The New Visibility of Religion: Studies in Religion and Cultural Hermeneutics 9781472549471, 9781847061317, 9781847061324

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List of Contributors

Lieven Boeve is Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, Co-ordinator of the Research Group for Theology in a Postmodern Context. Yves de Maeseneer is Postdoctoral Researcher of the Research Group for Theology in a Postmodern Context at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Terry Eagleton is the John Edward Taylor Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester. René Girard is Honorary Chair of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and an elected member of the Académie française. Michael Hoelzl is a lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Manchester and a Director of the Centre for Religion and Political Culture. John Milbank is the Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham and Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy. Alexander Darius Ornella is a postdoctoral research fellow involved in the research project Theology in Media Society at the University of Graz, Austria. Wolfgang Palaver is Professor of Catholic Social Teaching at the University of Innsbruck and Executive Secretary of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. Patrick Riordan S. J. is a lecturer in Philosophy and Politics at Heythrop College, London University, and Assistant Director of the Heythrop Institute for Religion, Ethics and Public Life. Peter Manley Scott is a Senior Lecturer in Christian Social Thought at the University of Manchester and Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute. James Sweeney C. P. is Head of Social and Pastoral Studies at Heythrop College, London University and Senior Research Fellow at the Von Hügel Institute, St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Graham Ward is the Head of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures and Professor of Contextual Theology and Ethics at the University of Manchester and a Director of the Centre for Religion and Political Culture. Peter Weibel is Professor for Visual Media at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna. Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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Introduction Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward

I. Re-emergence or new visibility of religion? Although the American sociologist Daniel Bell was, as early as 1977, writing controversially about the ‘return of the sacred’ and predicting a reawakening of the religious imagination despite secularization,1 the new public forms that religion has taken since the end of the Cold War has challenged the older liberal dichotomies of public and private, sacred and secular to an extent Daniel Bell never envisaged. Two years later, in 1979, the Iranian Revolution instigated by the Ayatollah Khomeini brought to the West’s attention the political power of Islam. The Revolution was praised by Left-wing intellectuals like Michel Foucault, who, disappointed after the 1968 riots, saw the possibilities once again for revolutionary action, though he downplayed its religious nature. The year 1989, when the Cold War ended, was also the year in which there were international debates following the publication of Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and the subsequent publication of Khomeini’s fatwah. It was also the time when Poland regained its sovereignty, but not without support from Pope John Paul II. Therefore, when we talk of a new visibility of religion, it cannot be reduced to a post-9/11 phenomenon. It can be traced back as far as the 1955 Billy Graham crusade in London at Harringay Stadium, or even to the enormous media attention paid to the Second Vatican Council (1961–65), a visibility in the media that the Catholic Church neither anticipated nor had experienced before. What is it then that we are currently experiencing worldwide with respect to the presence of religion, such that in 2007 both Newsweek and The Economist, journals at the forefront of reporting the latest in global trends and political news, should publish special supplements on religion and politics? To be more specific, we could think in terms of two models: a re-emergence model and a new visibility model. The question then would be: are we experiencing a re-emergence of religion or a new visibility? What we argue in this ‘Introduction’, as editors, is not that we are experiencing a re-emergence of religion, but a new visibility – a visibility that is far more complex and nuanced than the simple re-emergence of something that has been in decline in the past but is now manifesting itself once more. This may be at odds with the opinions of some of the contributors of this volume, and the problem is evident in

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the discussion of secularization theory by James Sweeney in the opening essay. The model of re-emergence accepts there was a loss – otherwise it could not re-emerge. What is significant in this model is the interesting claim concerning continuity: that what is appearing now is identical with the form of religion there prior to its decline. What is experienced today is interpreted by some as a re-emergence of the church (that is, a traditional institutionalization of religion with which we in the West are familiar) and evidenced as such in quantitative terms, that is the number of people who are committed to faith communities. This view is often adopted by more conservative religious people who view the past decline of religion as a cultural impoverishment. With the re-emergence of their faith they believe that they are culturally relevant again. Having been sidelined for years – either through the privatization of piety or the marginalization among academic disciplines – new triumphal notes can now be sounded. They embrace and actively support a reemergence of religion by assuming that what is coming back restores what was once lost. This view presupposes that the traditional forms of religion remain valid and have gained strength once again. In its turn, such a view creates a space for nostalgia, romanticism and idealizations of older traditions. With the model of a new visibility of religion, the claims of these people about decline, impoverishment and renewed significance are not necessarily implied. Yes, there has been a significant rise in the number of students wishing to study religions and theology (at least in some parts of Europe such as the United Kingdom, and in North America). Yes, there has been a new awareness among government offices, diplomatic corps and NGOs that work in certain countries that they now need specific training not just in cultural awareness but in the nature of religious observance. Religionists and theologians are being called upon as consultants to an extent not experienced before. There are opportunities to be seized: for influencing public policy, for evangelizing, for lobbying for change, for getting ahead and for proving the relevance of theological discourse, culturally and socially. But ‘new’ also implies that something has changed, and there is no necessary connection between this change and traditional forms of religion. The tide of faith has not necessarily turned. Furthermore, in contrast to the re-emergence perspective, the claim to a new visibility of religion does not, first, assume a past decline of religion that has now been reversed. It only emphasizes a new awareness of religion. Religious believing might have always been there, but not visible in the ways we see it today. Second, this model is open to the recognition of forms of religious beliefs and their manifestations that we have never encountered before. We are not just speaking here of a detraditionalization – though with the emergence of megachurches in places like South Korea and the wave of Pentecostalism that has swept through Latin America, along with the continuing decline of church attendance, certainly some detraditionalization has taken place in Christianity. The megachurch phenomenon establishes new forms of institutionalization of belief, and its examination by sociologists of religion still views ‘religion’ in terms of discreet institutions. But, it follows from a new visibility that what is being named ‘religion’ may also have radically changed.

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An academic debate has been bubbling away in the background concerning what we mean by religion. There are some academics who have called for a ban on the word ‘religion’ because it cannot be defined in any clear sense.2 In a thoughtprovoking essay, the Christian theologian William T. Cavanaugh, following the review of a plethora of books that have emerged since the late 1990s examining the relationship between religion and violence, concludes that because of the way ‘religion’ is being used there is no de facto reason why nationalism, neo-liberal economics and several current political ideologies might not all be called ‘religions’.3 The reasons, he argues, they are not called ‘religions’ is that religion is being defined according to the Western, modern distinctions between private and public, sacred and secular. Religion here is a distinct sphere of existence, similar to the several distinct spheres of existence that have emerged in modernity; society, economics and the state would be examples of other such spheres. But, for many parts of the world, such distinctions do not hold – religion cannot be isolated as a distinct cultural phenomenon. So, a Western analysis of the role religion that is currently playing according to Cavanaugh, is continually employing categories that people in India, for example, or Sri Lanka or Iran or Nigeria, find distorting. We are not going to resolve the issue of what religion is within the framework of debates about the meaning of the term. Nevertheless, the term is useful despite the impossibility of a clear definition and the debates among academics. In other words, we understand what we mean by religion, and we know what is not religious in practice. We recognize that ‘religion’ is an ambivalent term, to be used with certain provisos, but, in the four sections of this volume, we point to where it becomes visible and where it is being named. With the re-emergence perspective, there are well-defined criteria for what religion is: that is the acceptance of certain dogmatic beliefs and commitment to specific ritual practices. With the new visibility of religion thesis, we will always be confronted with the problem of what actually counts as religion and who is doing the counting. There is not necessarily then a causal link between the (re-)emergence of religion and its (new) visibility. The allusive phenomena of faith and belief may, in any age, increase, decrease or change its object. But, who can know the hearts and minds of people? Empirical research and the sociology of religion, orientated towards the collection of data from which to draw broader conclusions, can therefore only attain certain qualified results that were already presupposed in the questions they asked and the kinds of surveys they conducted. For example, the measurement of attendance at religious rites is not necessarily the best indicator of the ‘health of religion’ in any given society. Traditionally, sociology of religion is based on the assumption that religion is an institution, and that it therefore applies categories and methodologies applicable to the examination of institutions. First, how many bodies belong to this institution? Second, what do they believe about this belonging? Third, how does this believing translate into practices? However, it is the contention of this book that religion lives not only in but also beyond institutions. In fact, it may live more beyond than in institutions, and therefore beyond the sociological categories that examine institutional success and failure, rise or decline (at least in Europe).

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We have to ask more searching questions about where this ‘religion’ is being found. Of course, we can point to a number of so-called fundamentalisms – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist as well as apocalyptic and messianic sects such as those who followed Jim Jones. Of course, there is a new appeal to religious ideas in statecraft and the convictions politics of Blair and Bush Junior (to name only two). But, we also need to examine the way certain events act as manifestations of or catalysts for religious conviction – for example, the funeral of Princess Diana, the World Youth Day organized by the Catholic Church, Taizé meetings, the crowds of Muslims gathering in the streets of Ramala or Islamabad or, even, the public outrage caused when the French photographer Bettina Rheims explored the association between fashion and religious passion in her series, I.N.R.I. – where she shot the life of Jesus in Vogue-style tableaux-vivants. These are ‘religious’ events, ‘faith’ events, of an occasional nature. They are not part of an institutionally maintained routine: daily, weekly, monthly and part of an annual liturgical calendar. The modes of communications, vital for the survival of any institution, have changed. Where communications break down, institutions disintegrate. However, the bells that once announced the angelus have been replaced by the ring tones of mobile phones that facilitate these more spontaneous and occasional assemblies. Even on a daily basis, religious text messages and podcasts can be sent, received or downloaded without any necessary institutional affiliation. These changes, and these phenomena that manifest the changes, are indications of what we are describing as the new visibility of religion. Ironically, this visibility does not necessarily mean it can be seen as such, if we just follow this example of text messaging: no one knows how many people send, receive or download such religious material. Nor do we know the motivation for receiving or downloading this material, that is the degree of ‘faith’ in a traditional sense of commitment to practices of piety. These electronic channels of communication can be set up and accessed for a variety of reasons: spiritual comfort, a joke between friends, profit, etc. Likewise, taking another and more academic example: if contemporary philosophers, like Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Jürgen Habermas, Gianni Vattimo, the late Jacques Derrida and Antonio Negri, use religious material then that does not necessarily commit them to religious belief. Many of these social and cultural theorists confess that they are not interested in believing and belonging to a specific community, only using theological resources for radicalizing a perspective that challenges democratic and neo-liberal capitalist hegemony. Religious citation, the employment of the myths and symbols of traditional faiths, is far more culturally pervasive than the institutions that appear to represent these faiths or the politicians now ready to confess their faith. It is difficult to locate a single method with which we can assess the nature of this visibility. Perhaps from the perspective of Actor-Network Theory4 we might begin to map out some of logic behind, for example, Swarovski’s manufacture of crosses encrusted with crystals. We might trace accounts of the designers at work, the boardroom decisions on accepting this design rather than that, the market research that was done, the reasoning behind the kind of marketing done for the product, etc. We might, from the other side, try to trace who purchases this product, from where, for whom and when it is worn.

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In that way, we might begin to create a thick description that might inform us of the extent to which this production and its popularity is based on fashionable notions in costume jewellery or religious devotion. However, we will never really be able to ‘get behind’ the descriptions to make any judgements about the extent or lack of religious conviction. Similar descriptions might be offered on the production and consumption of works by artists like Bettina Rheims, Gilbert and George, Bill Viola or Damien Hirst, who all employ religious motifs. It does not necessarily indicate their religious affiliations. There are adverts that use religious language and images for commercial purposes; for instance, Calvin Klein’s fragrance for men and women called Eternity. There are themed bars and tattooist shops, the staggering appeal of the sacramental worlds of Harry Potter or the gnostic beliefs of The Da Vinci Code, and the cinematic mythologies of directors are different as Mel Gibson, Wim Wenders, Ang Lee, Jean-Luc Besson, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Lars von Trier. Therefore, if we talk about the visibility and in particular the new visibility of religion, we have to take into account that there are differences between the phenomena, the seeing of these phenomena, where they are being seen, who is making them seen and how they are evaluated. When we designed our research project, began our examinations and held our discussions about the new visibility of religion, all these questions were borne in mind.

