and the Question of Justice

A Unified but not Unitary World The acceleration of communication and the development of information technology, connected as they are to the generalized use of one language – English as a lingua franca – are favoring the condition of interconnectedness that characterizes almost all the different parts of the world. Not only are the same goods distributed everywhere, but with them also contents and behavioral models. Our era is thus experiencing a trend towards global unification. And yet it does not seem to offer any single explicit coordination or order. So the world, though ever more unified, is not a unitary world.1 The trend towards homologation, however, provokes more or less vigorous reactions, aimed at defending and enhancing diversity, traditions and local identities. The nation-states find their autonomy and sovereignty challenged by new transnational powers and raise defensive sovereignist claims; at the same time, though, they are affected by localistic and autonomist claims. Moreover, if globalization itself increasingly needs to create spaces and make them flourish with specific roles in production and consumption,2 these different particular realities redefine their identity in reaction to the impulses that come from the global dimension of economy and culture. The tendency towards universality and the affirmation of differences meet and clash.3 In this context, where boundaries between the external and internal are redesigned and tensions regarding identity as well as hegemony grow, religions have come to offer an important point of reference for both individuals and groups. They have explicitly regained their public and political significance beyond the private sphere, where they had been confined by modernity after the religious wars. Their public presence coexists, however, with widespread attitudes of indifference and disengagement towards the different religious traditions, attitudes of sometimes annoyance, often suspicion. In an unprecedented proximity in this ever more unified but not unitary world, the different religions are questioned in their aspirations to uniqueness, their internal unity and in their relationship with other orders of rationality. At the same time, they openly question the different cultural, social and political contexts. 1 Cf. Galli: 2001, 138. 2 Cf. Robertson: 1992; he was the first to use the term “glocalization.” 3 Cf. Pagano: 2006.

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Not only are different religious traditions present on the scene; religion itself should be recognized as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, that is, as a source of meaning, social practices and relations of power and domination.4 Moreover, every religion takes on different historical forms. Therefore, the way in which religions differ from each other cannot be the same for all their forms, just as the way in which they differ from other cultural practices involving negotiations of meaning and power is not monolithic. Religions shape the Lebenswelt, each in consequence of their particular nature. Habermas, for example, observes that religious worldviews differ from ethical life projects by linking beliefs to “truth claims” which do not correspond to discursive rationality. On the one hand, Habermas affirms that the truth claimed by religious statements should not be put on the same level as propositional truth. On the other hand, he recognizes that “evidently, discursive practices which subject controversial utterance to the unforced force of the better argument ultimately operate within a horizon of impenetrable and opaque experiences which can be represented iconically but cannot be completely grasped and explained in discursive terms.”5 If, in short, reasons and discursive thought are at the center of the human life, “the domain of symbolically expressed meaning continues to extend beyond the sphere of linguistically expressed meanings interwoven with reasons.”6 We can understand religion as a specific way of living the relational experience that characterizes human beings.7 From an anthropological point of view, religious experience is pervaded by a preliminary sense of being involved in a situation, that is, by “faith” (a word that different religions understand in different ways). This kind of involvement opens up perspectives, offers stable points of reference and engages people through meaningful insights that situate and orient their thoughts and actions. All other human relations are marked by this fundamental orientation. Given this level of radical engagement, it seems that religions offer the purest example of what should be understood as “different.” For believers, the first reference is a dimension that is not of their making but by which they are engaged and oriented. Difference characterizes religions from within. The meaning of what gives sense remains always an assumption for the believer.8 With respect to their own religious perspectives, believers cannot but attribute a universal value to these perspectives. However, this does not inevitably lead to their transformation into something absolute, thus forgetting their particular character. In short, we can escape fundamentalism if we are aware that every universalistic instance offers itself in the gap of its difference, 4 Religion is a complex field of practice and social interaction which can include the domination of sexual minorities and women on religious grounds. Cf. Okin: 1999; 2002. 5 Habermas: 2017, 66–67. 6 Habermas: 2017, 69. 7 Cf. Fabris: 2012. 8 Cf. Fabris: 2012, 125.

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in some non-coincidence with its referent. This kind of universalism occurs as an offer of what one does not possess. We can speak of universalism by universalizability,9 which has its own raison d’Þtre in a certain self-understanding enacted by religion itself and which religion articulates in concrete conditions of religious freedom, without having to fear plurality and difference. Yet it is true that not all religious forms encompass the same orientation to some common good – however understood –, the idea of legitimate rule as based on the consent of the governed, a commitment to respect moral pluralism, and the equality of all citizens.10 It seems, therefore, that religious pluralism questions religious freedom, for this kind of pluralism asks: is the act of faith an act to which one is obliged, and, as such, not a free act? This act can be understood as predominantly expressed in beliefs or practices. If it is understood as a free act, then subjective freedom belongs to the truth of the religion that recognizes it. Religious freedom thus opens and orients human beings to respect the plurality of religions. It can always be challenged, however, and the right to freedom can turn into a means for exercising power over others. Religious plurality can be accepted for various reasons: because one considers faith as a very private matter, or because of a certain idea of humanity, according to which individual autonomy is something sacred, or for reasons of political realism. Another reason may be that it is useful to let others pursue what seems bad to us, in order to prevent the possibility that we may be forced, in reverse, to do what seems bad to us. It can also be accepted for the sake of peace, or thanks to the specific inner reasons of a certain tradition. Every religious world can be questioned – and can question itself – about the internal resources which within its own horizon of meaning allow it to adhere to this dynamic of pluralism. Seligman states “that such a position can be developed from within a religious perspective is, I believe, a crucial point, precisely because the alternative – modern and liberal – bases of tolerance are themselves somewhat shaky.”11 He highlights that pluralism and tolerance are different from toleration. In his view, pluralism and tolerance can be sustained not so much through the forms of argumentation that characterize western

9 Cf. Fabris: 2012, 126–127. 10 See the interesting analysis in Ferrara: 2014, 127–141; 140: “[…] adequate consonance can be found in all historical religions for most of the major components of the ‘spirit of democracy’: namely, for an orientation to the common good, for a positive notion of pluralism, for a notion of legitimate rule as resting on the consent of the governed, for the equality of the citizens, and for a positive appraisal of individuality. Finally, a fifth thesis put forwards in this chapter has identified the priority of rights over duties and the valuing of contestation or agonism within the ‘spirit of democracy’, for which it is most problematic to find equivalents in non-Western and non-Protestant cultures.” 11 Seligman: 2000, 134.

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modernity12 – based as they are on ideas about the privatization of conscience – but through a form of epistemic modesty and a sense of humility as the basis for mutual recognition, sympathy, and benevolence. Fisch, while sharing Seligman’s approach of epistemological humility, refers to the theory of tolerance outlined in Popper’s Open Society and Its Enemies: “the close presence of challenging, even disturbing and dissenting voices is welcomed, because the chances of one’s awakening to error and oversight are exceedingly greater when faced with a variety of real and serious alternatives.”13 This approach, Fisch says, is not grounded in “right talk” (to use Ackermann’s words): “the upshot is an epistemic hesitance, modesty and openness […] and that other viewpoints are not merely to be tolerated but to be highly valued, not for their own intrinsic worth so much as for their capacity to challenge our own by helping highlight its flaws and shortcomings.”14 It certainly would be interesting to trace the specific internal resources that lead the various religious traditions to accept and even enhance religious plurality. Pluralism, moreover, does not only concern the acceptance of the existence of different religious visions of world and life, since these also shape in different ways their mutual relationships and the question of justice.15 It certainly would be of great interest to reconstruct the point of view of each specific religious tradition, considering the transformations that it may have experienced in different contexts and times. However, this is a task that goes beyond what I propose in this contribution. Here I propose a more modest philosophical reflection in order to clarify some of the theoretical issues concerning the purpose to create right coexistence among human beings, whether of different religious beliefs or without any. I will point out some of the paths that can be undertaken, assuming religious differences as a fact and opting for peaceful relations between human beings – which does not mean without conflicts. 12 Cf. Seligman: 2000, 134–135; Seligman argues that for the past two hundred years the western world rested not on religious foundations but on decidedly secular ones. And he continues: “The privatization of religion – which can be seen as one aspect of this secularization – is itself rooted in the institutionalization of Protestant religiosity. It has led to the circumscription of religious truth claims to the realm of the private rather that of the shared, public culture. […] A liberal foundation for tolerance seems then either to be not tolerance at all but indifference or to involve us in a contradiction. And that is the contradiction between the practice of tolerance predicated on a politics of rights, rather than of the good, and the very principle of individual autonomy as a prime good upon which such toleration is to be based. This principle, however, is contradictory, for it involves a refusal to advance a politics of the good while at the same time resting on at least one very clearly defined principle of the good, that of individual autonomy.” 13 Fisch: 2010, 55. 14 Fisch: 2010, 56. 15 Due to the multidimensional character and inner tensions of religion, in a single context the same religious tradition may be at once supportive and in conflict with democratic practice; it can involve at once valuable sources of meaning and practices of domination and violence (gendered practices, rituals premised on cruelty against animals, etc.); see Ungureanu/Monti: 2018, 7.