II. Structure of the book This book addresses these issues from various perspectives, but unlike sociological arguments and accounts, it represents an attempt to assess the visibility culturally rather than empirically. In examining the new visibility as cultural phenomena, the intention of this study is to complement sociological research based on quantitative methods. Judgements here are often being made on the basis of interpretations of cultural artefacts and symbols, rather than statistics; on the belief that statistics themselves cannot fully appreciate either the diversity of this new visibility or its novelty. The arguments, ideas and descriptions put forward in this volume, then, will only be persuasive if they accord with the experience of the reader. Given this diverse nature, it was necessary to focus our attention on what we see as its most dominant forms of manifestation: the revision of the theory of secularization, the relationship between monotheism and violence, the concept of re-enchantment in contemporary art and the return of metaphysics in theology. Furthermore, it was necessary to limit ourselves geographically. However, Western Europe has recently been seen as the international exception rather than the norm when it came to the relationship between religion and public life, and this seemed a good place to begin the assessment of the new visibility of religion. In this assessment, although we recognize the importance of migration-related visibility of religion in Europe, we have not devoted a separate section to this, because an analysis of this can be found elsewhere.5 As a collaborative project, what is presented in this volume began 5 years ago when the British Academy supported the editors of this book in hosting a Europewide colloquium. This colloquium met over 4 years between 2003 and 2007,

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to question, debate and assess the nature of the ‘New Visibility of Religion in European Democratic Cultures’. Orchestrated by the editors, in association with their newly founded Centre for Religion and Political Culture at the University of Manchester, the project drew together a number of theologians, sociologists, social scientists and philosophers with affiliations in Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. These people were chosen on the basis of their prior work and interest in the social and cultural life of their respective countries. To widen the net of experience, a senior academic from any one country was asked to nominate a younger doctoral or postdoctoral student working in the interface between religion, politics and contemporary culture. The colloquium met in Manchester, Berlin and Leuven, and each meeting was governed by an agenda relating to identified aspects of this new visibility. Papers for each thematic meeting were circulated in advance and modified through the debates that ensued. A delegation of academics from the Saint-Petersburg Institute of Theology and Philosophy were invited to the meeting in Berlin, and a specialist in contemporary Islam was invited to the meeting in Leuven. Furthermore, we sought to extend the discussions yet again by testing various ideas as they were emerging through other leading, internationally recognized voices in cultural and social theory, cultural anthropology and aesthetics. From these discussions emerged the interviews with René Girard, Terry Eagleton, Peter Weibel and John Milbank. Four major themes of this new visibility of religion arose, and it is these themes that structure the presentations of our findings in this volume. The first concerned the debates around secularization and the secularization thesis. In James Sweeney’s opening essay, there is a survey of the current debates and a reminder of the way the sociology of religion involved in such debates is a continuation of the Enlightenment critique of religion. For the sociologists, religion is never accepted as valid on its own terms; it is always a response to and a consolation for a critical situation (existential insecurity of some form). In the revisions of secularization theory, it is time, the essay argues, for a new kind of sociology and a recognition that ‘[s]ociology alone cannot penetrate to the heart of the matter, to truth claims. It has need of (or has to give way to) the other hermeneutical disciplines to address such fundamental questions’ (p. 21). Patrick Riordan’s essay develops this position by offering a similar survey: this time, of the relationship between religion and politics. Given the polarized position where politics is either subordinated to religion (as in a theocracy) or politics instrumentalizes religion (as is in Machiavelli or Rousseau), the essay seeks to assess the adequacy of five alternative conceptualizations of the relationship in ways that can maintain the autonomy of both – the faith standpoint and the political commitment. These five conceptualizations are: the liberal private–public distinction; Augustine’s theological viewpoint in which temporal peace and justice are both related and juxtaposed to the ultimate peace and justice; Aquinas’ elaboration of the ‘limited good as the proper object of political order and the unrestricted common good as the ultimate object of human striving’ (p. 34); the promotion of the difference between but relationship with civil society (to which religion belongs) and the state; and, finally, John Rawls’ distinction between reasonable comprehensive doctrines and overlapping

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consensus of what the good life is in pluralist societies. The essay concludes by pointing out the benefits of Rawls’ model and the complementarities it offers with the theological perspectives of Augustine and Aquinas. Reflections upon the theme of religion and contemporary society conclude with an essay by Rowan Williams, first delivered as a lecture to the Pontifical Academy in Rome. While setting out the need for a ‘procedural secularism,’ the essay distinguishes between this and a ‘programmatic secularism’ that views liberty in terms of consumer choice. It argues ‘that “secular” freedom is not enough; that this account of the liberal society dangerously simplifies the notion of freedom and ends up diminishing our understanding of the human person’ (p. 46). Religious arguments circumscribe a different understanding of freedom, one that seeks the greater flourishing of human beings. So, the public engagement of both religious and non-religious arguments is necessary to guarantee and secure political freedom as the Archbishop envisages it. Both Patrick Riordan and Rowan Williams, as Christians, draw attention to a necessary engagement with Muslim thinkers. This leads into the second of the themes that emerge from our colloquium: the relationship between religion and violence. This is not to say that the practice of Islam is necessarily violent, or that Islam has any monopoly on religious violence in today’s world. As John D. Caputo reminds us, Christian fundamentalism is not without its own violences: ‘In the United States, abortion clinics are bombed and physicians killed in the name of life and saving the unborn’.6 Furthermore, as the histories of both modern India and Sri Lanka demonstrate, Hinduism and Buddhism also have their dark and violent sides. A major aspect of the new visibility of religion today is inseparable from the forms of violence religions have generated in the past and continue to generate in the present; inseparable from lingering memories of the European Wars of Religion, on the one hand, and the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, on the other. We open this section with an interview with one of the most influential contemporary thinkers on the relationship between religion and violence: René Girard. Interviewed by Wolfgang Palaver, who directs the Centre for Religion and Violence at the University of Innsbruck, Girard expounds his famous mimetic theory of violence, exploring both its classical and biblical manifestations. A central theme of the conversation is the problem of global terrorism today and its sacrificial nature. ‘Terrorism’, Girard states, ‘is the unleashing of a violence long repressed not by Christianity but by the superior violence of the powers nominally Christian. Terrorism in the current sense becomes possible only when the wouldbe become able to sacrifice their own lives in order to kill others’ (p. 64). This understanding of terrorism inevitably leads to the question of politicized religions, with which the interview concludes. It is evident that, with respect to the relation between religion and politics, we have reached a ‘turning point’. Nevertheless, the future development of religion and politics and the question of domination and subordination, the quest for superiority of either religion or politics remain uncertain. ‘That is why it is so interesting and terrifying’ (p. 66). An essay by Wolfgang Palaver, discussing and elaborating the theme of violence and monotheism within the framework of mimetic theory and Elias Canetti’s concept of the “religions of lament”, in particular, follows the interview. In a detailed

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and wide-ranging analysis, Palaver argues that terrorism cannot be understood without taking into account the ‘influence of the Judeo-Christian revelation’. With reference to the previous interview, Palaver provokingly claims: ‘Terrorism is a parasite of biblical thinking’ (p. 71). In contradistinction to a dangerous abuse of the concept of victimhood, which is called ‘vengeful religious lamentation’, the author explores ways in which the deadlock of religiously motivated violence can be overcome. The essay shows that in all three monotheistic religions the temptations of violence, resentment and revenge, that is the ‘perversion of the concern for victims’, can be found, but also their antidote. Both the interview and the essay form a unity insofar as the problem of violence and monotheism are addressed in terms of mimetic theory. The third contribution in this section, an interview with Terry Eagleton by the editors, also addresses the problem of violence, but from a different theoretical angle. For Eagleton, the ancient notion of sacrifice needs to be brought together with the idea of the revolution. ‘In both cases’, he says, ‘the reviled, the unclean is transformed, made holy . . . like Oedipus or Christ’ (p. 88). This understanding of sacrifice separates Eagleton from Girard and the concept of sacrifice in mimetic theory. The sacred and holy terror are related through God’s terrifying love and human desire. Asked about the importance of religion, and particularly Catholicism, for his work, Eagleton elaborates his view of an ethics inspired by the radicalism and bathos of the New Testament, following and criticizing Nietzsche, Lacan and Žižek. At this point, the eminent role of theological ideas for postmodern thought and literature in general becomes evident. In a discussion of the post-Enlightenment face of philosophy today, with all its nostalgic and romantic elements, Eagleton emphasizes the unique role Marxism has played in terms of an immanent critique ‘that’s now bifurcated into a shallow enlightenment rationality, on the one hand, and an increasingly irrationalist counter-enlightenment, on the other’ (p. 93). An intriguing theological interpretation of this phenomenon can be found in the concluding chapter of this book, in the interview about Radical Orthodoxy. In the final part of the interview with Eagleton, the problem of today’s aestheticization of both religious experience and violence is raised. In these concluding paragraphs, which link Part II with Part III, on the new visibility of religion and aesthetics, Eagleton explores the idea that ‘[m]ost aesthetic concepts are theological ones in disguise’ (p. 94). To a certain extent, this idea also forms the basis for the opening essay of Part III by Yves de Maeseneer. In the first part of his essay, de Maeseneer outlines a general definition of ‘aestheticization’, following the German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch: ‘. . . aestheticisation is understood as the radical consequence of the modern turn to the subject and the underlying modern project of emancipation from authority: in an aestheticised context human beings are finally enabled to become the authors of their own life and world’ (p. 100). The modern process of aestheticization, according to de Maeseneer, impacts on religion in a significant way. In the second part of the essay, which is dedicated to a theological critique of the subjectifying and desubjectifying (‘disappearance’, as the author calls it) consequences of aestheticization, scenarios of an aestheticized religion are introduced by combining

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Theodor W. Adorno’s and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s works. Compared to the interview with the artist and professor of art and visual culture Peter Weibel, De Maeseneer and Weibel offer two closely related but opposing normative evaluations of the process of aestheticization. De Maeseneer, following Adorno’s and Balthasar’s cultural pessimism and Weibel, both see the process of modernity as the process of the formation of subjectivity. But, for the latter, a positive theological remedy or ‘disappearance’ in the style of a negative deus ex machina is not possible. Nevertheless, Weibel is convinced that we experience a ‘return of religion’. This return of the religious is twofold. On the one hand, it indicates the end of modernity and therefore the end of the paradigm of disenchantment in art, and on the other, the return of religion is a return of a ‘surrogate religion’, a ‘nouveau romanticisme’. With respect to the diagnosis of our contemporary situation, there seems to be an agreement between Weibel and Eagleton, and also John Milbank and Graham Ward (see this volume, ‘The Return of Metaphysics’ pp. 151–69). As for art, Weibel summarizes this common diagnosis: ‘So the return of re-enchantment is only a signifier for the crisis of modernism. And this has to do . . . with the fact that the hegemony of the Western subject, Western subjectivity, Western art is in a crisis’ (p. 119). Weibel’s answer to this crisis is that religion returns as an ethical imperative and art becomes technological. ‘If I still have some trust in art’, the performance artist and former member of Vienna Actionism confesses, ‘then it is especially media art’ (p. 123). In the final paragraphs of the interview, an interesting observation of gnostic tendencies in the use of technology is made, which already anticipates the main themes in the final contribution to this section by Alexander Ornella. Ornella’s essay ‘The End is Nigh’ demonstrates the use of religious symbols in the media and the public sphere. The difficulty, as the author points out, is not so much the realization of the fact that religious symbols are increasingly used by the media, as the evaluation of it. The central thesis in Ornella’s essay is the ‘mutually dependent operational relationship between media, society, religion and culture’ (p. 130). One cannot function and operate without the other. This clearly impacts on the nature of religion that, in the end, as Ornella states, becomes a commodity. Furthermore, the commodification of religion leads to a reconceptualization of the human condition, especially with regard to philosophical theology and its anthropology. ‘Today’s conditio humana’, the essay concludes, ‘is one of being immersed in media and technology, their aesthetic language, their social impact, and their code of communication forming the human being as homo aestheticus and homo medialis’ (p. 144). The fourth and concluding part of this book focuses on the theological dimension of the new visibility of religion. The main section of Part IV is an interview by Michael Hoelzl with John Milbank and Graham Ward, who are key representatives of Radical Orthodoxy. What has happened to Radical Orthodoxy 10 years after the groundbreaking collection of essays with the same title? What are the intellectual and spiritual roots of a theology that has often been labelled as a new academic and religious movement? And to what extent has Radical Orthodoxy anticipated and at the same time promoted the new visibility of religion? In the interview that follows, all these questions are addressed. There is an emphasis in the conversation