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This is no abstract work. As Martha Nussbaum underlines in her Women and Human Development, critical theory has great practical value. The arguments offered by philosophical theory help us in “sorting out our confused thoughts, criticizing unjust social realities, and preventing the sort of self-deceptive rationalizing that frequently makes us collaborators with injustice.”16 The points of view that guide public deliberations are often the synthesis of “highly general theory, derived from custom, or religion, or social science.”17 Many public and private decisions are made on the basis of implicit, sometimes unconscious, assumptions. In the absence of terms of comparison that make the underlying assumptions explicit, “the most influential views are likely to be those, simply, that are held by the most powerful or rhetorically effective people.”18 Critical theory provides such framework and sets of concepts for understanding in depth what happens. First of all, it is useful to highlight critically the many ways in which plurality can be perceived. What one identifies as different is mostly understood not simply as unfamiliar, new, or surprising. Rather, it is taken to be something oppositional, which raises objections and distances people from each other : something that is “non-us.” However, what leads us to grasp the different as the negative-of-something is a kind of logic of identity whereby everything that is not A is non-A. Often the evaluative correlative which corresponds to this identity logic is the pairing between positive-good and negative-evil: the perception of what is different is then immediately accompanied by the perception of it as something bad19. As a result, difference becomes something to be redeemed, overcome, corrected, or – even better – eliminated. And this is what happens in the unreflected movement of fundamentalism. Differences, however, can still be grasped in an aesthetic perception in which they become a question of taste. As such, they do not concern reflections or discourses, but are met with indifference:20 There’s no accounting for taste. 16 17 18 19 20

Nussbaum: 2000, 36. Nussbaum: 2000, 300. Nussbaum: 2000, 300. Maurizio Migliori, personal communication, October 2018, University of Macerata. Cf. Seligman: 2002, 102–103: “The denial of difference comes in many forms, most often as what may be termed the aesthetization of difference (differences are a matter of tastes, not morals, and as there is no accounting for tastes, no real tolerance of difference is called for, rather a recognition of each individual’s “right” to their own opinion). The aesthetization of difference is often accompanied by a trivialization of difference. […] These moves of aesthetizing or trivializing difference are of course ways to avoid having to engage with difference, or what has so fashionably come to be called alterity. By trivializing what is different, one makes a claim to the essential similarity or sameness of the nontrivial aspects of selfhood and shared meaning. What makes us the same (as Jews, Episcopalians, Americans or radical feminists) is much more essential to our definitions of who we are than what divides us (your horrendous taste in bathroom fixtures). This is a form of denying difference rather than engaging it. […] As we push this argument one step further we come to realize of course that indifference, at least in liberal-

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Here, as well, the dynamic of differentiation is inhibited, disregarded, and in a certain way eliminated. By contrast, taking differences seriously and bearing the tension of difference as “the other” means to place oneself in a horizon of irreducibly non-monologic relationships. Plural liberty then demands a form of universal mutual recognition and therefore requires a reinterpretation of equality. Justice is the name of the dynamic in which freedom and equality come to engage each other.

Religious Difference as a Question of Justice The problem of difference and justice is expressed by the question posed to Socrates by Thrasymachus, his interlocutor in Plato’s Republic, who challenges him to prove that justice can mean more than the right of the strongest (336d). It is worth considering first of all in what sense issues concerning religions can be relevant to the field of justice. Take a recent case as an example. On October 25, 2018 Il Fatto Quotidiano, an Italian newspaper, reported the following news: “From an Orthodox Christian to an Islamic place of worship: This is what will happen to the Capuchin chapel located inside the former hospital of Bergamo.”21 The newspaper report recalls that “in June 2015 an agreement was reached for the use of the chapel by the Orthodox community, which has used it for its religious services for three years.” Nevertheless, the building went to auction and was purchased by the Muslim Association, which claimed to maintain the intended use, that is religious worship. This decision would succeed in bypassing the so-called “anti-mosques” law from 2015 of the former regional council of Lombardy led by Roberto Maroni, which delimits the construction of new places of worship. Once the bids of the auction offer were opened, it became clear that the Muslim Association won the call with an offer of around 450,000 Euros, 8 % more than the auction base of 418,000 Euros. After the auction, the right-wing party Lega Nord, which governs the region, mobilized, declaring that it wanted to verify what happened: “We will investigate if there are historical constraints and if there are reasons for annulling the auction itself,” declared the Lega Nord Member of Parliament Daniele Belotti, and the leader of the same party in the city council, Alberto individualist societies, is not simply a psychological state or a form of social etiquette. It is in fact ensconced as a fundamental aspect of the social order, in the form of our legal and principled separation of public and private spheres.” 21 “Da luogo di culto cristiano ortodosso a luogo di culto islamico. ð cik che diventer/ la chiesa dei Cappuccini situata all’interno degli ex ospedali riuniti di Bergamo.” (Translation by the author).

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Ribolla, announced his intention to appeal to the Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici (the institution overseeing the use of architectonic treasures) to remind people of the historical and artistic interests of the chapel. In a note, the Leghisti added: “The building remains subject to all the protections required by law. Faced with this constraint, all the decorations, frescoes and Christian religious symbols, both inside and outside, including the great crucifix in the apse and the figure of St. Francis, should also be preserved.”22 On October 26, 2018, the President of the Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, stated: The Chapel of the Friars is a property bound by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and its sale can be carried out only in accordance with the legislative decree no. 42 of 22 January 2004 on the subject of artistic assets which provides that the sale of the asset can take place only if the State, the Region or the City does not exercise the right of preemption of the purchase. This is a right of which the Region intends to avail itself. I have already contacted by phone Father Gheorghe Valescu, head of the Romanian Orthodox community in Bergamo to reassure him and illustrate the actions that the Region will pursue to allow the community not to lose its place of worship.23

What happened, therefore, is an auction that resulted in a purchase, but given its result, the institution of which the authorities organizing the auction are a part, seeks reasons for its invalidation. This is a state institution, and the auction winners are a religious group. This religious group has been expressly forbidden to build its own places of worship for years. The expectations of this religious community, legitimated by the participation in a public procedure, are contrasted with those of another religious group by the governing entity with the goal to give satisfaction to the second group (the Romanian Orthodox community) in a direct way, going so far as to invalidate the procedure that is already completed. They provide historical and artistic reasons including evaluations of religious compatibility. The implicit understanding is that the Orthodox community is allowable, but the Muslim group is somehow wrong and thus needs to be inhibited from achieving public visibility. It is impossible to say that some disregard for a religious group is not at stake here, and that a contraposition is not made between its expectations and those claimed by another religious group. Difference matters ! The 22 Il Fatto Quotidiano, October 25, 2018: “L’immobile rimane quindi sottoposto a tutte le tutele previste dalla legge. Di fronte a questo vincolo devono essere conservate anche tutte le decorazioni, gli affreschi e i simboli religiosi cristiani sia interni che esterni, tra cui il grande crocefisso nell’abside e la figura di San Francesco.” (Translation by the author). 23 Bergamonews, October 26, 2018: “La Chiesa dei Frati H vincolata dal Ministero dei Beni culturali e la sua vendita puk essere effettuata solo con le modalit/ disposte dal decreto legislativo n8 42 del 22 gennaio 2004 in materia di Beni artistici, il quale prevede che la compravendita del bene possa avvenire solo se lo Stato, la Regione o il Comune non eserciti il diritto di prelazione dell’acquisto. Diritto di cui la Regione ha intenzione di avvalersi. Ho gi/ contattato telefonicamente padre Gheorghe Valescu, responsabile della comunit/ ortodossa rumena a Bergamo, per rassicurarlo e illustrargli le azioni che la Regione metter/ in atto per consentire alla comunit/ di non perdere il loro luogo di culto.” (Translation by the author).

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situation can be understood in the framework of a conflict of nonrecognition. The non-recognition of the Muslim community has important consequences with respect to its treatment by the regional institutions and its presence in the public square. One might argue that requests for recognizing differences among/within religions are motivated by questions of self-realization and that therefore, these requests refer to the domain of the good, or to ethics. Thus they should not pertain to the sphere of justice but to that of the “good life.” Nancy Fraser argues that the reflections of Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth on issues related to recognition, for example, tend to be interpreted as belonging to the “good life.” To affirm that disregard compromises the self-realization of a subject because it shatters the practical relationship that one has with oneself,24 and to understand this in terms of compromised subjectivity and violated self-identity, means precisely to understand the damage as something concerning the possibility for the subject to achieve a “good life.” Fraser, on the contrary, believes that the lack of recognition through institutionalized value models means denying to some individuals or groups the status of full social partners through the debasement of their distinctive characteristics (or those assigned to them). Thus in her view, recognition should be treated as a problem of social status and therefore a question of justice. It is important to analyze the effects that institutionalized cultural value models have on the relative positions of social actors: [I]f and when such patterns constitute actors as peers, capable of participating on a par with one another in social life, then we can speak of reciprocal recognition and status equality. When, in contrast, institutionalized patterns of cultural value constitute some actors as inferior, excluded, wholly other, or simply invisible, hence as less than full partners in social interaction, then we should speak of misrecognition and status subordination.25

This is the status model of recognition.26 To be misrecognized does not mean “to suffer distorted identity or impaired subjectivity as a result of being depreciated by others,” but “it is rather to be constituted by institutionalized patterns of cultural value in ways that prevent one from participating as a peer in social life.”27 In the Italian case described above, we can see how religious difference became an issue in which one community was denied equal participation in social life. Under formal conditions of religious freedom, a religious group is not able to enjoy the same social recognition as other groups, nor even the same possibilities. Their treatment is not equal. Misrecognition is realized in an institutionalized relationship of subordination. 24 25 26 27

Cf. Honneth: 1996. Fraser : 2003, 29 (emphasis in the original). Cf. Fraser : 2000, 113. Fraser : 2003, 29.