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on the political implications of Radical Orthodoxy, ranging from Christian Socialism to symbolic monarchy and its liberal and anti-liberal consequences. Both Milbank and Ward, as mentioned above, share with Terry Eagleton and Peter Weibel the opinion that, after modernity, the paradigm of subjectivity is in crisis, and that the new awareness and concentration on religion is both an indicator and a herald of a new paradigm. What distinguishes Ward and Milbank from the cultural theorist Eagleton and the artist and art historian Weibel is their theological commitment that is spelled out in terms of the ‘eschatological remainder’ and the emphasis on the church’s responsibility to face this new constellation. The second contribution in this concluding Part by Peter Scott approaches the new visibility of religion from a political perspective. For Peter Scott, the contemporary situation needs to be addressed in terms of a new political theology. The author argues that, for him, following Moltmann, Metz, Hauerwas, O’Donovan, Gutiérrez and Ruether, we have to explore the theological aspects of political theology and, moreover, the theological nature of politics, in order to understand this new visibility of religion today. At the heart of his essay lies a question: is it possible to rethink politics in terms of salvation rather than the ‘norms or principles’ of how authority has to be exercised? In contradistinction to the notion of political theology elaborated by Carl Schmitt, Scott argues for a rediscovery of the ‘implicit theology of the political’ (p. 182). The final essay by Lieven Boeve returns us full circle to the sociological survey by James Sweeney, insofar as it takes up one of the most influential categories for understanding the new visibility of religion: detraditionalization. This sociological concept, along with pluralization, constitutes a framework within which Boeve will examine the impact this new visibility has upon the Christian faith, and how Christian theology might respond to it. Arguing that the term postsecular is both a historical descriptor and a way of understanding the transformation of religion in Europe, this essay demonstrates how ‘postsecular’ and ‘detraditionalization’ have replaced ‘secularization’ when it comes to describing our current situation. Furthermore, both terms point to an interruption (rather than continuity) with the past where Christianity presented a religious norm. Having developed the plurality of beliefs, the second part of the essay explores the particularity of the Christian faith in a postsecular Europe, developing the notion of ‘interruption’: ‘what is interrupted does not simply continue as though nothing had happened’ (p. 203). Christianity cannot turn a blind eye to religious otherness, but accept that in such circumstances it has to rediscover its own particularity. The best way forward then would be to develop ‘interruption’ as a theological concept – not simply as a description of an external event. This would then make the other ‘an ally, a real partner in the end’ in an ongoing exploration and recontextualization of Christian thinking.

III. Acknowledgement This book is not the only output from the 4-year research project sponsored by the British Academy. As we said, we wished to bring together both well-established academics and younger scholars. Each of these scholars has now received their

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doctorates. One of them, Dr Alexander Ornella (from the University of Graz, Austria), together with Dr Stephanie Knauss, has edited a fine collection of essays on religion and the media, which can be viewed as an extension of Part III in this volume, ‘Aesthetics’. This collection was published under the title Reconfigurations.7 Dr. Martin Knechtges, together with Jörg Schenuit (from Berlin), has launched a new journal, FUGE: Journal für Religion und Moderne. The first two issues of this journal were devoted to the revision of secularization theory and addressed the question of the new visibility of religion from a socio-philosophical perspective. The establishment, and early reception, of this journal shows that there is an increasing interest in the role that religion is playing today and will play in the future. The dissemination of work from the colloquium was not simply textual. An important figure at our meetings was Professor Gerhard Lacher, one time Dean of the Catholic Faculty of Theology at the University of Graz during the time when Graz was the European Capital of Culture (2003) and a specialist in fundamental theology. He gave a superb presentation on transcendence in contemporary art at the meeting in Leuven. As director of the research project on Theomedia, he has been key in staging several art exhibitions around the theme of religion and contemporary art, not only in Austria, but Berlin. With Professor Lacher’s labours, our discussions on the New Visibility moved out of the academy and into the museums and the galleries. It is at this point that we need to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to a number of people invisible within these pages but who, nevertheless, worked behind the scenes. Among the student body are: Dr. Steven Grimwood, Dr. Stefan Huber, Tim O’Malley, Dr. Timothy Stanley and Anchu Tee. Among the academics are: Dr. Youssef Chouieri, Dr. Otto Kalscheuer and Professor Pierre Manet.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7

Bell, D., ‘The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion’, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 4 (December 1977), 419–49. See Fitzgerald, T., The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Cavanaugh, William T., ‘Sins of Omission: What “Religion and Violence” Arguments Ignore’, Hedgehog Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 2004). See Latour, B., Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). For a most interesting account of migration as it relates to Islam, see Hunter, S. T., Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape (Washington: Praeger/CSIS, 2002). Caputo, J., On Religion (London: Routledge, 2001) p. 107. Knauss, S. and Ornella, A. D. (eds), Reconfigurations. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society (Vienna: LIT, 2007).

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1 Revising Secularization Theory James Sweeney, C. P.

It could be that the sociologist of religion is an academic deviant tracing the evanescence of an epiphenomenon, or the one who enquires into the phenomenology and precipitating circumstances of our most fundamental transformations. (David Martin) 1

I Secularization has been the subject of ongoing dispute in sociology since the 1960s. One wonders why the controversy refuses to die down. The judicious ‘settlement’ proposed by José Casanova in his 1994 work, Public Religions in the Modern World,2 would seem to accommodate all parties. It is not that the facts are in dispute. Religious practice across the Western world (even in the United States) is in decline, but at the same time religious allegiances in much of the rest of the world are strong, even resurgent. Religion continues to be an evident factor in international affairs, politics, public debates about morality, the provision of social services, civic life, etc. Some secularization process, or some change in religious fortunes – no doubt a deep and far-reaching change – is certainly taking place, but the wholesale secularization of society, such that religion no longer retains social significance, looks increasingly improbable. However, such a modified version of the theory fails to command universal acceptance. The deep roots of the disagreement lie, I suggest, in sociology’s ‘unconscious’! Sociology is modernity’s child, and a great deal is invested in the secularization paradigm. Modernity and secularization go together as two sides of the same theoretical coin. The emergence of modernity – its what, how and why – is what sociology was conjured up to explain; and, as far as religion was concerned, it was assumed that secularization was the concomitant process. Changing paradigms – moving to a postmodernity framework, to a modified secularization theory – is as much an emotional struggle as it is an intellectual one – rather like sociology disowning its own mother! In addition, ‘the postmodern’ is an unsatisfactory framework, far from the status of a new paradigm. Abandoning secularization as the grand explanatory framework is a real theoretical loss; the frame of reference

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within which one could attempt to predict not just the future of religion, but the future shape of society itself, is lost. Sociology is bereft of teleological signposts. All this is symptomatic of the need for a radical rethink of sociology’s fundamental theorems. Anthony Giddens, in his later work, tackled such a rethink in terms of the dynamics of ‘high modernity’ and the implications for the individual and self-identity.3 A rethink about religion and its social constitution would be more fundamental still. For one thing, it could mean the abandonment of the too easy (and not always adhered to) neutrality of sociology about religion’s truth claims, or at least its ‘reality claims’. Might predictions about religion’s fate go the same way as Marxist predictions about capitalism? What I want to do in this chapter, in the course of discussing how a select number of theorists revise the notion of secularization, is to examine how this sits with a more committed or theological world-view. What assumptions are embedded in secularization theory? What difference do these make to the sociological analysis? What kind of sociology emerges when a more open view of religion is taken?

II There are different grounds for revising secularization theory – inconclusive empirical evidence, signs of a resurgent sacred and the peculiar mix of the analytical and the normative in interpretative frameworks. The weight given to one or the other leads theory in different directions, re-enacting the polarization between those who see the inevitability of decline and others who spot resurgence. The first phase of revision began in the 1960s when David Martin and Andrew Greeley questioned secularization’s axiomatic status on the basis that the factual evidence of progressive and inevitable religious decline did not stack up. The paradoxical conclusion of this phase came with Martin’s A General Theory of Secularization,4 which re-established it on a much sounder basis by charting the historical particularities of the various courses it takes. Martin, however, attracted two streams of disciples, at odds with one another. Steve Bruce insists that the General Theory is in no way incompatible with the inevitability of decline (which he zealously charts) under the conditions of modern democratic capitalist industrial society5; whereas Grace Davie sees evidence of transformations of belief – believing without belonging, vicarious religion, etc.6 Interest now focuses on second-phase revisions that ride to a significant extent on the suggestion that not only is religion persistent, it is actually resurgent.7 This is yet another unexpected twist in the social tale. How is this to be explained? José Casanova, in the work already alluded to, deconstructs and refines the theory. Yes, there is secularization (a function of social differentiation); but no, it is not the end of religion (not its inevitable decline); it is not even the end of public religion (it does not become privatized and lose social significance); religion continues to manifest itself and thrives institutionally at a new social location in civil society. Danièle Hervieu-Léger in Religion as a Chain of Memory probes how such a transformation comes about. ‘The principal question confronting the sociology of religion at the present time has to do with the intellectual approach required to

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grasp both the dimension by which modernity continually undermines the plausibility structures of all religious systems and that by which it gives rise to new forms of religious belief ’.8 This locates the issue carefully at the level of plausibility structures rather than the heart of religious believing, and assumes – not surprisingly for a sociologist – that it is modernity that ‘gives rise to new forms of religious belief ’. Another view might frame it differently, and enquire into the ways religious systems and belief mutate under conditions of modernity. Is religion only a dependent variable? Does it not have a capacity for endogenous transformation?9 David Martin’s remark at the head of this essay about sociology tracing either ‘the evanescence of an epiphenomenon’ or ‘our most fundamental transformations’ makes a very fundamental point, holding open the possibility of religion being a quasi-necessity; that in some form it is constitutive of even modern society. This is not a simple issue of social theory, but a hot political potato. Very specific commitments and interests are invested on both sides. It clearly matters to the Church whether or not it is ‘an epiphenomenon’. It matters just as much to those who espouse a secular social vision whether the new visibility of religion is a ‘fundamental transformation’. Recent theories of religion have had to shift ground on what gives it its credibility, its plausibility structures. The reasons previously advanced for religion becoming incredible are clearly faulty. Peter Berger, in his early work The Heretical Imperative,10 laid out a theory of religion as arising from a primordial, prereflective experience of a reality beyond the paramount experience of everyday reality, accessed in a unique way by certain ‘virtuosi’, which becomes embodied in a set of institutions (religious traditions and organizations), resources (scriptures, symbols) and practices (prayer, morally constructed behaviour), which make the ‘numinous’ reality more readily available to the ‘common man’ on a permanent rather than episodic (though now routinized) basis. This notion of the supernatural is of a realm of reality beyond everyday grasp, which invades or ‘irrupts’ within human experience.11 Religious intuitions seen thus are fragile when set against the obviousness of the workaday world, and their confirming social plausibility structures (principally the community of believers) are crucial. The early Berger identified the cause of secularization here. Religion achieves credibility from social consensus – one more easily believes the empirically non-verifiable if everybody does. The pluralization of beliefs and the wider availability of choice make religious belief less plausible. The pluralist world undermines certainty by relativizing beliefs. The etymology of ‘heresy’ in Greek is ‘choice’ – a decision to move away from the general consensus, from the tradition, and strike out on a chosen path. In pluralist modernity, you have no choice but to choose – ‘heresy’ is ‘imperative’. In second-phase theories, however, exactly the opposite case is sometimes made. Pluralism becomes the friend, not the enemy, of religion. For Casanova, the uniform religious world typical of Europe, closely allied with the power structure, is what eventually undermines religious adherence, whereas in an open pluralist world, such as the United States, believing is free and able to flourish. Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannacone deployed rational choice theory to develop a ‘supply side’ notion that ever-wider provision of religious choice stimulates the