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Injustice is not expressed simply through disparaging discourse, but through social institutions: some actors are considered unable to interact with others on the same level, because they are considered to be more retrograde and less urbane. According to Fraser, to reconsider issues of recognition in terms of justice has at least four advantages. First, under the current conditions of pluralism and therefore divergent conceptions of the good, it allows the members of a society to justify claims for recognition as morally binding. When appealing to self-fulfillment or the good life, claims for recognition would not be binding for those who do not share the same ethical values. Second, by relating misrepresentation to the imposition of evident and publicly visible obstacles to the achievement for some people of the status of full members of society, this approach does not call into question individual or interpersonal psychological events but points out a defect in social relations. It remains, therefore, morally defensible even in cases where the subjectivity of the oppressed is not distorted by the situation. The third advantage is that the “status model” does not assume that everyone has an equal right to be esteemed.28 If respect is universally due to each human being by virtue of their humanity, esteem is otherwise gained. While everyone has the right to seek social esteem under conditions of equal opportunity, this does not imply the right of all to equal social esteem. Such a right would make the notion of esteem meaningless. Rather Fraser argues that while “no one has a right to equal social esteem in the positive sense, everyone has a right not to be disesteemed on the basis of institutionalized group classifications that undermine her or his standing as a full partner in social interaction.”29 This condition does not exist, for example, if an institutionalized cultural model downgrades a religious faith so that believers in it encounter difficulties in the search for esteem that others do not meet. Finally, the status model offers a fourth advantage, namely the facilitation of the integration of claims for recognition with demands for the redistribution of resources without imposing a dualistic solution on those who consider both aspects important for justice. Therefore, the questions of justice which imply norms that have a binding value for all, do not concern only goods and rights, but also relationships between value models. Some models of institutionalized cultural value (even the cultural model that claims that there is no cultural value) may in fact even hinder participatory parity in social life. Fraser finds at least two conditions that must be met to ensure participatory parity. One is called subjective and it provides for the distribution of material resources that favors independence and gives voice to the participants. The second one is called intersubjective: 28 Cf. Fraser : 2003, 32. 29 Fraser : 2003, 99, note 33. She owes this formulation to Rainer Forst in a personal conversation.

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It precludes institutionalized norms that systematically depreciate some categories of people and the qualities associated with them. Precluded, therefore, are institutionalized value patterns that deny some people the status of full partners in interaction – whether by burdening them with excessive ascribed “difference” or by failing to acknowledge their distinctiveness.30

Fraser is aware that it must be possible to distinguish justifiable from unjustifiable claims. The criterion that she proposes is the principle of participatory parity which also serves to evaluate the remedies that are proposed. “Redistribution claimants must show that existing economic arrangements deny them the necessary objective conditions for participatory parity. Recognition claimants must show that the institutionalized patterns of cultural value deny them the necessary intersubjective conditions.”31 In addition, requests for recognition based on justice must also fulfill another requirement: that the practices for which the request is made do not deny the participatory freedom of group members or non-members.32 For Fraser, justice is binding insofar as its addressees can also rightly regard themselves as its authors.33 She highlights a certain circularity of conceptualization (in relation to the very reflective character of justice as understood from a democratic perspective) because claims for recognition can only be justified under conditions of participatory parity, and these conditions include reciprocal recognition.34 In social practice, second-order requests are inevitably raised concerning the modalities according to which first-order requests are judged. But the question of which forms of recognition of individual or group specificities may be required by justice as an element for intersubjective equality cannot be resolved a priori: it must be addressed from the point of view of a pragmatism educated by the insights of social theory.35 This pragmatic and contextual approach makes it clear that in some cases people need to be disburdened from any excess in ascribed or constructed diversity, sometimes they need to have their diversity taken into account, in other cases they ask to deconstruct the terms in which the assigned differences are formulated, sometimes they need to make differences in relation to redistribution. The status model exonerates from ethical judgments of the religious or cultural practices in question without removing the legitimacy of such judgments. It circumscribes their area as a request of non-contradiction with respect to the instance of participatory freedom: beyond this limit, it declares them not to be pertinent to the claim of justice. From a philosophical point of view, this claim of justice can be understood 30 31 32 33 34 35

Fraser : 2003, 36. Fraser : 2003, 38. Cf. Fraser : 2003, 40. Cf. Fraser : 2003, 44; she refers to Rousseau, Kant, and also Shapiro: 1999. Cf. Fraser : 2003, 44. Cf. Fraser : 2003, 45.

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as the domain of morality : like the Kantian principles, here norms are valid independently of the actors’ commitment to specific values. This does not mean indifference. As Benhabib states, “justice is not merely evenhandedness, for claims of justice aspire to impartiality in order to represent what ‘is in the best interests of all considered as equally worthy moral beings.’ Such claims may involve conflict.”36 Therefore, in approaching the phenomenon of religion, the work of political philosophy is characterized by the double bind of equal respect and critical transformation: “first, a requirement of respect towards religious people, with their beliefs and practices; second, a focus on the critique of religion-related violence and mechanisms of domination.”37 To respect human beings as culture-creating beings does not mean having to rank their world as a whole or to disrespect them by dismissing their lifeworlds altogether. As Benhabib writes, we may disagree with some aspect of their moral, ethical, or evaluative practices without dismissing or holding in disrespect their life-worlds altogether. Most human encounters, with the exception of attempts by murderous regimes to annihilate the world of the other, occur in this in-between space of partial evaluations, translations, and contestations.38

Equality for Difference The existence of many different religions is not a recent discovery. What is new today is the demand for the parity of differences that – due to geopolitical and migratory issues – are ever more located in the same territory and which do not passively accept the hegemony of one over the others. In this context, religious freedom, as we have seen, requires a model of status as a question of justice in an explicit and secular manner. Derrida states that freedom in the public space means “I can.” It means not simply power in general terms, but “the power that gives itself its own law, its force of law, its self-representation, the sovereign and reappropriating gathering of self in the simultaneity of an assemblage or assembly, being together, or ‘living together,’ as we say.”39 But liberated difference is not an unrelated difference.40 It raises questions of justice and asks to be liberated precisely because it is the difference of a 36 37 38 39 40

Benhabib: 2002, 125. Ungureanu/Monti: 2018, 278. Benhabib: 2002, 40–41 (emphasis in the original). Derrida: 2005, 11 (emphasis in the original). Cf. Benhabib: 2002, 30: criticizing Lyotard, she notes that he “nowhere distinguishes between incommensurability, heterogeneity, incompatibility, and untranslatability. He assembles under the heading of le diff8rend a range of meanings, extending from radical untranslatability in language to the sense of unfairness or injustice that may be experienced when the language of the victor is invoked to describe the wounds of the vanquished.”

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deeply relational being. This is why the claim for freedom arises together with the claim for equality, indicating justice as the articulation of the equal freedom to be different. Already Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics linked the concepts of justice and equality in an indissoluble way : Since the unjust person is unequal and what is unjust is unequal, it is clear that there is also a certain middle term associated with what is unequal. And this is the equal, for in whatever sort of action in which there are degrees, the more and the less, there is also the equal. If, then, the unjust is unequal, the just is equal, which is in fact what is held to be the case by everyone, even without argument.41

John Rawls emphasizes that all conceptions of justice share the idea that “institutions are just when no arbitrary distinctions are made between persons in the assigning of basic rights and duties and when the rules determine a proper balance between competing claims to the advantages of social life.”42 John Finnis, from a different perspective, also points out that equality is one of the components of justice, together with “relation-to-theother,” i. e. intersubjectivity, and duty, what is owed (debitum) or due to another, and correspondingly what that other person has a right to.43 Benhabib in turn connects equality and freedom, arguing that universal respect and egalitarian reciprocity (fairness and equality of procedures for reaching agreements) are the minimal norms bound up with the pragmatics as well as semantics of what we understand by free and rational agreement.44 Egalitarian reciprocity means that members of cultural, religious, linguistic, and other minorities must not, by virtue of their membership status, be entitled to a lesser degree of civil, political, economic, and cultural rights than members of the majority ; universal respect implies voluntary self-ascription and the freedom of exit and association.45 Nevertheless, equality and freedom are aporetic keystones.46 Derrida clarifies that equality tends to introduce measure and calculation (and thus conditionality), but freedom is, by essence, unconditional, indivisible, heterogeneous to calculation and measure. This is the paradox of a “common 41 42 43 44 45 46

Aristotle: 2011, 95 (Nicomachean Ethics, 1131a). Rawls: 1999, 5. Cf. Finnis: 2011, 62. Cf. Benhabib: 2002, 337–338. Cf. Benhabib: 2002, 148–149. Cf. Derrida: 2005, 34: “It has to do with the perversity of a double couple: on the one hand, the couple ‘freedom and equality’ and, on the other, the couple ‘equality according to number and equality according to worth [esti de ditton to ison, to men gar arithmo¯, to de kat’axian estin]. For in the name of one couple, the couple made up of freedom and equality, one agrees to a law of number or to the law of numbers (equality according to number) that ends up destroying both couples: both the couple made up of the two equalities (equality according to worth and equality according to number) and the couple equality-freedom.”

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or universal measure of the incommensurable,”47 which by definition exceeds all measure. Equality is the chance to neutralize all sorts of differences of force, properties (natural and otherwise) and hegemonies so as to gain access precisely to the whoever or the no matter who of singularity in its very immeasurability.48 There would be no justice without political community, and the laws that guarantee equal rights to citizens without the calculation of majorities, without identifiable, fixed, representable subjects, all equal; but there is no justice without respect for irreducible singularity or alterity.49 Calculable measure also gives access to the incalculable and the incommensurable, an access that remains itself necessarily undecided between the calculable and the incalculable – and that is the aporia of the political named fraternity50 or friendship.51 In fact, as Laclau observes, in the political field equality is a type of discourse which tries to deal with differences, a way of organizing them. Not only do we think that these two notions – differences and equality – are not incompatible, but we should even add that the proliferation of differences is the precondition for the expansion of the logic of equality. To say that two things are equal – i. e. equivalent to each other in some respects – presupposes that they are different from each other in some other respects (otherwise there would be no equality but identity).52

Depending on the circumstances, to enhance equality can lead to the reinforcement or weakening of differences. There are situations in which injustice takes place through the imposition of a dominant and uniform canon, and there are situations in which discrimination takes place by violently asserting differences, as in the idea of separation which constituted the practice of apartheid. An institution can be distributively equal, yet relationally unequal, for example, when it materially protects the equal religious freedoms of all citizens, yet symbolically associates itself with one religion. Symbolic religious establishment may not be wrong from a distributive point of view but it can be expressively wrong insofar as it undermines the equal status of citizens.53 It may be useful to note here the distinction Benhabib makes between the 47 Derrida: 2005, 53. The author asks: “When will we be ready for an experience of freedom and equality that is capable of respectfully experiencing that friendship, which would at last be just, just beyond the law, and measured up against its measurelessness?” (Derrida: 1997, 306). 48 Cf. Derrida: 2005, 52. 49 Cf. Derrida: 1997, 22. 50 Cf. Nancy : 1988, 97. 51 Cf. Derrida: 1997. 52 Butler/Laclau/Laddaga: 2004, 331. 53 Cf. Garrau/Laborde: 2015, 49.

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syntax and the semantics of reasons in the public sphere.54 She argues that the content of a decision as well as the nature of the arguments and reasons in the process of establishing some conclusions concern the semantic of reasons. The syntactical structure concerns which reasons would count as reasons. In models of deliberative democracy, for example, a decision could be defended as being in the best interest of all, who are considered equal moral and political beings, and this is the specific syntactical structure all statements that articulate public reason would have to possess.55 This does not mean that a deliberative process obviates “the need for democratic struggle through demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, catcall, and blockages. […] Such political struggles build coalitions by gaining the sympathy of others who come to see that the cause of the minority is just because it involves reasons that all can identify with.”56

The Construction of a Plural Public Space The dynamic articulation between differences and equality57 creates a civic public sphere of plural understanding and confrontation, resignification and re-narration. This dynamic articulation can only work if it finds a place: an opening in which many individuals and many groups in awareness of their identity try nevertheless to make living together possible. Walzer58 maintains that one can propose a thin model of coexistence that tries to avoid involvement with regard to the “contents,” or a thick model which instead proposes a shared project of life-in–common that goes beyond mere spatial and temporal concomitance. It should however be noted that when the sharing of space and time becomes unavoidable, and when decisions of common relevance are urgently needed, even thin projects are not exempt from the problem of safeguarding a sphere of communication that allows contributions from every position, whether religious or not. In short, it is a matter of recognizing the need to build and protect a “friendly” sphere of 54 Cf. Benhabib: 2002, 140–141. 55 Cf. Benhabib: 2002, 147: “The boundaries of the moral community and those of political community do not overlap, and I would argue that they must be kept distinct – for what we owe each other as human beings cannot be reduced to what we owe each other as citizens of the same polity or as members of a historically defined cultural ‘we’ community with shared memories and experiences.” 56 Benhabib: 2002, 141. On the relevance of political struggle for democratic assessment, see Rosanvallon: 2006. 57 For the complex meaning of equality see Sen: 1992, 12–30. 58 Walzer : 1994, 4: “This dualism is, I think, an internal feature of every morality. Philosophers most often describe it in terms of a (thin) set of universal principles adapted (thickly) to these or those historical circumstances. I have in the past suggested the image of a core morality differently elaborated in different cultures.”

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communication, that is, a hospitable but not conflict-free place, open to confrontation and the ever-dynamic construction of coexistence. This sphere should also establish rules for this place. All decisions need to be characterized by publicity and universal accessibility, not to mention that the majority rule implies not only the existence and respect for a minority but requires that the majority takes into account the preferences of the minority.59 If the sphere of communication recognizes that each person is entitled to contribute to the construction of political will, this also implies that the effort to foresee an inclusive will includes articulations, exemptions and exceptions. The contemporary philosophical-political debate has elaborated at least three solutions which we can use as reference points to identify the conditions of possibility for the construction of this sphere. One proposal was presented by Rawls, in particular in The Idea of Public Reason Revisited;60 another one by Habermas, for example in Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion;61 and a third solution comes from Ferry in Valeurs et normes.62 John Rawls,63 taking up the Kantian discourse,64 does not only refer to possible different uses of reason, but speaks of “public reason” which is the set of contents about which an agreement is reached through the public use of reason, i. e. the use we would make in the presence not only of those we can presume to share our own convictions, but of anyone, that is all. We should not therefore understand “public reason” as opposed to “private reason” (which, moreover, would be a contradiction in terms), but as a repository of agreement concerning matters that must apply to all (in this sense political). Public reason, one might say, is earned thanks to the public use of reason, but what is called “public reason” is not the totality of public debate, says Rawls. This is far more extensive. There are several valid and legitimate forms of communication that can be exercised publicly, by making public use of reason when one intends to be understood by anyone and everyone, even if it is impossible to agree on certain contents. For instance, Rawls acknowledges the legitimacy of the public exercise of modes of expression such as declaration, testimony, conjecture or hypothetical reasoning.65 Public reason, as the repository in which everyone can recognize each other, is a field that is not delimited from the outside, but finds its own limits from the inside of the different conceptions. The boundaries are established through the exercise of reason by individuals who have comprehensive understandings. Rawls is well aware that

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Cf. Kelsen: 203, 67–78. Cf. Rawls: 2000. Cf. Habermas: 2008. Cf. Ferry : 2002. Cf. Rawls: 2000. Cf. Kant: 1970. Cf. Rawls: 2000, 206–208.

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citizens’ mutual knowledge of one another’s religious and nonreligious doctrines expressed in the wide view of public political culture recognizes that the roots of democratic citizens’ allegiance to their political conceptions lie in their respective comprehensive doctrines, both religious and nonreligious. In this way citizens’ allegiance to the democratic ideal of public reason is strengthened for the right reasons.66

Public reason includes only those elements that derive from principles and ideals which are acceptable – and not only understandable – by all “reasonable and rational” people.67 Rawls underlines the relevance of reciprocity of which public use of reason is the confirmation and implementation. It may be said that public reason corresponds to a renunciation on the part of the bearer of a comprehensive theory to enforce the whole truth one shares. It does not imply the request to renounce the aim of expressing or arguing the whole truth to everyone, but it does imply the renunciation of the demand to claim that it has consequences for everyone in all its aspects.68 A central point in Rawls’s position, however, is the “conditional clause.” He argues that reasonable comprehensive doctrines, religious or nonreligious, may be introduced in public political discussion at any time, provided that in due course proper political reasons — and not reasons given solely by comprehensive doctrines — are presented that are sufficient to support whatever the comprehensive doctrines introduced are said to support. This injunction to present proper political reasons I refer to as the proviso, and it specifies public political culture as distinct from the background culture.69

While interpreting Rawls’s position too narrowly, Habermas understands it to mean that public space is the place where common norms are formed. As a result, people should find the ways to articulate their motivations independently from their deepest authentic convictions. Rawls seems therefore to impose on citizens who are also believers an institutional and psychological burden that discourages their participation, and this is the objection Habermas is addressing in his proposal.70 This is problematic not only with regard to these citizens but also for the very condition of living together because the secular society deprives itself of important resources of meaning.71 According to Habermas, Rawls’s claim asks believers for an “artificial 66 Rawls: 2000, 159. 67 Cf. Rawls: 2005, 481. 68 Cf. Rawls: 2000, 132–133: “The zeal to embody the whole truth in politics is incompatible with an idea of public reason that belongs with democratic citizenship.” 69 Rawls: 2000, 203. 70 Habermas also refers to the criticisms of Audi/Wolterstorff: 1997; for the debate between Habermas and Rawls see Habermas/Rawls: 1995. 71 Cf. Habermas: 2008, 101–113.