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religious ‘market’.12 This economic model has severe limitations, but it represents a more general sociological volte face. Peter Berger was to abandon the notion that pluralism is inimical to religious adherence. Religion is not so frail and vulnerable, easily blown over by the winds of modernity; it is surprisingly resilient. Steve Bruce, however, takes a different view. Far from singing the praises of an open market, he states bluntly that ‘shared belief systems require coercion. The survival of religion requires that individuals be subordinated to the community’.13 His explanation for persistence does not rely on the hold of the sacred. This is not significant in modern consciousness, and there are no enduring religious needs; if these exist at all, they are shaped and articulated in a particular culture, and it cannot be assumed that ‘large numbers will frame the question in the same terms, let alone embrace the same answer’.14 He is careful to confine himself to the modern industrialized world but, while he says there is no law of necessity that later modernizing societies will follow the same pattern as earlier cases, his scenario is the logical consequence of industrialization anywhere. Religion is in inevitable decline, except in specific circumstances. ‘Modernity undermines religion except when it finds some major social role to play other than mediating the natural and supernatural worlds . . . in cultural defence and cultural transition’.15 It is only when religion is allied to extraneous requirements – as for cultural defence in Poland or Ireland or to sustain group identities for Afro-Caribbean or Filipino immigrants – that it continues to play a significant role. The reason for its more general decline is that the modern emphasis on the autonomous individual subverts religion’s prospects. The religious impulse itself has no basis in the social constitution of reality in modernity. Bruce’s view that shared belief systems are coercive is curious. If we take democracy – it has the character of a belief system; it certainly requires some ‘coercive’ protection and it establishes the individual as a citizen among citizens, but a ‘coerced democracy’ is an oxymoron – where would one find such? Not all belief systems are inevitably eroded by autonomous individualism. What Bruce fails to account for is the ubiquity of belief – far beyond cultural defence and transition. Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead assume some fundamental human interest in the ‘sacred’, and note its (non-religious) resurgence.16 Although they do not clarify what exactly is the basis of the sacred, they enquire into the forms it is now taking. They differentiate the institutional ‘religious domain’ from the ‘holistic milieu’ of spirituality, claiming that the difference emerges clearly in the empirical evidence in the Kendal area of Northern England, which they investigated. These two fields manifest opposite types of personal orientation vis-à-vis the sacred. In the religious domain, people are oriented to external imposition of beliefs, norms and practices (‘life-as’), while the holistic milieu embodies a deep connectedness with the unique experiences of the self (‘subjective life’). In answer to their central research question – whether ‘religion’ is being supplanted by ‘spirituality’ – they conclude that, while the religious domain is shrinking (now 7.9 per cent of the population17) and the holistic milieu is expanding, but from a very low starting point (now 1.6 per cent18), there is not yet clear evidence of the latter overtaking the former. However, when account is taken of the trends and emerging practices

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in the wider society, both in Britain and the United States, a cumulative picture of a ‘spiritual revolution’ begins to become clear; and the authors speculate that this could be the biggest thing to happen to the religious sensibility of the West since the Reformation! By way of explanation, they propose that the widespread cultural ‘subjective turn’ of recent times has two effects: it leads to the demise of ‘life as’ religion (casting it as authoritarian, restrictive of the self, out of tune with the tenor of the times), and it is the seedbed of new self-oriented perceptions of spirituality and new self-affirming practices. However, is it not tautologous to explain subjective life spirituality by the cultural subjective turn? Moreover, the turn to the subject has been around for a long time, so does it really explain what are more recent cultural shifts? A fundamental point in terms of secularization theory is that holistic milieu spirituality, precisely because of its antipathy towards and inaptness for institutionalization, in no way replaces the social role that religion plays even to the present day. Subjective life spirituality, therefore, can be rather easily dismissed as a privatized variant of religion, lacking social significance and further evidence of secularization. Although Heelas and Woodhead disagree with Bruce about the hold of the sacred, they agree on a negative delineation of religion. They do not acknowledge any religious capacity for transformation. These analyses are confined to the Western world. Norris and Inglehart take a wider view.19 Their impressive marshalling of statistics, drawn principally from the World Values Study, confirms the depth of the secularizing trends in industrialized and post-industrialized countries and the marked difference in terms of religious participation and values and beliefs between these and agrarian societies.20 Their explanation is based on two basic axioms: that societies differ in terms of human security (this is linked to religious ‘values’) and, secondly, by religious culture (linked to religious ‘beliefs’) (p. 15). They propose that the advance or not of secularization is determined by levels of existential security. More security means less religious interest. This explains the fact that, while in the industrialized and postindustrialized world there is a relatively uniform move towards more secular orientations, the world as a whole is not becoming more secular because in agrarian societies, which have greater levels of existential insecurity, there is a higher birth rate. In Peter Berger’s celebrated phrase, ‘the rest of the world is as furiously religious as ever’.21 This thesis, however, is little different from the traditional assumption that modernity (existential security) inevitably ushers in secularization; and to say that levels of existential security are the significant factors simply repeats the ancient wisdom that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’. Moreover, the two axioms are given different weightings. The axiom that societies differ in human security is the real foundation on which Norris and Inglehart explain differences in secularizing trends. Their second axiom that societies differ by religious culture – significant because it acknowledges the imprint that different religious traditions make on individual societies and the continuing effects these have even when religious participation fades – only comes into play to explain modifications of the ‘real’

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process. Once again, religion is portrayed as the dependent variable in the social process, and its capacity for transformation is under-emphasized. Both this existential (in)security thesis and the subjectivization thesis address Hervieu-Léger’s challenge to explain, by reference to some underlying process, decline and resurgence, religious change and religious continuity. Hervieu-Léger tackles the issue in terms of belief itself, and finds a way through the paradox by distinguishing between items of belief and modes of believing: ‘the question of religious modernity is above all one of the ways of believing’. 22 She sets out to analyse the ‘structures and the dynamics of modern religious belief ’, setting these within the peculiar problematic of modernity: ‘As fast as modernity has deconstructed (traditional) systems of meaning wherein individuals and society found a pattern of order matching their experience, it has generated social and psychological uncertainty on a huge scale; and in a multitude of ways it has given a new impetus to the question of meaning and the manifold protests against the denial of meaning that corresponds to it’ (p. 73). Believing is not obliterated by modernity; it is, indeed, a necessary dimension of human social existence. But the mode of believing is transformed by modernity’s drive to rationalization and the concomitant break with tradition. So: ‘Identifying modern believing involves analysing (the) different ways of resolving – or at least averting – uncertainty, ways that are refracted in a diversity of beliefs. And within this broader field of vision, which embraces changes both in the substance of belief and the cultural processes that produce these beliefs, the question of the religious productions of modernity has to be perceived anew’ (p. 73). Hervieu-Léger speaks of a new fluidity of believing, which is due to the institutions controlling it (the churches) having been de-throned and the multiplicity of social forces now engaged in its ‘manufacture’ (alternative and secular religions, new age movements, cultural trends, the media, etc). As beliefs and believing become free-floating, an interplay begins between socio-cultural forces and traditional religions. The religious stock of resources – beliefs, images, stories, witnesses, practices – is plundered, while, conversely, the traditional religions learn to adapt to the exigencies of contemporary culture and re-brand their products accordingly. The process is not simply marketing; it is one of metaphorization, intellectualization and spiritualization of belief.23 At this point, we might expect Hervieu-Léger, in order to distinguish social and religious modes of believing, to advance a specifically religious reason for the persistence of religious belief. However, as noted earlier, her level of analysis is focused on plausibility structures. Her strategy is to re-formulate the sociological definition of religion – not as an ‘essentialist’ definition that captures its ‘real truth’ but a working definition, a working tool by which phenomena can be identified as having the specificity of the religious and are rendered capable of explanation in sociological terms. She proposes, on the basis of empirical research into the lifecourse of certain contemporary apocalyptic communities in France, that what confers a religious character on beliefs and believing is ‘the invocation of a cloud of witnesses’ (p. 80). Religion is a chain of memory. It relies on the continuity of tradition, which can be the actual traditions of particular groups or assumed

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traditions within which contemporary experience self-interprets. Memory is what structures the religious imagination and validates its particular way of believing. However, it is not immediately obvious why the claim of historical continuity alone confers a specifically religious character on belief. Many belief systems point to their historical pedigree for legitimization. Memory is certainly implicated in the dynamics of religious belief, but it is not a sufficient explanation of its basis. The key issue of the nature of religious belief remains untouched.

III With this survey of some of the positions taken by sociologists, we can now re-state the central issue. Sociology, which previously tended to assume that religion was unable to survive the onslaught of modernity, is now, in some quarters at least, reversing itself and assuming its essential durability; and the empirical evidence for this, while far from conclusive and capable of contradictory interpretations, is mounting. But, if the sacred is in fact resurgent and religion is making a comeback, are we witnessing David Martin’s ‘fundamental transformation’? Is the social constitution of religion coming into view afresh? Is the social tale about more than simple persistence? Is there a necessity for religion? And where would such a proposition lead – as far as a vindication of the truth of religion? Sociology alone cannot penetrate to the heart of the matter, to truth claims. It has need of (or has to give way to) the other hermeneutical disciplines to address such fundamental questions. The sociology of religion has traditionally manoeuvred around them with the device of methodological atheism, disavowing any competence to adjudicate truth claims. However, that evades a central dilemma of secularization theory. A sociology that is methodologically atheist, confining itself to phenomenological comparative analysis, is inevitably drawn towards an epiphenomenal portrayal of religion. The view of reality arising within religious belief is framed as a simple sociological datum, but as an actual account of reality it is bracketed, and not given credence. In practice, sociology (or sociologists) have often gone further and made the assumption that such religious views are illusory. This is not usually taken as wrongful trespass into forbidden philosophical or theological territory because, whatever the philosophical assumption, the empirical facts remain amenable to explanation and interpretation in the restricted terms of sociology. But the ruling assumption still dictates what questions and issues are pursued. Moreover, when judging the significance of the persistence or resurgence of religion, this can only be seen as epiphenomenal, something thrown up in the complex social process without any real social grounding. Translated into social policy terms, persistent religion is something to be coped with, but not to be taken seriously in its own terms. What if the opposite assumption, of religion’s essential truthfulness, were made? In particular instances, religion might still be judged epiphenomenal – the froth of turbulent postmodernity – but there sometimes will be more. What difference does such a stance make for the strictly sociological analysis? It is likely to be ruled

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out of court (or some courts) as the wrongful importation of a normative view; but is it any more illegitimate than an underlying assumption of falsity? It is, nevertheless, logically coherent, applying Ockham’s razor, to rule out rather than to admit the possibility of non-verifiable realities. The non-verifiable is not admissible sociologically, and one cannot build a sociological theory of society on a properly religious premise.24 The most one can do is derive the sociological implications of a religious assumption. However, the atheist premise is not verifiable either; one cannot prove the negative that God or the supernatural does not exist; one can only proceed ‘as if ’ all that is is what is empirically available – and then one has to deal with the fact of believers who perceive reality differently, so that religious belief becomes ‘real’ in its consequences. Here is sociology’s limit point. Because it is not competent to judge religion’s truth claims, neither is it able finally and definitively to resolve the issue of its social significance. The supernatural is not open to sociological inspection, but if it is ‘for real’, then neither is the deep constitution of the empirical world open to sociological inspection; it is different from what is sociologically apparent. Consequently, sociology cannot be relied upon to chart religion’s future trajectory. This is what the theory of secularization was traditionally called upon to do; but now, with the weakness of its theoretical foundations exposed and the empirical evidence inconclusive, secularization cannot function as an overarching paradigm of sociological analysis. Secularization is a chronically ambiguous tale, capable of being told in two ways, depending on the philosophical assumption made: it is either the modest charting of the course of socio-religious change and of the shifting boundaries between religious and other social institutions, or it is the account of the vagaries of an epiphenomenon. But neither of these views can, in the end, claim a sociological warrant. Religion’s future must remain opaque to sociological gaze. Even so, sociological enquiry remains valid and necessary. Religious phenomena can be viewed from either within or without a religious perspective, and both produce valid insights. Religious or theological enquiry articulates the meanings embedded in religious adherence and commitment and explores their origins and implications. Sociology, with its comparative viewpoint across the range of religious experiences and the connectedness it traces to social factors of culture, class, age and gender, is a necessary corrective to a purely ‘insider’ perspective. In addition, a properly sociological theory of religion, distinct from a theological account, is valid within its own terms. But this is far from a dominant theory of secularization as the master trend in modernity, explaining the social (in)significance of religion and assigning it its (privatized) social location. That derives from a philosophical assumption. It disregards the inner capacity of religion to renew and transform. It raises an assumption about religion as epiphenomenal to the level of a sociological law, and declares it a ‘social fact’.25 This, of course, is an uncomfortable position for sociology, severely limiting its predictive capacity; and there is no alternative paradigm on offer, which may explain why modified versions of secularization, simply charting the processes of religious change under modern conditions, are so strongly resisted. Ideological assumptions don’t go down without a fight!