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division within their own minds.”72 This, while bringing into play their very existence as devotees, excessively restricts the public sphere which should instead be understood as a polyphonic sphere of dialogue. For this reason, it must be declared the non-mandatory nature of Rawls’s clause. On the one hand, Habermas intimates that believers should recognize themselves in what must be valid for everyone because in this way the bond of coexistence reinforces its legitimacy ; on the other hand, he emphasizes the opportunity for society to feed itself on semantic potentials,73 the resources for the creation of meaning guarded by religions. He acknowledges that the contributions of religions are not completely translatable and that they remain an irremediably “opaque” fund.74 The consequences are both the abstention of post-metaphysical thinking from the judgment of religious truths, and the maintenance of translation beyond the institutional threshold.75 However Habermas seems to neglect the fruitfulness of a continuous work on the internal relationships between political values and “comprehensive values,” both religious and secular. It might in fact be particularly interesting to pay attention to the possibility of sharing processes that do not disregard differences, but function from the inside of the different peculiar understandings of meaning. In this way, we could enhance the bonds, values and political contents that, thanks to the public debate, coagulate and settle as a common field and heritage, as the deposit which supports and legitimizes the forms of institutionalization. Thus one would no longer run the risk of interpreting the institution as merely instrumental and imperfectly defective compared to the whole of the embraced truth.76 It must be recognized, however, that even the Habermasian translation which ascribes the burden of translation to both believers and non-believers, remains limited to an argumentative-conceptual view of public reason77 which does not take into account different types of communicating, talking or arguing. He therefore does not recognize that translation is precisely what takes place in a dialogue, not before it, and that mutual understanding – not necessarily agreement – is the fruitful result of good discussions.78 In his 72 Habermas: 2008, 127. 73 Cf. Habermas: 2008, 142; 143; for him, philosophy defines the boundaries between faith and knowledge, but does not judge the truth of faith. 74 Cf. Habermas: 2008, 142. 75 Cf. Habermas: 2008, 130. 76 Although significant, Habermas’s positive recognition of the relevance of religious conceptions (since the beginning of the 2000s) seems not entirely consistent with the procedural model of reason that he has always reaffirmed. 77 This aspect is underlined by Urbinati (2009, 46). Referring to the Habermasian review of Rawls’s proposal, she comments: “The outcome […] is certainly more inclusive and in this sense more democratic than Rawls’s, but no longer consistently pluralist because inserted in a perspective that is rationalist and secularist.” (Translation by the author.) 78 Along this line are the objections of Maeve Cooke, 2007, 230: “Not only is the transformative power of argumentation increased when the arguments presented are different, unexpected, and

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proposal, Ferry suggests that the direct public confrontation (consensus par confrontation) of values is the necessary precondition for the creation of an inclusive public sphere and therefore for the adoption of legally binding norms. The discussion, however, must be exquisitely practical. In other words, it must not be intended for questions of truth. Its aim should be “not […] to make a belief triumph, but to establish a norm”79 for regulating the living together. He points out that the confrontation, even if conflictive, brings out a normative structure from within the debate as the result of the critical discussion itself. Each register of discourse contains an offer of relationship and understanding: Whether it is a matter of telling a story or drawing a lesson, defending a position or reconstructing a relationship, all these different registers: narration, interpretation, argumentation, reconstruction are certainly subject to a different logical discipline; one can thus speak of an “art:” of the story, of exegesis, of defense, of analysis, with their own rules to be followed […] But, beyond the rules of art which define in each case a logical discipline, it is worth the more general principle that, schematically, in relating an event (narration), from which a sense is derived (interpretation) to justify a point of view (argumentation) of which we will analyse the reason (reconstruction), invariably one determines certain propositions, where it is not just a matter of making someone understand something, but also of offering to understand each other about something.80

This opens the possibility, already mentioned by Rawls, that in the public sphere not only logical arguments but also other ways of expressing differences are welcomed and appreciated. Argumentation, moreover, is the attempt to make one’s positions accepted, thus offering an alternative to unfamiliar; arguments that are challenging in these ways tend to result not in conversion to the other person’s perspective, but in the production of a new perspective that is different to either of the existing ones; this new perspective may integrate certain insights of the other person’s perspective, while continuing to deviate from it significantly. In discussion with a vegetarian, for example, I may feel challenged by her objections to killing animals and, as a result, acquire a greater sensitivity towards the suffering of animals that leads me to change my views and my behaviour in certain ways.” 79 Ferry : 2002, 71: “la confrontation des valeurs, lorsqu’elle n’a pas pour but de faire triompher une croyance, mais de fonder une norme.” (Translation by the author.) 80 Ferry : 2002, 73: “Qu’il s’agisse de raconter une histoire ou d’en tirer les leÅons, de d8fendre une position ou de reconstruire une relation, ces dff8rents registres: narration, interpr8tation, argumentation, reconstruction sont, certes, soumis / une discipline logique diff8rentielle; ou peut ainsi parler d’un ‘art’: du r8cit, de l’ex8gHse, de la d8fense, de l’analyse, avec des rHgles / suivre, qui sont propres a chacun de ces arts sp8cifiques […]. Mais, au-del/ des rHgles de l’art, qui d8finissent / chaque fois une discipline logique, vaut le principe plus g8n8ral suivant lequel, schHmatiquement, en rapportant un 8v8nement (narration) dont on d8gage le sens (interpr8tatio) pour justifier le point de vue (argumentation) dont on analysera les raisons (reconstruction), on destine invariablement des propositions, oF il ne s’agit pas seulement de donner quelque chose / entendre / autrui, mais aussi d’offrir / autrui de s’entendre avec lui sur quelche chose.” (Translation by the author.)

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seduction or violence, through providing non-compelling reasons; that is, it does not claim to grasp incontrovertible truths.81 The logic of the best argument calls for the possibility of a constant revision of the process of justification, which does not lead to the relativization of truth but to its reasonable defense without dogmatism.82 If beliefs are something that one finds oneself having83 – that is, one does not choose them “from a distance” – and that do not result from deductions,84 this does not mean that one can avoid arguing about them, critically examining them, reflecting on their ethical and practical implications, and comparing them to others. One can then distinguish different ways of reasoning. Thomas Uebel, for example, has pointed out that one can recognize in the narrative an explanatory model defined as “interpretive reasoning.”85 It offers the possibility not only of grasping the motivational link between events and characters, but also of choosing and representing the set of reasons that best explain a series of actions, facts or beliefs. Narration, which is much more universally accessible than logical-conceptual argumentation, represents images, facts, and symbolic references. It makes use of examples or stories and can refer not only to cognitive aspects, but also the social context and the affective-relational resonances of a meaning. The narrative way seems to offer itself as particularly appropriate to the expression of religious experience which requires a specific language that is no less demanding than the conceptual one. Narration advances a request for understanding even if it is aware of being unable to exhaust the meaning, refusing to reduce the symbolic and mythical content. Practices of social narration can thus nourish the public sphere open to the freedom of religious differences. Telling and transposing in a narrative form is already a good way out of self-referentiality. Narratives can express the gap, while trying to cross it at the same time, between experience and what it lives on, which is the difference in which the religious experience is given. They expose experience and expose themselves to difference. Of course, narratives can also be bent to preserve identity, and differences remain in the possibility of being disputed, subjugated, prevaricated, and prevaricating as well. To renounce following the path of an exclusively logical-argumentative translation does not mean, therefore, that one definitively sets aside the possibility of agreement, nor exempt oneself from submitting this possibility to critical scrutiny. Instead, it has to do with trying to reach it by many means, trying to inhabit the tension of expressing difference. Every religious difference is inexhaustible because it derives from the 81 82 83 84 85

Cf. Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca: 1969, 514. Cf. Pierosara: 2013, 78. Cf. Williams: 1973, 136–151. Cf. MacIntyre: 1957, 196. Uebel: 2012, 97.

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“differing” of something inexhaustible that precedes the experience and thinking of it. However, it is not a matter of renouncing to express, communicate and share it. When living together, people need to understand each other, to be understood and to build the ability to share the world peacefully. The moral sense, articulating a criterion of universalizability, includes care of otherness which requires attention to the conditions of freedom and non-domination, the attitude of making room for each other, and practices of encounter. There cannot be true universalizability without the otherness of the other.

Inconclusive Concluding Considerations I began this chapter by highlighting the particular context in which we find ourselves today while dealing with the issue of religious differences. I did not want to simply describe a factual situation; instead, I have introduced a perspective of critical thought in order to highlight the issues that religious pluralism raises today in our living together in a world which is becoming increasingly more unified but not unitary. I have suggested that in dealing with this issue, one should be aware of the complexity of the religious phenomenon which concerns beliefs and practices, resources of meaning, relations of power and worldviews that differ in different places and times. First of all, I have theoretically contextualized the question in a two-fold direction. On the one hand, I have pointed out the intrinsic freedom required by the act of faith, thus indicating as a possibly fruitful field of investigation the internal resources from which religions draw their reasons for justifying a proper form of religious pluralism. On the other hand, I have questioned whether this discussion may have relevant consequences for a theory of justice. I have referred to a recent news item to provide an illustrative example, while reminding the reader that this chapter goes beyond the analysis of a case study. Secondly, in order to delve more deeply into the question of justice and its relationship with religious differences, I have emphasized the social relevance of requests for recognition. We should consider them in the perspective of the participatory parity that is awarded to everyone as a full member of society. This perspective aims at avoiding domination or subordination while preserving the possibility for each member to disagree with and not esteem another member’s lifestyle. This approach needs to be careful of contextual and historical specificities: in some cases, justice requires people to be relieved from certain ascribed differences, in other cases, it demands that specific diversities be taken into consideration. In this chapter, I have argued that in

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their aporetic tension equality and freedom represent the connective factor that keeps the notion of justice together. The articulation of this tension is possible only by creating a place to inhabit it where differences can meet. The place in which different ways of searching for agreements and practicing conflicts can intertwine is the public space. Translation exercises, self-limitations, discussions based on the logic of the best argument and conceptual reasoning must certainly be recognized as fertile modalities for the possibility of finding agreement. However, they presuppose the awareness of a common basis. Today we need to make the effort to discover and develop together our common basis again. This requires that the public space hosts modalities and contents offered for sharing values without relying on the codes of a priori universalizability : for example, narrations and practices. While not excluding the exercise of critical thinking, this approach includes listening to and caring about the experience of the recognition of freedom and equality. Taking seriously the constitutive relationality of human beings, in which difference is always at stake, and which finds its purest example in religious experience, we may be able to build a future of living together that is peaceful while acknowledging conflicts.

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Pierosara, S. (2013), Religione e sfera pubblica. Per una articolazione narrativa delle differenze, in: R. Fanciullacci/P. Monti/M. Pezzato/S. Pierosara, eds., L’etica pubblica in questione. Cittadinanza, religione e vita spettacolare, Napoli: Orthotes, 47–85 Rawls, J. (1995), Political Liberalism. Reply to Habermas, in: The Journal of Philosophy 92, 3, 132–180. Rawls, J. (1999), A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (first edition 1971). Rawls, J. (2000), The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, in: The Law of People. With The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 129–180. Rawls, J. (2005), Political Liberalism, second edition, New York: Columbia University Press (first edition 1993). Robertson, R. (1992), Globalization. Social Theory and Global Culture, London: Sage. Rosanvallon, P. (2006), La contre-d8mocratie. La politique / l’.ge de la d8fiance, Paris: Pditions du Seuil. Seligman, A.B. (2000), Modernity’s Wager. Authority, the Self, and Transcendence, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Seligman, A.B. (2002), Tolerance, Tradition and Modernity, in: Cardozo Law Review 23, X, 101–111. Sen, A. (1992), Equality of What?, in: A. Sen, Inequality Reexamined, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 12–30. Shapiro, I. (1999), Democratic Justice, New Haven: Yale University Press. Uebel, T. (2012), Actions, Reasons and Narratives, in: Inquiry 55, 1, 82–101. Ungureanu, C./Monti, P. (2018), Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion. Between Public Reason and Pluralism, London/New York: Routledge. Urbinati, N. (2009), Rawls e Habermas e la questione del ruolo delle religioni nello spazio pubblico, in: B. Henry/A. Loretoni/A. Pirni, eds., Laicit/ e principio di non discriminazione, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 43–68. Walzer, M. (1994), Thick and Thin. Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Williams, B. (1973), Problems of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Index of Names

Ackermann, B. 148 Aeschylus 72 Agamben, G. 80, 89 Agbaria, A. 119 Agier, M. 88 f. Ahmed, S. 12 f., 45 f., 54, 61, 65, 76 f., 84–86, 89 Alexander, H. 119, 141 Althaus-Reid, M. 53 f., 61, 67 Ammicht Quinn, R. 45, 50, 52, 65 Apitzsch, U. 119, 141 Aristotle 11 f., 156 Assmann, A. 18 f., 21, 41, 141 Audi, R. 160, 165 Bakker, C. 121, 135 f. Baumann, Z. 73, 89 Beinhauer-Köhler, B. 23, 42 Belotti, D. 150 Benedict, H.J. 89 Benedict XVI 58, 67 Benhabib, S. 155–158, 165 Berger, M. 36, 42, Berger, P.L. 36, 122 Bertram-Troost, G. 134, 141 Bertschi, E. 32 Bird, Ph. 66 f. Bisig, H. 36 Blaser, M. 23, 43 Bohache, T. 48, 67 Boswell, J. 47, 68 Bourdieu, P. 20 Braun, V. 57, 68 Brubaker, R. 8–10, 13

Bruno, G. 20, 42 Buber, M. 82 f., 89, 140 f. Bucar, E.M. 48, 68 Bühlmann, B. 32, 42 Butler, J. 75, 89, 157, 165 Butler, O. 75, 111, 157 Buitendijk, F.J. 82, 89 Cahill, L. 50–52, 68 Casey, E. 21 f., 42 Castro-Gomez, S. 71, 87, 89 Cheng, P.S. 53, 68 Clague, J. 51, 68 Clarke, V. 57, 68 Cooke, M. 161, 165 Coulibaly, A. 91 Cox, N. 100, 114 Crang, M. 19, 42 Dahinden, J. 17, 42 Danani, C. 10, 145, 175, 177 Davie, G. 122, 134, 141 Deguara, A. 64, 68 Delgado, T. 45, 65, 67 f. Demetriades, S. 100, 115 Derrida, J. 155–157, 165 Dietz, G. 121, 143 Doble, P. 121, 141 Döring, J. 18 f. Douglas, K. 48, 69 Dressler, B. 123, 141 f. Du Gay, P. 22, 42 Duemmler, K. 17, 42

170

Index of Names

Dünne, J. 19, 42 Durkheim, E. 10, 13 Ebeling, G. 87, 89 Egli, W.M. 17, 42 Elm, Th. 110, 114 Engler, B. 17, 42 Evans, J. 43 Fabris, A. 146 f., 165 Farley, M. 52, 69 Fassin, D. 75 f., 87–89 Fatmi, M. 99, 114 Feige, A. 123, 141 f. Ferrara, A. 147, 165 Ferry, J.M. 159, 162 Finnis, J. 156, 166 Fisch, M. 148, 166 Fischer, S. 25, 42 Fontana, A. 151 Förster, P. 48 Foucault, M. 86, 88 Francis 46, 55 f., 73 f., 80, 108, 111 f., 151 Franken, L. 121, 142 Fraser, N. 152–154, 166 Friese, H. 138, 141 Galli, C. 145, 166 Ganzevoort, R. 12 f. Garelli, F. 56, 69 Garrau, M. 157, 166 George, M. 19, 42 Gillig, T. 100, 115 Goertz, S. 48, 69 Gräb, W. 125 Graf, S. 25 Grimmitt, M. 122, 142 Groody, D.G. 87 Gross, M. 49, 69 Günter, A. 123 Günzel, S. 19, 42

Haas, H. 25, 34, 40 Habermas, J. 118, 146, 159–161 Hall, S. 22, 43 Hehli, S. 16, 43 Heimbrock, H.-G. 9, 11, 13, 71, 77, 82, 117, 124 f., 128, 140, 174, 177 Heinisch, H. 101, 115 Herzog, A. 23, 43 Hollande, F. 105 Honneth, A. 152, 166 Hopkins, J.J. 49, 69 Hornbeck, J.P. 51, 66, 69 f. Hui, M. 30, 43 Hull, J.M. 120, 142 Jackson, R. 119–121 Jackel8n, A. 73 Jakobsen, P.A. 50, 63 Jelinek, E. 72 John Paul II 59, 69 Jordan, M. 47, 51 Jozsa, D.-P. 121, 143 Jung, P. 49 Kacem, A. 100, 114 Kant, I. 154, 159, 166 Keller, B. 107, 110, 115 Kelly, R. 100, 115 Kelsen, H. 159, 166 Kermani, N. 99, 114 Kernkte, F. 124, 128 f., 142 f. Khuachi, C. 91 Kießling, K. 123 Klug, B. 100, 114 Knauss, S. 9, 45, 173, 177 Knauth, Th. 127, 142 Knight, K. 11, 14 Knopf, S. 16, 43 Knott, K. 18–21 Kuhlmann, H. 123, 142 Kyrou, A. 99, 114 Laborde, C. 157, 166 Laclau, E. 157, 165

Index of Names Laddaga, R.J. 157, 165 Läubli, M. 30 Lauster, J. 18, 43 Lawler, M.G. 47, 70 Lefebvre, H. 20 Levinas, E. 85 Løgstrup, K.E. 76, 87, 90 Loughlin, G. 53, 69 Löw, M. 20 Lukatis, W. 123, 141 Luz 91, 96–98, 114 f. Machado, D. 13 f., 178 MacIntyre, A. 12, 14, 163, 166 Maroni, R. 150 Martin, A. A. 89 Massingale, B.N. 52, 69 Mathieu, J. 17, 43 Mayer, J.-F. 16, 43 McGinley, D. 48–50, 69 Mecheril, P. 17, 43 Meek, J. 51, 69 Meienberg, J. 32, 43 Meier, Ch. 15–17, 22, 43 Meister, Ch. 100, 115 Merleau-Ponty, M. 76, 83, 90 Meurisse, C. 91, 96, 115 Miedema, S. 90, 120, 123, 134, 141–143 Milbank, J. 87, 90 Monti, P. 148, 155, 167 Moret, J. 17, 42 Müller, G.L. 107, 109 f. Münkler, H. 118, 143 Murphy, C. 51, 70 Naef, T. 16, 43 Nancy, J.L. 157, 166 Nes, I. 134, 141 Nicolson, M.H. 17, 43 Nitsche, S. 101, 115 Nixon, S. 43 Norko, M.A. 51, 66, 68–70 Nussbaum, M.C. 149, 166

171

O’Brien, J. 49, 60, 63 Okin, S.M. 146, 166 Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. 163, 166 Pagano, M. 145, 166 Pellegrini, A. 50, 63, 69 Perelman, C. 163, 166 Peukert, H. 140, 143 Pezzoli-Olgiati, D. 9, 15, 19, 42, 44, 173, 177 Pierosara, S. 163, 167 Plato 150 Polanyi, M. 126, 143 Pollard, J. 55, 70 Popper, K. 148 Povoledo, E. 56, 70 Primiano, L.N. 48, 70 Pruchniewicz, S. 123, 142 Radojcic, N. 48, 57 f., 70 Rawls, J. 156, 159–162, 167 Reck, N. 54, 67 f. Ribolla, A. 151 Rigg, E. 135 f., 141 Ritter, J. 16, 44 Rivera, M. 76, 90 Robertson, R. 145, 167 Rosanvallon, P. 158, 167 Roth, M. 23, 42 Salzman, T.A. 47, 70 Sander, H.-J. 10 f., 86, 88, 90 f., 174, 178 Saurer, M. 23, 25, 27, 44 Schläppi, Ch. 23, 25, 27, 44 Schlögel, K. 19 f., 44 Schöll, A. 123, 141 Scholz, N. 101, 115 Schreiner, P. 124, 142 f. Schuhler, C. 101