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IV What kind of contribution, then, might we expect from the sociology of religion? Martin’s query about it enquiring into ‘our fundamental transformations’ cannot be vindicated on purely sociological grounds. But the philosophical/theological assumption that such fundamental transformations are in fact operative (to one or other degree, because a Divine involvement in human affairs is operative) dictates its own sociological agenda. Any robust theology will seek to engage with sociology in such terms, putting theology in the driving seat, as it were, of the social analysis of religion as the more fundamental science of the sacred.26 The sociological viewpoint within this perspective will not only be that many of our social norms and values have a religious (and, in the West, a specifically JudaeoChristian) genealogy, but that the religious impulse is helpful, at least, for them to flourish.27 Sociological grounds for this can be found in the thin dimension of meaning that contemporary society provides; what Beaudoin calls ‘a meltdown of meaning . . . when everything liquefies under the glare of a foundationless commercial culture’,28 so that conserving and reproducing social commitment becomes problematic.29 In addition, the secularized West now faces major political dilemmas with the emergence of new faith communities, especially the Islamic diaspora and religiously motivated social movements, including international terrorism. The reigning secular mentality in many public bodies – a sort of religious illiteracy – restricts any empathy with ‘real religion’. Now that the received position is no longer holding – that the place of religion is in the private sphere where, and only where, it must be guaranteed freedom of expression – Western society is in a quandary.30 Religion’s re-emergence does more than reclaim an empty stall in the public square; it raises questions about the public square itself. As religion reclaims a role in defining and shaping the social world, both it and the sociology of religion move into new sociological territory, and some alliance between them becomes realistic as complementary contributions to public discourse about the common life of those who share the same environment and must collaborate in managing the same difficulties.31 The point here is not for sociology to become a sub-division of theology,32 but that when sociological enquiry adopts a more open stance to religion, a major change in method follows. This fits with widespread revisions of method in the human and social sciences fired by dissatisfaction with a natural sciences model. In Aristotelian terms, a ‘covering law’ style of explanation is inappropriate (episteme) and technique alone (techne) is insufficient, because the human sciences operate as ‘practical wisdom’ (phronesis). David Martin expresses this well: (in) the human sciences there has been a signal advance from the idea that we dispense authoritative packages of knowledge, either concerning brute empirical fact or the supposed dynamics of history, to the idea that we enter a conversation with others on the basis of certain criteria of logic, evidence, coherence and comparison. We have become fully conscious that we are putting forward tentative hypotheses which are ordered by controlling paradigms and assumptions. The material of our scientific scrutiny comprises worlds of meaning and symbol and these are part of a narrative of personal motives and

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social projects that takes unexpected turns. These shifts have made it more possible to pursue the sociology of religion in a spirit of sympathetic understanding rather than see faith as an alienated delusion destined to disappear in the process of rationalization and the dialectics of history.33

The notion of some quasi-necessity of religion is to be found as a kind of underground stream in second-phase revisions of secularization. Martin’s own fundamental position has become increasingly clear. His On Secularisation: towards a Revised General Theory (2005) extends the analysis in his earlier A General Theory of Secularization (1978) in an ever-broader historical and geographical sweep. He identifies three world-changing religious movements: the rise and rise of Pentecostalism in Latin America, Asia and Africa; the breakout of Islam from its traditional heartlands and the emergence of a new, volatile Islamia; and the renewal and new confidence of international Catholicism. The social entry point of each is distinct. Pentecostalism’s success derives from being a voluntaristic religion, a mutation of the classic Protestant spirit, enabling it to move quickly into unoccupied social niches. In contrast, Islam and Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) are organicist and embody a total social view. Catholicism’s social strength is its wide dispersal, especially among the new nations, and the prominence it enjoys due to its strong central authority and the new independence it won by divesting itself of entanglement with political power. Islamia brings a large element of instability; it is both a challenge to Western modernity and itself challenged by modernity. Secularization is, of course, a continuing feature, especially in Europe. Martin traces its refraction through the particular circumstances of individual societies. The secularization that flows from Protestant voluntarism – eventually making Protestantism itself sociologically unrealistic – is different from the secularization of Catholic or Orthodox ethno-religiosity, as in the Balkans, Poland and Ireland. Latin America’s more recent path into Pentecostalism has diverted it from the classic Latin Europe pattern of strong internal societal divisions and an embedded anti-clericalism, and is due, according to Martin, to Latin America’s particular social and economic conditions, its cultural and racial mix and the region’s openness to the socio-cultural and economic forces of modernity and its proximity to the United States.34 The fact that religious traditions leave such distinctive imprints on different societies, acknowledged also in Norris and Inglehart’s axiom that societies differ by religious culture, makes it sociologically quite improbable that religion is destined simply to fade away. Norris and Inglehart demonstrate the deep changes that take place once existential security has been achieved, but they show nothing of what happens after that other than that there is a decline in traditional beliefs and religious behaviours. What happens to belief itself and to believing? How does religious belief move once (material) existential security is in the bag? Here, we need a fuller phenomenological account that takes full recognition of the perspective of religious ‘insiders’. Heelas and Woodhead’s description of ‘life-as’ religion as alienation from the self and dissociation from subjective concerns is but a partial truth, as a more broad-based study of religious practice in a

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cosmopolitan centre would likely have shown. A religion provides a set of narratives, symbols and practices that embody a view of the world – in classical Christian terms, a sacramental vision of reality settling deep in the human spirit and structuring one’s way of being-in-the-world. Because this involves, for one thing, a fundamental submission to God and God’s purposes, the religious spirit is in rather deep tension with post-Enlightenment notions of human autonomy; not, however, as a rejection of autonomy, but as its re-definition – ‘anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 10: 39). The ‘truths’ of religion are not couched in the terms of scientific rationality, but of quite other paths of wisdom. Religious accounts of human life and society ought to be approached in their own terms as well as in critical dialogue with other sources of knowledge; they should not be rendered without remainder into anthropological or sociological terms. There is, in fact, a variety of modes of religious belief, various ways its truths are embraced, from the fundamentalist and literalist to the theologically sophisticated. Critical thinking, about the religious tradition itself as well as about contemporary culture and philosophies, is integral to the religious way of knowing35 (even if neglected in some quarters), although this does not imply wholesale adoption of post-Enlightenment scepticism, which usually turns out to be simply corrosive of belief and commitment. There is a variety of modes of critical thought.36 Religious truths may be only half-remembered by most of the population, but they are still ‘functional’ to the extent that people are reluctant to let go of them.37 They signal an alternative to the ‘iron cage’. This is where Hervieu-Léger’s sociology of religion begins – at the point of modernity’s deconstruction of traditional systems of meaning giving new impetus to the question of meaning. But, here, sociology limps. As Kieran Flanagan observes, only theology can ‘manufacture values and supply a telling basis for their authentication’.38 In effect, sociology needs theology as much as, and even more than, theology needs sociology. To understand the nature of the challenge, and how human beings respond to issues of meaning and value and might respond more effectively, the view from inside religious culture, which nurtures meaning, is an essential account. This is a theological task. But what kind of theology counts as public discourse capable of informing public debate and public policy? Is ‘confessional’ language admissible? Clearly, there will not be consensus about theological beliefs and assumptions or ‘comprehensive doctrines’; so, in what way are they admissible? A great deal depends on a religious tradition being able to state its beliefs and belief-based propositions in a way that makes them accessible and significant to non-religionists, even though they do not share the specific items of belief (as, for example, Catholic Social Teaching has always attempted). It certainly helps when the religious tradition demonstrates a capacity for self-criticism. There is also an issue about power. Casanova proposes that, to reclaim an effective social role, theology has to accept modernity’s differentiation of religion within the social structure. Civic society is where the action is, and the churches’ social influence is rightly restricted.39 Patrick Riordan, when commenting on Rawls in his chapter, sees the need for some kind of bridge between public reason in the

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narrow sense (the domain of state officialdom) and the comprehensive doctrines espoused by religiously committed citizens. The forum, he suggests, is a fluid one made up of the media, educational institutions, cultural groups, churches and faith communities, all intervening in service of the common good. This ‘settlement’, like modified versions of secularization theory, seems thoroughly reasonable – apart from the fact that it is intensely political! State officialdom can be a narrow gatekeeper. The reaction against religion making a new public appearance, gathering around issues of faith schools and gay adoption, shows just how strongly the definition and ownership of the public square is contested. However, the contest can and ought to be joined.

V I am arguing that the necessary revision of secularization theory, triggered by the resurgence of religion, has produced a peculiar and intriguing situation. Not only are the factual limits to secularization as a social trend revealed, but the combination within the theory of descriptive and normative elements is shown to be unsustainable. The assumption upon which a prescriptive account of secularization rests (that religion is epiphenomenal) is simply an assumption, and the supporting corollary that religion is losing, and must lose, social significance has become implausible in view of contemporary experience. When secularization is confined to the more modest task of charting the course of religious change, its explanatory power becomes little more than extrapolation from existing trends; the paradigm of an overarching historic change from religious to secular is lost, and with it a large part of sociology’s predictive capacity. The sociology of religion then finds itself oddly in the same boat as religion itself – giving an account of the human and social world that is inherently contestable. Finding itself adrift in a postsecular age, it suffers the same anxieties as the churches in a post-Christian age.40 But, like the churches, secularism is capable of fighting a rearguard action. What is at stake is the shape of the public square. In this debate, some strands of sociology are beginning to push at or across the boundary with theology. Here is the site for creative thinking and social responsibility.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Martin, D., Towards a Revised Theory of Secularisation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) p. 38. Casanova, J., Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Giddens, A., Modernity and Self-Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). Martin, D., A General Theory of Secularization (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978). Bruce, S., God is Dead (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). Davie, G., Religion in Modern Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). The second phase secularization debate has become truly interdisciplinary, with major contributions from scholars in philosophy, theology, history as

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10 11

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14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

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well as sociology. (I am grateful to Tony Carroll for a broad view of this in a work shortly to be published.) Hervieu-Léger, D., Religion as a Chain of Memory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). Lieven Boeve in his paper to the first colloquium meeting analysed this as a dual process of detraditionalization and pluralization of the religious (see pp. 187–209). Berger, P., The Heretical Imperative (London: Collins, 1980). That the notion of a primordial, pre-reflective experience is deeply problematic is developed by George Lindbeck in The Nature of Christian Doctrine (London: SPCK, 1984). Stark, R. and Iannacone, L., ‘A Supply-Side Interpretation of the “Secularization” of Europe’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1994), 230–52. Bruce, S., ‘The Social Process of Secularisation’ in Fenn, R. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) pp. 249–63, p. 262. Fenn, R. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) p. 262. Bruce, S., Religion in the Modern World (Oxford: OUP, 1996) p. 96. Heelas, P., Woodhead, L., Seel, B., Tusting, K., Szerszynski B., The Spiritual Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). Church attendance on 26 November 2000. Participation during one week in November 2000 in ‘associational activities’ which participants identified as having a ‘spiritual dimension’. Norris, P. and Inglehart, R., Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: CUP, 2004). On agrarian, industrialized (factory production) and post-industrialized (the knowledge economy) countries, see Chapter 3. Berger, P., A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (New York: Free Press, 1993) p. 32. Hervieu-Léger, D., Religion as a Chain of Memory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000) p. 70. Hervieu-Léger relies here on the work of Jean Seguy and his interpretation of Weber’s approach to religion. According to Seguy, Weber sees religion fundamentally as collective action focused on the relation between the mundane world and ‘supernatural powers’; but in a secondary sense the social/political phenomena in which belief plays a part is also religion – as in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Seguy calls the latter religion in a ‘metaphorical’ sense. He proposes that as modernity rationalizes mentalities and human perceptions of reality some process of metaphorization of substantive religious beliefs becomes a quasi-necessity (see her Religion as a Chain of Memory). See Porpora, D., ‘Methodological Atheism, Methodological Agnosticism and Religious Experience’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Vol. 36, No. 1 (March 2006), 57–75. Porpora argues that methodological atheism reduces religion to the epiphenomenal. However, he then argues that the

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James Sweeney non-empirical cannot be ruled out as having sociological explanatory significance. I am indebted to my colleague Patrick Riordan for clarification of this point, in response to the early version of this chapter, by distinguishing between genetic explanation and ‘covering law’. Secularization, as the theory of how and why certain historical processes of change in the social position of religion occurred and with what results, has validity as genetic explanation (David Martin’s A General Theory of Secularisation pursues this course), but it cannot be elevated to the status of a universal, covering law style explanation as delivered by the natural sciences. See Flyvbjerg, B., Making Social Science Matter. Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it can Succeed Again (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). This is how ‘practical theology’ sees its inter-disciplinary relationship with sociology. See Swinton, J., Mowat, H., Practical Theology and Qualitative Research (London: SCM Press, 2006). Even a traditional secularization theorist like Bryan Wilson had some sympathy with this. He lamented the demoralization of society in the later modern era, once society no longer had need of interiorized moral attitudes to sustain cohesion, getting by instead on technical controls. He saw this as a fragile solution and noted that the earlier high success of social moralization was in fact dependent upon the ‘noble lie’ of an extra-mundane salvation. See Wilson, B., ‘The Demoralization of Western Society’ in Fenn, R. (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 43–8. See also on this point Fevre, R., The Demoralization of Western Culture (London: Continuum, 2002 ). Beaudoin, T., Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Quest of Generation X (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998) p. 115. Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W., Swidler, A., Tipton, S., Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper & Row, 1986); Putnam, R., Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Lehmann, D., ‘Secularism and the public-private divide: Europe can learn from Latin America’, Political Theology, Vol. 7, No. 3 (July 2006), 273–93. This is not a re-run of the old controversy as between an academic sociology of religion and a confessional religious sociology, which in the past was a lively debate in France. See Le Bras, G., Etudes de sociologie religieuse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955). What is in question now is not, as in that debate, a sociology of different religious organizations, but rather the more fundamental issue of religion’s own proper role in the constitution of society, and whether and how this is re-established in late modernity. The contrary view will, of course, still be advanced in the debate – that secularization so dissolves religion as to reduce it to social insignificance, to the status of a private interest or hobby like, for example, astrology – but this, so I have been arguing, is not an empirical question and it is impossible to resolve it empirically. Unlike John Milbank’s influential Religion and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) which rejects the sociology of religion and reasserts theology as the true science of the social.

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Martin, D., On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) p. 25. Martin interprets the disciplines that Pentecostalism imbues, particularly among males and in relation to family life, as a process of socialization counteracting embedded social pathologies. This, allied with its voluntaristic nature, makes Pentecostalism a route for Latin American society to enter modernity. He rejects the view that the spread of Pentecostalism can be explained as a simple cultural import or imposition from the United States. (See Martin, D., Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)). See also Bernice M., ‘The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: A Cautionary Tale for the Sociology of Religion’ in Fenn, R. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 52–66. This is what secular opponents, like Richard Dawkins, reject. They insist that the fundamentalist end of the spectrum is religion in its true colours, denying it any genuine inner capacity for transformation. An image of critical representation within a tradition might be the portrayal of Queen Elizabeth by Helen Mirren in the film ‘The Queen’ – a portrayal of dysfunctions in the Royal family which nevertheless affirms a capacity to respond to pressures for change. Grace Davie proposes that rather than Europe becoming simply secular, it is more accurate to say that it has become ‘differently religious’. See Davie, G., Europe: The Exceptional Case (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002). This fits with the central theme of her Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994) in which she analyses the typically British way, not of hostility to religion but of wanting it to ‘be there’, its churches standing in for the rest of us, its ministers carrying on the show in our place – vicarious religion or, in the celebrated phrase, ‘believing without belonging’. The continuing attraction of faith schools to parents, even though not themselves religiously observant, is another indication of this. Flanagan, K., ‘The Return of Theology: Sociology’s Distant Relative’ in Fenn, R. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 432–44, p. 433. The Radical Orthodoxy school of theology would contest this, identifying differentiation with the rise of the autonomous nation-state which is seen as an illegitimate development. See Cavanaugh, W. T., ‘From One City to Two: Christian Reimagining of Political Space’, Political Theology, Vol. 7, No. 3 (July 2006) 299–332. Sweeney, J., ‘Catholic Social Thought in Action’ (Leuven: Peters, forthcoming). See Flanagan, K., Seen and Unseen: Visual Culture, Sociology and Theology (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) for an interesting analysis of sociology’s tendency to displace real religion and substitute itself as virtual, simulacra religion. Flanagan claims this disables sociology in an age of manifold religious claimants by compromising it; it cannot exercise the critical task of discerning false from true, ideology from religion.

2 Five Ways of Relating Religion and Politics or Living in Two Worlds: Believer and Citizen Patrick Riordan, S. J.

James Sweeney’s discussion of the revisions to secularization theory in the sociology of religion, included in this volume, raises important questions about the relationship between internal and external perspectives on religion. The adoption of a purely external perspective has led to an impasse for two reasons. First of all, it is recognized that, despite the forecast of the demise of religion under pressure from modernization, religion has remained part of the modern world, either in renewed and vibrant forms, or in transference to other forms of expression. But second, the adoption of the external perspective has come under scrutiny because of the imported presuppositions with which researchers approach the data on religion. Sociologists now are challenged to own up to their personal stance, so as to allow a review of the presuppositions that may colour their study. The external perspective appropriate to the discipline of sociology is safeguarded in its methodological orientation by incorporating in the discourse the internal perspective of the scientist’s personal stance in relation to the matter he or she studies. Openness about the internal perspective ensures that the external perspective can function as it should, and not as a cloak for ideology. Similar issues arise in the relationship of politics and religion. This relationship can be conceived of in various ways. Some forms such as theocracy subordinate the political dimension to that of the religious.1 On the other hand, there are ways of expressing the relationship that instrumentalize religion for the sake of a political cause. Rousseau’s civil religion is a clear example. Both these approaches have in common not only the tendency to privilege one side of the pair, but also to view the other pole through the lens of the privileged stance. The challenge is to find a way of dealing conceptually with the relationship between religion and politics, which respects the autonomy of each pole. At the same time, an adequate theoretical conceptualization must be such that it can be compatible with and hospitable to both a fully fledged theological understanding of the nature of religion and an articulated philosophical account of the nature of politics. There is a further

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possible dimension, insofar as theology can include a theological account of politics, and philosophy also can have interesting things to say about religion. However, it is sufficient for present purposes to indicate the need for an account which can accommodate the internal viewpoints of both religion and politics. The question is how a citizen of a liberal polity in a pluralist society, who at the same time is a committed believer, can make sense of her existence in all its complexity. I ask the question from the perspective of a Catholic Christian who is citizen of a liberal democratic polity, but I hope that the analysis is of use to other citizens with a different religious allegiance. In what follows, I survey five models of conceptualization so as to assess their adequacy. Inevitably, the presentation is so short that it is likely to be distorting, so the reader will have to go elsewhere for a thorough discussion of each model. Nonetheless, their outline and comparison will be useful for highlighting strengths and weaknesses.

I. Private–public The pair of concepts ‘private–public’, used to deal with the relationship between religion and politics, is familiar. It describes the realm of the political as the public arena, and relies on philosophical attempts to articulate what can be presupposed as shared in the public arena. Depending on the account offered, standards of argumentation for the public sphere are laid down. Participants in the public forum are required to conform to these standards. Failure to do so, for instance by relying on religious reasons, is considered an unwarranted importation of what is private into the public arena. But more to the point, as a religious reason, it is unlikely to find acceptance in the consent of other participants in the public square, since they all have their own affiliations, religious or otherwise. Precisely the problem of diversity of ultimate commitments makes it necessary to secure a public domain in which people can be free from the threat of oppression in the name of another’s religion. The price for this freedom and security is that they must forego the possibility of using the public power to impose their own religious convictions or practices on others. Contemporary liberal thinkers take up this emphasis on the restraint required of the religiously committed person when engaging in political debate. Such a person should not support a coercive law for which no public justification is available, and a citizen should not rely exclusively on religious grounds for supporting or rejecting a coercive law. Robert Audi, for instance, formulates two principles, ‘the principle of secular rationale’ and ‘the principle of secular motivation’. The first principle ‘posits a prima facie obligation not to advocate or support any law or public policy that restricts human conduct unless one has, and is willing to offer, adequate secular reason for this’ and the second principle imposes an ‘obligation to abstain . . . unless one is sufficiently motivated by normatively adequate secular reason’.2 This distinction allows a legitimacy and validity to religion, by confining it to a realm apart from that of the public. The result of this confinement is that religion is deprived of some dimensions of its self-understanding, insofar as it considers

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itself to be entitled to a place in the public arena. Nonetheless, many religious people have found it a useful compromise since it secures for them a space in which to hold their beliefs and practise their religion without interference from others or from the state. That the public–private distinction is unsatisfactory is obvious from the social reality of religion. Liberal political regimes that thought that they could dispense with the consideration of religion, having relegated it to the private sphere, have been left without intellectual and political resources to deal with the reality of religion in international diplomacy as well as in domestic politics.3 The required comprehension of the religious dimension may not simply be a sociological or anthropological account, but must be such as to appreciate the motivating power experienced by the religious adherents for the political stances they take. The weakness of the public–private distinction has been exposed for liberal political philosophy, however, not primarily by the recovery of religion, but by the critique offered by feminism. Feminist critics have drawn attention to the way in which the relationships between the sexes and the divisions of labour in the domestic sphere had been dismissed as private. The uncovering of structures of domination and oppression, and the revelation of injustice in the power balance, meant that it was no longer acceptable to describe it as private. As the feminist slogan has it, ‘the personal is the political’.4 The criticism from this perspective revealed the inadequacy of the private– public distinction as drawn. It also revealed that the apparent simplicity concealed a complexity that had to be addressed. Honohan’s analysis of the terms is illustrative of a wider debate.5 The liberal philosophical usage privileges one way of drawing the distinction, and it does so in terms of control. A power agenda is operative here. What is in public control is subject to the norms and standards insisted upon by the liberal justification, for instance, the respecting of rights. But, private control seemed to exempt whatever fell under this category from public scrutiny. Other ways of drawing the distinction, for example, in terms of access, or in terms of interest, made it possible to relativize the political use of the terms.

II. Ultimate peace and justice – temporal peace and justice: Augustine Augustine’s conceptualization of the relationship between religion and politics is particularly privileged, because he could be said to stand in both camps simultaneously. As a scholar in the Roman cultural world, he had a deep appreciation of the history and ethos of the political.6 As a bishop of the Christian Church, he had a sound theological appreciation of created reality within the divine economy. Augustine worked out his position in response to the allegation that Christianity had destroyed the proper balance between religion and politics.7 Pagan refugees from Rome maintained that the fall of Rome was due to the city’s abandonment of its traditional religious practices. Rome’s divine patrons had withdrawn their favour and protection because the city had transferred its worship to the God of the Christians. This reflected an integrated vision of the political and the

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cosmic–theological. Although some important Christian writers were inclined to hold a similar compact vision, Augustine developed an analysis that effectively removed the gods from politics.8 This analysis was presented in the collection of books known as The City of God.9 His argument hinges on a contrast between two polarized communities, the City of God and the civitas terrena, the earthly city. The contrast is drawn in terms of the motivating goods and the typical psychological states of the members of both communities. Love of God is contrasted with love of self, the desire to serve and obey is contrasted with the desire to dominate, the pursuit of God’s glory is contrasted with the pursuit of fame and honour, the harmony of peace and justice is contrasted with the constant battling for domination among nations and within nations. These two cities are in conflict with one another, but it is a conflict of a different order to that found within the earthy city. The battle lines are drawn through the hearts of men and women as well as through societies and states. The victory is assured, the Bishop Augustine affirms, but beyond history. Within history, within the age (saeculum, origin of our word ‘secular’), the human political community is not identical with the earthy city, but is a complex of the dynamics of both cities.10 Far from denying the goodness of the historical community, Augustine acknowledges that it pursues temporal peace and justice, which provide the conditions in which people can pursue their calling to love their neighbour and to serve God. The flaw in temporal peace and justice is that it must inevitably rely on domination, on coercion. The assertion of human will is at the core of Augustine’s understanding of sin, and the rebellion of human will against the divine will is the ultimate source of the disorder he analyses. But for order to be maintained in the political community, there must be a dimension of domination. In some respects, this looks like a version of the public–private distinction, whereby the norms guiding private life (the Christian household, the Church) are different from and opposed to the norms guiding public life (the state, civil law, politics), love and service are opposed to domination and command, etc. But there are reasons for not accepting this reading. First, the position is articulated from a theological standpoint, confronting an alternative cosmic or theological account of political events. The boundaries of politics and its competencies are defined from the perspective of the vision of the ultimate triumph of the City of God beyond history. Second, Augustine’s contrast of the temporal peace and justice attainable by the city in history with the ultimate peace and justice of God’s kingdom constitutes a de-divinization of the secular. The claims of any state or system of human law to represent the good unqualifiedly, or to incorporate a regime of moral perfection, are shown to be illusory. A Platonic or Aristotelian style politics of perfection is abandoned.11 Third, Augustine’s solution demonstrates that the Christians set limits to what they will tolerate from the political, not that the political sets limits to religion. Any attempt by the political to revert to the compact cosmological view of Rome and its civil religion will be rejected. Fourth, Augustine allows that the human goods of the city in history are truly good. But they are limited in being relativized to the life of humans in history. Their enjoyment is appropriate so long as people appreciate that they are limited and not ultimate.12