Scholtz, C. 82, 90

Schwarz-Boenecke, B. 23, 42 Sedgwick, E. 52, 70 Seligman, A.B. 147–149, 167 Sen, A. 158, 167

172

Index of Names

Sepidoza Campos, M. 45, 50, 54, 65, 70 Shah, M. 25 Shapiro, I. 154, 167 Simmel, G. 45, 61, 70 Snyder, S. 87, 90 Soja, E.W. 18, 20 Sökefeld, M. 17, 44 Spalinger, N. 36 Sremac, S. 12 f. Streib, H. 107, 110, 115, 126 Taylor, C. 118, 143, 152 Tchapanova, D. 36 Thielmann, T. 18 f., 42, 44 Thomas-Olalde, O. 17, 43 Thompson, P. 121, 143 Thrift, N. 19, 42 Thurson, P. 31, 33 Tillich, P. 139 Todd, E. 100, 103, 115 Tomkowiak, I. 17, 42 Tonstad, L.M. 54, 70 Treanor, B. 90 Turner, B. 13 f., 178 Tushnet, E. 47, 70 Tzscheetzsch, W. 123

Uebel, T. 163, 167 Ungureanu, C. 148, 155, 167 Urbinati, N. 161, 167 Van der Kooij, J.C. 134, 141 Van Manen, M. 82, 90 Veinguer, A. A. 121, 143 Versteegt, I. 134, 141 Waldenfels, B. 90, 140, 143 Walter, N. 100, 115 Walzer, M. 158, 167 Wardekker, W. 120, 142 Webster, R 55 Wetzel, D. 49, 51, 70 Weyel, B. 125, 143 Widmer, J.S. 25, 44 Wiese, C. 90, 142 Wilcox, M. 57, 70 Williams, B. 163, 167 Wittgenstein, L. 75 Wolterstorff, N. 160, 165 Wyller, T. 7, 9, 13 f., 71, 174, 178 Yip, A.K.T.

49, 69

Zymner, R.

110, 115

Index of Subjects

binary 46, 52, 54, 73, 75, 84 f., 87–89, 106, 109, 138, 174

diversity 38–41, 46, 57, 62, 64, 74, 76, 117, 121, 123, 134–136, 145, 154, 173

Cammini di speranza 45, 55–57, 173 caricature 10, 91–96, 104–106, 174 Catholicism 23, 45 f., 48 f., 55 f., 108, 137 #chiesaascoltaci 45 f., 55 f., 65, 173 Christianity 10 f., 17, 23, 101, 112, 178 church 7, 9, 13, 18, 20 f., 32–34, 39–41, 45–52, 54–67, 72 f., 80 f., 86, 107 f., 110, 113, 119 f., 122, 124, 126, 128, 130, 134, 138, 173 commitment 13, 50, 62, 93, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126–138, 147, 155, 174 complexity 19, 63, 84, 91, 95, 98 f., 102–107, 114, 164, 174 confession 7, 11, 18, 91 f., 105, 118, 120, 122, 125, 134, 138, 174 confessionality 122, 124–127, 130, 138 f. creation 10, 48, 58, 62–64, 66, 73–75, 87, 127, 161 f. crescent 15, 17, 22 f., 41 critical thinking 165 cross 15–17, 22 f., 37, 45, 47, 63, 80, 99, 163

education 26, 29, 34, 48, 117–124, 126, 128, 131 f., 134 f., 139 f. education, religious 11, 26, 29, 34, 48, 117–124, 126, 128, 131 f., 134 f., 139 f., 174, 177 empirical research 123, 125, 136 encounter, embodied 12, 26, 46, 49 f., 53–55, 60, 71, 74–77, 79–85, 89, 98, 117, 127, 138–141, 153, 155, 164, 173 f. encounter, intercultural 12, 26, 46, 49 f., 53–55, 60, 71, 74–77, 79–84, 89, 98, 117, 127, 138–141, 153, 155, 164, 173 f. epistemological violence 71, 73–76, 84 f., 87, 89 equality 12, 55, 62 f., 74, 112, 147, 150, 152, 154–158, 165, 175 ethical, ethics 52, 58 f., 73–76, 81, 85 f., 138, 146, 153–155, 163, 178

derg.h 18, 30, 34, 40 dialogue 19, 26–28, 32, 36, 38–40, 71, 121, 126 f., 141, 161 discourse 10, 22, 71, 75 f., 81, 87, 92 f., 95, 107, 134, 149, 153, 157, 159, 162

faith 7–9, 18 f., 32, 47 f., 51 f., 56, 58, 60, 62 f., 65, 74 f., 86 f., 91, 93, 95, 98, 106–113, 120, 122, 133, 138, 146 f., 153, 161, 164, 174, 178 family 46, 51 f., 56, 58, 60–62, 65–67, 99 formation 20, 117, 119–121, 125 f., 137–140, 175 forms of life 75, 95 freedom 2, 15 f., 18, 41, 59, 74, 93, 99–104, 106–108, 110 f., 118–120, 124,

174

Index of Subjects

132, 138, 147, 150, 152, 154–157, 163–165, 175 fundamentalism 101, 146, 149 globalization 19, 120, 145 God 18, 34, 46–49, 51, 53 f., 58–60, 62–66, 73 f., 77, 85–89, 95, 105, 113, 178 Haus der Religionen 9, 15, 23, 25–30, 32, 34–41, 173 hermeneutics 177 heteronormativity 60 f. history 17–21, 25, 38, 66, 72, 78, 89, 102, 107, 110, 177, 178 homosexuality 46–52, 58, 62–67 humanity 8, 71, 73–75, 77, 85, 87 f., 147, 153, 174 f. identitarian politics 7–9, 13 identity 9, 11, 17, 19, 22, 26, 31, 36, 40 f., 46, 48–50, 52, 54, 57 f., 62–67, 81, 92 f., 99–103, 118 f., 121, 123, 134–136, 138–140, 145, 149, 152, 157 f., 163 identity politics 54, 101 Islam 9, 29, 31, 119, 143 Islamic 15, 29, 150 Italy 50, 55 f., 72, 77, 79, 85, 177 justice 9, 52, 111, 120, 145, 148, 150, 152–157, 164 f., 175 landscape 4, 15, 17, 22, 36 f., 109 lieux de m8moire 19 lived religion 11–13, 125, 139 living together 155, 158, 160, 162, 164 f., 175 love 49, 58–60, 62–67 – LGBT 45–70 marriage 46–48, 52, 59 material 15, 17, 19–23, 28, 35, 39 f., 46, 54, 57, 78, 83, 87, 128, 153, 173

meaning-making process 21 f., 38 f., 41 metonymy 99, 102 f., 105 f., 112, 114, 174 migration 9, 11, 19, 26 f., 34, 71–74, 77, 80–82, 85–89, 100, 118 f., 174 minority 24, 100, 110, 119, 158 f. moral 19, 48, 50, 55 f., 59 f., 86, 104, 108, 120, 147, 149, 155, 158, 164 mosque 16, 29–31, 35, 40 f., 113, 119, 150 mountain 15–17, 22 f. narration 158, 162 f., 165 natural law 47, 74 otherness 10, 48, 53 f., 75 f., 82 f., 86, 106, 140, 164 parable 19, 63, 110–114, 174 pardonn 10, 97–99, 102 f., 105 f., 112, 115, 174 participation 10, 35, 120, 151 f., 160 perception 19, 80–83, 140, 149 performativity 22 phenomenology 84 f., 88, 125, 174 philosophical 10, 40, 71, 75, 85–87, 148 f., 154, 159, 175 place 15 f., 18–23, 25, 27–29, 31, 35 f., 38–41, 53, 56, 62, 66, 79, 82, 86, 92, 98, 102, 113, 119, 128, 133, 135, 137, 150 f., 157–161, 164 f., 173 pluralism 147 f., 153, 164 plurality 9, 23, 28, 35, 98–101, 106, 117–119, 121, 132 f., 139, 147–149, 173, 175 poiesis 11 politics 12, 54–56, 71–73, 148, 160 populism 8, 13, 71, 111 position 8–13, 16, 19–21, 50, 56 f., 66, 74, 76, 85–87, 93, 95, 98–101, 104, 106, 108–112, 117, 119–121, 125–128, 131–134, 136–139, 147, 152, 158, 160, 162, 174

175

Index of Subjects power 16, 18–20, 51–55, 60, 80, 86, 93–96, 98–102, 104, 107–114, 121, 145–147, 155, 161, 164, 174, 178 powerlessness 95 f., 98 f., 102, 104–106, 114 practice 8–11, 15, 18–23, 27, 36, 40, 45, 47, 50, 60, 65, 71, 75, 81, 87 f., 93, 98 f., 107, 113 f., 117, 119, 121, 123, 125–127, 133, 135–139, 146–148, 154 f., 157, 163–165, 173 f., 178 praxis 7, 10–13, 26, 123, 134 f., 138–140 production 17, 20–22, 27, 53, 145, 162 Protestant 32 f., 39, 79 f., 86 f., 117 f., 122–125, 131–134, 137 f., 147 f., 177 Protestantism 108, 132 public reason 10, 94, 158–161 queer theology