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The usefulness of Augustine’s account for a contemporary understanding of political and constitutional legal order has been well argued.13

III. Common good–public good Alasdair MacIntyre remarks that Aquinas was one of the educational failures of the University of Naples.14 A failure, because he did not conform to that model of the graduate that the founder of the university, Emperor Frederick II, had hoped for – clerks and lawyers to administer his empire. Instead of becoming an obedient and bureaucratic clerk, Aquinas turned out to be subversive in teaching a philosophy of law and politics that was directly critical of the stance adopted by the emperor. He was also critical of the policies of the saintly King Louis IX of France. Aquinas distinguished between a limited good as the proper object of political order and the unrestricted common good as the ultimate object of human striving.15 The questions that arise require investigation into the relationship between temporal goods of justice and peace, and the unrestricted goods of beatitude. If that relationship is one of subordination, or instrumentality, does that imply obligation to apply the means appropriate to the inferior good so that they also bring about the higher good? In other words, should the political regime use the coercive instruments of human law to ensure that its people obey God and do His will? Aquinas’ distinction between different levels of good parallels his distinction between divine and human law. His definition of law as an ordinance of reason directed to the common good, made by one who has responsibility for the community, and promulgated, leaves open the possibility that there are different goods in common for different communities. It also leaves open the possibility that the methods to be employed in the application of law are different. For human law’s purpose is the temporal tranquillity of the state, a purpose which the law attains by coercively prohibiting external acts to the extent that those are evils which can disturb the state’s peaceful condition. The purpose of divine law is to lead one to the end of eternal fulfilment, an end which is blocked by any sin, and not merely by external acts but also by interior ones. And so what suffices for the perfection of human law, viz., that it prohibit wrongdoing and impose punishments, does not suffice for the perfection of divine law; what that needs is that one be made completely ready for participation in eternal fulfilment.16

In contrast to divine law which has eternal beatitude as its purpose and expects the interior submission of subjects, human law is for the sake of social peace, and is content with outward conformity. Aquinas’ views on the purpose of human law in relation to divine (moral) law are made explicit in his discussion of two questions, namely, whether human, civil law should command all the virtues, and whether it should prohibit all vices. When he asks if the purpose of human law is to prevent all wrongdoing, he notes two things. The first is that it would probably be impossible to prevent all wrongdoing.

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The second remark is that the law forbids precisely those wrongful acts that undermine social order, and from which good people might be expected to abstain. He identifies those as actions that not only harm others, their direct victims, but which if they were permitted would make social existence impossible, such as theft and murder (Aquinas, S. th. 1a2ae q96 a2). Aquinas recognizes that there will always be a number of people and a range of activities about which the law will be ineffectual. We see this in his discussion of a typically Aristotelian topic, namely, whether it is the purpose of law to make people good (Aquinas, S. th. 1a2ae q92 a1). Aristotle had answered in the affirmative, arguing that it is concern about the quality of citizens that distinguishes a political community from a mere alliance for mutual protection, or a business deal for the exchange of goods and services. Aquinas wants to agree with Aristotle and answer yes, that the law is aimed at the quality of citizens, but with Augustine he qualifies what is meant by ‘good’ by distinguishing different respects in which people are considered good. In his answer, Aquinas stresses that different expectations apply to lawgivers and to subjects of the law: the common good of the state cannot flourish, unless the citizens be virtuous, at least those whose business it is to govern. But it is enough for the good of the community, that the other citizens be so far virtuous that they obey the commands of their ruler. (Aquinas, S. th. 1a2ae q92 a1 ad3m)

Obviously, Aquinas is using the notion of common good here in a more restricted sense. Otherwise it would not be meaningful for him to write of the common good of the community being realized while some citizens only conform to the law in their outward behaviour, and not interiorly on the basis of virtuous character. Alasdair MacIntyre situates these discussions in the stances adopted by two very different monarchs – Louis IX of France, and Emperor Frederick II in the Kingdom of Sicily. Louis IX understood his royal authority in theological terms, considering it his duty to enforce the moral and religious teachings of scripture and the Church. Against his use of law as an instrument of moral education, Aquinas argued that human law should not attempt to repress all the vices. Where Louis appeals to Christian theological sources, Aquinas argues from human reason, generating standards that should apply to all rulers, whether Christian or not. It is not necessary for valid human law that it be made by a Christian prince using Christian principles. It is necessary that it be reasonable, and recognizable as such by rational citizens. Aquinas encountered Louis’ rule in Paris while a young student at Naples – that of Emperor Frederick. As MacIntyre notes, the Constitutions of Melfi, promulgated in 1231 for the Kingdom of Sicily to which Naples then belonged, attempted to repress vice but most importantly to extend the power of the centralized royal authority at the expense of local custom.17 But, as with Louis, Aquinas’ difference with Frederick was not based on theological reasons but was related to his view of imperial lawmaking and the centralization of power. The emperor claimed a divine source for his authority, as the providential instrument to correct the weaknesses

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of fallen humankind, presenting himself as the only source of peace and justice. Any questioning of his authority was interpreted as a rejection of divine authority. MacIntyre notes how this could not be acceptable to Aquinas on his understanding of law and its source. Aquinas in his Summa affirmed that people have the ability to judge by the light of their own reason whether or not some law is just or unjust, and so could very properly query the emperor and his edicts. Over against both Louis IX and Frederick II, Aquinas’ doctrine of natural law and the common good is subversive because it denies a source of political authority other than the reason of citizens, and it affirms the capacity of citizens to judge for themselves whether law is just or unjust. Where both of those monarchs relied on theological reasons to support their claims to authority, Aquinas countered with philosophical arguments.18 This third model for conceptualizing the relationship between religion and politics draws on Aquinas’ parallel distinctions between divine (moral) law and human law, and between the unrestricted common good of God’s kingdom and the restricted common good of any political community. In his use of these distinctions, he denies that the restricted is simply instrumental to the unrestricted, so that he explicitly rules out the use of the instruments appropriate to human law (e.g. coercion) so as to ensure the achievement of the goods corresponding to divine law (e.g. salvation).

IV. Civil society–state The revival of interest in the notion of civil society provides a new context for considering the place of religion within the polity. Two major developments have precipitated the renewed interest in the topic of civil society – the collapse of the Soviet block, and the process of globalization. In the first of these processes, civil society refers to the agents of change nurtured by Church groups and dissidents and others such as the Solidarity trade union. At the same time, the difficulties experienced in the attempt to implement free markets and liberal democratic systems were accounted for as due to the lack of civil society. The absence of certain practices and habits among the population, the lack of a moral order in which expectations are sustained by social sanction and the impoverished relationships and networks comprising social capital have revealed that the functioning of markets and democratic processes is not to be presupposed simply because the formal structures are in place.19 The second dynamic drawing attention to civil society is globalization (economic, cultural, military, diplomatic). The worldwide impact of economic activity and markets reveals an absence of state, while at the same time a market-based shared order emerges. There is a search for forms of global governance. In this context, a third sector apart from multi-national corporations (MNCs) and state-based bodies (such as the IMF) seems desirable, and is already functioning through international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). This is spoken of as global civil society.20 Where traditionally civil society was one of a pair of concepts, it is now located in a triad. Formerly, it was used to identify society under government and law.

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Now, civil society is distinguished on the one hand from the economy, and on the other hand from the state. In the international context, global civil society refers to the domain of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), which function in the vacuum of international government. With this complexity of meanings for the term ‘civil society’, there is real danger of misunderstanding whenever the term is used. This is complicated by the usage of the term in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. There, the term is used as equivalent to society in the broadest sense, to which the political and legal structures are subordinate (§§ 417, 418). In presenting this model, I rely on the usage of the term in the literature of the social sciences, in which civil society, the state and the market are seen as three domains alongside and intertwined with one another, but without any priority among them. Reliance on this secular version of the term allows the Church to raise the further question about ultimate purposes and therefore an ordering in the relationships between the spheres. This is an advantage of this model, but it should not be presupposed that the conversation has already taken place and that the social sciences can accept the Church’s understanding of the term. With the new visibility of religion in the public space, churches and religious bodies are spoken of as belonging to civil society, as the realm of socially organized activity and participation.21 Among the valued contributions of civil society on this view is the creation and maintenance of social capital. The literature recognizes the contribution of the Churches in some societies in fostering the constituent elements of democratic culture, in facilitating the formation and education of citizens to engage in argument and to accept conciliation in conflict. Religion is acknowledged to have contributed to the development of civil society in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in providing an institutional space, a wealth of symbols, metaphors and stories, an international dimension and an intellectual heritage.22 This very positive evaluation of the role of religion in fostering the social capital that is essential for liberal democratic politics makes this model particularly useful for the citizen who is at the same time a believer and seeks ways of integrating the two aspects of life. In the global context, the model also offers particular advantages, especially as the major faiths have worldwide distribution, and so find a ready-made category for the collaboration of churches and faith groups in the international forum. At the same time, it should not be overlooked that there are some dangers associated with this model. The dangers arise for a number of reasons. First, among the organizations belonging to civil society are vested interest groups whose perspectives are not universal and general, but are particular and local. Accordingly, there is a danger that the Church, by association, can appear as only representing particular and special interests. This would undermine its ability to proclaim its message, which is universal and not restricted to any race, class, culture or aspect of human existence. Second, because of its involvement in education, health care and the provision of supports for the poor, Christians have often engaged in advocacy on behalf of groups that have been neglected by the market or by governments. The danger is that their contributions to political culture and to public debate can be

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seen exclusively as advocacy. While advocacy is important, it does not exhaust the Christian’s mission, which requires him or her to speak of the unrestricted common good of all humanity, and to challenge everyone, whether rich or poor, to revise their priorities. Third, the identification of civil society as the proper social location for the Christian community brings with it the danger of being excluded from participation in the discourses about politics and the economy. The Church’s politically recognized entitlement to contribute to the public debate as a corporate citizen might be jeopardized by a too hasty relegation to civil society, thereby excluding it from consideration of the market or the state. Were it to accept a description of its role confining it to civil society as a discrete sphere of the public arena, it would risk colluding in its own exclusion from a large part of political and economic life. This is where its own tradition of reflection on the relationship of the political and the social, as noted above, can be a valuable resource for resisting the confinement. The Church requires a positive understanding of its self-limitation as a corporate entity within the liberal polity. But this requires that it be able also to remain consistent with its understanding of itself and its mission in a theological context. The category of civil society in this model enables the political community to have a positive appreciation of the contribution made by the Church and by faith groups in generating and sustaining the quality of social capital that is essential for the good functioning of the political sphere. While Christians may wish to speak of their contribution in more theological language, this model secures for them a possible space in which to do so. The model does not anticipate antagonism or conflict between the two domains of state and civil society, as might be entailed by the public–private model. The positive regard for civil society and its dynamics in relation to politics protects religion and allows it to be, because of its social capital contribution.

V. Reasonable comprehensive doctrines – overlapping consensus The fifth model is taken from the late writings of political philosopher John Rawls. There has been a significant development in his understanding of the relationship between religion and politics. This is clear from an article entitled ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’,23 in which he reworked the position as presented earlier in Political Liberalism.24 In contrast to the earlier prevalent disjunction of public and private, he begins to consider different levels of the public. He distinguishes three aspects. 1. The background culture of civil society 2. The public, political culture, viewed widely 3. Public reason: public political culture, viewed narrowly What is new in his thought is the consideration given to the second aspect, best understood in contrast to the others.