46, 52, 54, 66

reception 17, 22, 51, 66, 80 recognition 52, 54, 59, 64, 72, 118, 148–150, 152–154, 161, 164 f., 175 regulation 22, 48, 56, 63, 124 relationality 22, 165 representation 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 80, 92, 108, 112, 155 sameness 45 f., 52, 54, 57–59, 61–63, 65, 67, 75, 149, 173 secular 10 f., 16 f., 49, 74, 91–95, 98–104, 106 f., 119, 123, 125, 134, 148, 155, 160 f., 174 sensus fidei 51, 66, 69 shared humanity 71, 73–77, 81, 85–88, 174 solidarity 81, 92, 96, 98, 100, 102–105, 174

space 9, 12 f., 17–23, 26–28, 30 f., 33, 35, 38–41, 45, 50, 55, 61 f., 66, 80, 82, 86, 88 f., 98 f., 140, 145, 155, 158, 173, 175, 177 space, public 9, 12 f., 15–23, 20 f., 23, 26–28, 30 f., 33, 35 f., 38–41, 45, 50, 55, 61 f., 66, 80, 82, 86, 88 f., 94, 98 f., 140, 145, 155, 158, 160, 165, 173, 175, 177 spatial turn 18 f. sphere, public 15 f., 49, 56, 94 f., 140, 145 f., 150, 152, 158 f., 161–163, 177 spirituality 18 f., 88, 91, 93, 104, 106–108, 110–112, 174 stranger 12, 45 f., 54, 61, 64–67, 73–76, 84 symbol 15–17, 20, 22 f., 33, 36, 40 f., 75, 93, 105, 151 teacher 11, 13, 78, 89, 117, 119–139, 174 temple 17, 19, 28–31, 35, 40 f., 113 terror 10, 72, 92 f., 95 f., 98, 100–105, 174 tolerance 9, 12, 102, 147–149 tradition 9–11, 13, 16–18, 21–23, 29–31, 33 f., 36, 40 f., 45, 47, 52–54, 56, 62, 65, 72, 74, 86 f., 93, 100, 105, 110, 112 f., 117, 119 f., 125, 131, 134 f., 137 f., 145–148, 173, 177 translation 21, 25 f., 31, 75, 78, 82 f., 140, 150 f., 155, 161–163, 165, 175 universalism 147 utopia 19, 75, 85 f., 99, 178 window

27 f., 33, 35 f., 40

Abstracts

Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati Difference and Contested Public Places In this chapter, the general question of the volume is addressed from a spatial perspective. How does religious plurality in contemporary society challenge the fundamental question of space and place? Which spatial practices mark the presence of religious diversity in the public space? I will first discuss some crucial spatial concepts. In the second part, the interaction between physical, social and symbolic dimension of space, the tension between space and place and the performative character of space provide the framework for my case study : the Haus der Religionen in Bern (Switzerland). This multi-functional building hosts worship and community places of different religions and/or denominations. Through the analysis of this innovative urban project, I will highlight conflicts and best practices of coexistence between different religious traditions. In an intense interaction between civil society, political institutions and religious communities, the Haus der Religionen creates a space where, on the one hand, religious difference is respected and on the other, interreligious exchange and a broad cultural programme transform religious communities and the relationship between them and the whole city. The contribution highlights the dynamic processes that constitute contemporary urban space. Stefanie Knauss Difference and Contested Sexualities In this chapter, I analyze the testimonies of LGBT Catholics about their experiences of difference and sameness collected in the recent social media initiative #chiesaascoltaci for the Jubilee of Mercy 2016, organized by the Italian association of LGBT Christians, Cammini di Speranza (paths of hope). This case study highlights the experience of difference within a religious tradition rather than among traditions, and thus, as will emerge from the analysis of the material, renders unstable – without dissolving them – the categories of “same” and “other.” My analysis shows that the encounter with difference – the presence of LGBT persons within the Catholic community – changes the understanding of “Catholic” and “church.” This implicitly also challenges those notions of diversity and inclusion that understand inclusion as a mere “adding on” of the other to a group that does not change in itself.

178

Abstracts

Hans-Günter Heimbrock, Trygve Wyller Difference and Contested Humanity The us/them binary still seems to shape everything surrounding migration, both in practice and in academic discussions. This article is based on two case narratives, one from a language training project in Frankfurt and one from a music recording session with migrants in Lampedusa. It discusses how it might be possible to develop an ethics of migration based on shared humanity. The authors argue that people are embodied and connected through their senses before they act and talk. They then analyze the two narratives, building on this preethical level of human encounter. In the discussion of difference in the context of religion, it is urgent and necessary to recognize that there is a universal level of shared humanity, which means difference becomes no longer threatening. Hans-Joachim Sander Difference and Contested Caricatures The deadly terror attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015 triggered the secular confession, “Je suis Charlie.” The magazine responded to this expression of solidarity with a cover showing Muhammad with a sign saying “Je suis Charlie” under the header “All is forgiven.” These hybrid identifications are a significant change for a secularist publication. With the phrase “Tout est pardonn8,” the magazine uses a metonymy which increases the complexity of differences by pardoning them, whereas its usual metaphorical caricatures reduce complex practices of religious power through secular criticism. This metonymical invention is capable of coming to terms with the precarious differences between religion, faith and spirituality that are significant for situating religious behavior in secularity. By resisting metaphors, this twisted triangle of religion, faith and spirituality signals a categorical shift away from resentment and towards parables of mutual respect. “Tout est pardonn8” is the metonymy for religious practices about complex differences. Hans-Günter Heimbrock Difference and Contested Commitments This article presents a combined theoretical and empirical approach to the issue of difference focusing on the attempts to take a position of a group of teachers of religious education (RE) in German schools. The empirical basis is a recently accomplished study on RE teachers in public schools in a region in the province of Hesse. The study tries to reconstruct via quantitative and qualitative methods the main modes of positioning, and the ways teachers use their own convictions as positions made available to their students in the teaching process. The study applies a mixed-method approach combining an online survey and qualitative interviews, utilizing the theoretical framework of phenomenology. The results of the empirical study shed new light on the

Abstracts

179

lifeworld dimensions of confessional orientation and difference; in addition, they help to reconstruct the fundamental task of formation (Bildung). Carla Danani Contested Religious Differences and the Question of Justice This chapter addresses the question of religion and difference from a politicophilosophical perspective. Contemporary society challenges the boundaries between the global and the local, internal and external, intimate and public, while tendencies towards universality and the affirmation of differences meet and clash. Religious differences and differences within religions are increasingly coming to the fore on the political and cultural scene. Assuming that religions are specific ways of living the relational experience that characterizes all human beings and that they are complex and non-monolithic phenomena shaping the lifeworld, are they related to the question of justice, and if they are, in what way? What does it mean to be just with respect to religious plurality? Primarily, this question implies the issue of recognition. However, it cannot mean that anything goes, for this would reduce all the differences to indifference. To take religious plurality seriously requires inhabiting the tension between freedom and equality. This implies creating spaces where differences can be met in order to establish forms of living together. My chapter suggests that some ways of sharing experience (discussions, translations, confrontations and narratives) should be possible, and that this shared experience could lead humanity to establish and protect forms of free and just coexistence.

Authors

Carla Danani graduated in philosophy at the Catholic University of Sacro Cuore in Milan and obtained a PhD in philosophy at the University of Macerata. She studied and conducted research at the Universities of Zurich and Heidelberg. She is professor of political philosophy and of the philosophy of dwelling at the University of Macerata, Italy. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Filosofia e Teologia and of the board of the Fondazione Centro di Studi Filosofici di Gallarate. Her research focuses on hermeneutics, political philosophy, ethics. For more information: [email protected] Hans-Günter Heimbrock is professor emeritus in practical theology and religious education at the Department of Protestant Theology at the GoetheUniversity Frankfurt, Germany. His main research interests are oriented toward contextual and empirical theology. In addition, he is interested in homiletics and liturgics as well as religious education. In recent years, he has developed an empirical-theological approach based on lifeworld and phenomenological philosophy. For more information: [email protected] Stefanie Knauss is associate professor of theology at Villanova University, United States. Her research interests are visual culture and theology, gender/ queer studies and theology, and body and religion. She is co-author (with N. Fritz, A.-K. Höpflinger, M. Mäder and D. Pezzoli-Olgiati) of Sichtbare Religion. Eine Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft (De Gruyter 2018). She is a coeditor of the Journal for Religion, Film and Media and a member of the editorial board of the international journal of theology Concilium. For more information: [email protected] Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati is professor for the study and the history of religion at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. Her main research interests are the interaction between religion and media, as well as the role of religion in the public sphere. Furthermore, she works on space and gender critical approaches to religion, and methods and theories of the study of religion with a focus on European traditions. She is co-editor of the Journal

182

Authors

for Religion, Film and Media. In 2018 she co-edited the volume Leid-Bilder. Die Passionsgeschichte in der Kultur (Schüren). For more information: www.pezzoli-olgiati.ch Hans-Joachim Sander is professor for dogmatic theology at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He studied theology, philosophy and history in Trier, Jerusalem, Würzburg (Dipl.-Theol. 1985, Dr. theol. 1991 and Dr. theol. habil. 1997). He was a visiting scholar at the Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California (1987–1988). His dissertation is about Whitehead’s process philosophy, and his habilitation about Peirce and the Signs of the Times in Vatican II. Major topics of research: Vatican II, God and power, topology of loci theologici, human rights and Christian faith, utopias and heterotopias. For more information: [email protected] Trygve Wyller is professor of contemporary theology and the studies of Christian social practice at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway. He has published on the relationship between Christianity and late modernity, both from a dogmatic, post-colonial, ethical, spatial, and phenomenological perspective. Latest book: Borderland Religion (with Daisy Machado and Bryan Turner), Routledge 2018. For more information: [email protected]