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The background culture (1) is said to be the culture of civil society. This has available to it many forms of conversation and argument and various media through which communication and information flows take place. The idea of public reason in the narrow sense (3) applies in the public political forum. Rawls restricts the idea in terms of context, content and persons.25 The context of public reason is the discussion of the law that is to be enacted and applied for a democratic people with the coercive backing of the state. The content of public reason is provided by the family of reasonable political conceptions of justice on which people draw in making their proposals and criticisms in the discussions about coercive law. The persons involved are judges, public officials and candidates for public office in their public capacities. Citizens also are included in the requirements of public reason insofar as they subject their own proposals to the criterion of reciprocity. This criterion requires of them to make only proposals that they can expect would be found reasonable by their fellow citizens, considered as free and equal. It is evident from this brief presentation that the narrow view of public reason is very narrow indeed. The typical image for it is the judges of the US Supreme Court giving a judgement in relation to constitutional rights. The persons, content and context of the judgement are very specific and limited. But, the possibility of sustaining such a view and practice of public reason depends on there being a public political culture in the wide sense. In dealing with the question of religion and politics in Political Liberalism, Rawls imagines several reasonable comprehensive doctrines, including religious ones, coexisting in a liberal, pluralist polity, each with its view of the good life and its notions of justice and truth. The polity is only possible, however, because the adherents of a comprehensive doctrine exercise restraint, not insisting on their view of the true and the good, but willing to accept the content of the overlapping consensus between the reasonable doctrines as a basis for regulating the common life. ‘It is central to political liberalism that free and equal citizens affirm both a comprehensive doctrine and a political conception’.26 Judgements grounded in a comprehensive doctrine may be true or false; judgements that are part of the overlapping consensus are said to be reasonable. Citizens who endorse a reasonable judgement in the overlapping consensus will hold it to be true or right on the basis of their comprehensive doctrine. It is important to note that the overlapping consensus is not assumed to be secular. It is neither religious nor secular, but is capable of being accepted by proponents of both religious and secular comprehensive doctrines.27 Rawls insists therefore that secularism is not the neutral ground for the meeting of different faiths, but is itself a possible comprehensive doctrine that might sustain the overlapping consensus. This may be a useful reflection for the concern expressed by Rowan Williams in his lecture reproduced in this volume. He addresses the problem experienced by people of faith, that they can find themselves excluded from participation in the public space because the kinds of issues they wish to address are simply ruled out of order. He objects to a programmatic secularism that claims to itself the entitlement to admit and exclude from public reason. The Archbishop would find an ally in John Rawls on this point.

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Rawls admits many possible political conceptions of justice and so many forms of public reason. His own proposal, justice as fairness, is one candidate among others. Rawls now includes within the family of possible political conceptions ‘Catholic views of the common good and solidarity when they are expressed in terms of political values’.28 He also includes Habermas’s discourse conception of legitimacy. Acceptable political conceptions of justice propose principles that apply to the basic structure of society, which can be presented independent of any comprehensive doctrine, and which are grounded in such fundamental ideas as the freedom and equality of citizens and the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation. Far from excluding religious considerations, Rawls allows them to be part of political debate, with the proviso that if any policy or legal measure is being advocated appropriate public reasons must be provided at some later date.29 Religious reasons are not being excluded; but only those religious reasons may be advanced in support of political proposals that are capable of being translated into public reasons in the strict sense. This tolerance for religious and secular reasons in public discourse characterizes what Rawls terms the wide view of public political culture. The proviso, the injunction to present proper political reasons in due course, protects public reason and marks off public political culture from the background culture of civil society. But Rawls also emphasizes that there are positive reasons for introducing comprehensive doctrines into public political discussion. That citizens would have knowledge and understanding of each other’s comprehensive doctrines strengthens the viability of an overlapping consensus since proposals made in public reason for legislative measures will respect the reasons that others will have for supporting or rejecting the proposals. The background culture as Rawls has characterized it can be very tolerant, in allowing diverse groups to coexist, but such groups do not necessarily interact. People may associate only or at least primarily with those who share their religion, their values, their convictions or their interests. The many organizations and institutions of civil society can be discrete and independent, so that on their own they do not support a properly political discourse, even if they do contribute many aspects of socialization. The interaction which takes place in public reason can only lead to the formation of overlapping consensus if there is some other arena in which citizens and groups can interact in a process of dialogue and deliberation. Rawls’s idea of the wide view of public political culture seems to be an acknowledgement of the need for a bridge between public reason in the narrow sense, and the range of comprehensive doctrines in the background culture of civil society. The need is for a forum of some kind that mediates between and overlaps both the private domains of civil society and the very specialized arena of public reason. In practice, in our experience in pluralist societies with liberal polities, this forum is provided in a fluid way by the media, educational institutions and cultural and religious groups including churches, which contribute to fostering the relevant encounter. Rawls’s discussion of public reason suggests that religious arguments do not have to remain confined to the non-public realms of civil society. Believers, speaking

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from their faith convictions, do not have to be on the defensive within liberal political communities. However, the condition under which their contribution is welcome is that citizens of faith continue to abide by reasonable norms of argument and reasonable standards of participation in public discourse. Is this a satisfactory model for the self-understanding of a religiously committed citizen? The advantages are notable, in that the distinctiveness of politics is preserved, the narrow sense of public reason is protected and the use of coercive force is limited and controlled. At the same time, the background culture of civil society as so conceived provides the private sphere in which the diversity of religious cultures can be tolerated. However, religion is not confined to the private domain, but its contribution to political discourse is welcomed both within the political culture broadly conceived, and also within public reason in the narrow sense. This model can accommodate the kinds of questions that religiously committed citizens might wish to raise in dialogue with fellow citizens. Such questions can be asked and pursued rigorously in the wide public political culture, without thereby intending to impose on fellow citizens answers, or more specifically, constitutional arrangements and coercive laws derived exclusively from those answers.

VI. Conclusion I have surveyed five different ways of conceptualizing the relationship between religion and politics. My concern has been to focus on models that respect the distinctiveness of both dimensions, and avoid collapsing one into the other. Which of these models best succeeds in acknowledging the autonomy of both religion and politics and their independence of one another? Which facilitates the selfunderstanding of the religiously committed citizen? Two of the models are rooted in theological world-views, namely, those associated with Augustine and Aquinas. Common to both is a recognition of the need to limit the claims of religion so as to allow the proper sphere for the political. Aquinas does it with more of a positive regard for the secular domain. Both of them challenge theological accounts that would claim to have the overriding say on the purpose of human law and rule, Augustine facing down the pagan cosmological views, as well as the Christian interpreters of the fall of Rome, Aquinas denying the pious and centralizing claims of King Louis and the Emperor Frederick. The Churchmen appear in defence of the secular, over against other theological voices. There are significant advantages of both the private–public distinction and the concept of civil society as locus for Church involvement in public life. Both secure recognized space for religion, but both tend to exclude religion from the public political arena, and that is a disadvantage. The private–public model effectively silences any distinctively religious voice in the sphere of politics. The civil society model risks confining the religious contribution to a restricted area of public life, one that is possibly in tension with religion’s own aspirations. Rawls’s late model, which includes the idea of public reason in the narrow sense, preserves something of value from the private–public distinction. It also incorporates a concept of civil society with its background culture, so that it can carry

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forward whatever is of use in the civil society model. Rawls’ model goes beyond the other two in providing a place for the religious contribution to public life. The notion of the broad sense of public political culture releases religion from any confinement to the private, or to civil society as the background culture. It is thereby recognized as capable of making a contribution to public political life beyond a merely narrow or sectional interest, but potentially of relevance to the whole political sphere. Rawls’ later thought is very accommodating and respectful of religion, while limiting religion at the same time. His views facilitate a contribution to public discourse on the basis of religious commitments, while setting standards to which religious contributors must adhere. Those standards, however, are not such as to deprive religion of its voice in public life. What Rawls contributes, from a political philosophical standpoint, complements what Aquinas contributes from a theological standpoint. Aquinas, writing from a theological perspective, respects the autonomy of the political. At the same time, he provides reasons for restricting religious authorities or political leaders who claim to speak with religious authority. Rawls, writing from a political philosophical perspective, respects the autonomy of religion. He provides a view of public reason in the narrow sense, whereby it is confined within definite parameters as to persons, content and context. There is a further complementarity between these two models. Rawls himself has acknowledged the usefulness of the language of the common good. The common good–public good distinction that Finnis finds in Aquinas parallels and is complementary to the distinction of reasonable comprehensive doctrines–overlapping consensus in Rawls. Finally, the limitations of this survey of models should not be overlooked. The task was to find a way in which a person who is both a committed religious believer and a responsible citizen could understand his or her involvement in both dimensions of his or her life without downplaying or instrumentalizing any one dimension. Clearly, the assumptions of this question carry significant limitations. First of all, it is assumed that a positive regard to both dimensions is available to such a person. And second, it is assumed that an intellectual account of involvement in both domains is of value to such a person. The concluding suggestion of the useful complementarity of the models drawn from Aquinas and Rawls, for instance, is of little value to anyone who does not share the assumptions of the original questions. Those models in turn place a high value on reasonableness as the currency of public engagement. Where adherents of religions reject reason, or where public authorities, whether texts, institutions or persons, succeed in insulating themselves from critical questioning, Aquinas or Rawls will not be taken seriously. Archbishop Rowan Williams, at the end of his lecture, adverts to the challenge of political Islam, and it is an urgent issue for the new visibility of religion in public life whether the two assumptions above can be sustained from Islamic traditions. Can the various Islamic traditions sustain a positive evaluation of the sphere of politics in its own right? And can Muslims value the generation of an intellectual account of how the two spheres of religion and politics can be related to each other, which might be intelligible to those who do not share their religious commitments? The articulation of the models above and the discussion of their relative

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advantages and disadvantages can at least demonstrate that it has been possible for Christians to take seriously both their faith and their political allegiance without reducing one to the other. This might prove helpful in further dialogue.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

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Swaine, L. A., ‘How Ought Liberal Democracies to Treat Theocratic Communities’, Ethics Vol. 111 (2001), 302–43. Audi, R., Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp. 163–4. Albright, M., The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (London: HarperCollins, 2006). Benhabib, S., Situating the Self. Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Cambridge: Polity, 1992) pp. 154–5. Honohan, I., ‘Dealing with Difference: The Republican Public-Private Distinction’ in Baghramian, M. and A. Ingram (eds), Pluralism: The Philosophy and Politics of Diversity (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 156–76. TeSelle, E., ‘The Civic Vision in Augustine’s City of God’, Thought Vol. 62, (1987), 268–80. Markus, R. A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Voegelin, E., The New Science of Politics (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1952). Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (Harmondsworth: Pelican Classics, 1972). Markus, R. A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 58. Markus, R. A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine p. 100. Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans Bk XV, chapter 4, p. 600. Elshtain, J. B., Augustine and the Limits of Politics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995); Walker, G., Moral Foundations of Constitutional Thought. Current Problems, Augustinian Prospects (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). MacIntyre, A., ‘Natural Law as Subversive: The Case of Aquinas’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Vol. 26, No.1 (1996), 73. Finnis, J., ‘Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas’ in George, R. P. (ed.), Natural Law and Moral Inquiry: Ethics Metaphysics and Politics in the Work of Germain Grisez (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998), pp. 174–209. Aquinas, S. th. 1a2ae q98 a1c, quoted by Finnis, J., ‘Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas’ in George, R. P. (ed.), Natural Law and Moral Inquiry: Ethics Metaphysics and Politics in the Work of Germain Grisez (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998), p. 177.

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Patrick Riordan MacIntyre, A., ‘Natural Law as Subversive: The Case of Aquinas’, p. 71. MacIntyre, A., ‘Natural law as Subversive: The Case of Aquinas’, p. 73. Tonkiss, F., Passey A., Fenton, N., Hems, L., (eds), Trust and Civil Society (London: Macmillan/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Keane, J., Global Civil Society? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Casanova, J., Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) p. 71. Herbert, D., Religion and Civil Society. Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003) pp. 69–71. Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, in Rawls, J. The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 133. Rawls, J., Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, p. 133. Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, p. 172. Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, p. 143. Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, pp. 141–2. Rawls, J., ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, pp. 143–4.

3 Secularism, Faith and Freedom1 Rowan Williams

Most people who would call themselves secularists would probably defend their position with reference to certain ideals of freedom and equality in society. They are opposing, they say, any kind of theocracy, any privilege given to an authority that is not accountable to ordinary processes of reasoning and evidence. A secular society is one in which it is possible to have fair and open argument about how common life should be run because everyone argues on the same basis; the ideal of secularity means that there is such a thing as ‘public reason’. Argument that arises from specific commitments of a religious or ideological nature has to be ruled out of court. If arguments of that kind are admitted, there is a threat to freedom because assertions are being made that are supposed to be beyond challenge and critique. Behind all this lies the strong Enlightenment conviction that authority which depends on revelation must always be contested and denied any leverage in the public sphere. It is a powerful set of presuppositions, whose effects may be read in the work of politicians and columnists and public intellectuals across Europe and North America. It is often allied with some version of the distinction proposed by Isaiah Berlin between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ liberty – negative liberty being what you have in a society where government allows a maximal level of individual choice and does not seek to prescribe moral priorities, and positive liberty being the situation arising in a society where government sees itself as having a mission to promote one or another ideal of emancipation – as having a specific agenda. The true liberal, as opposed to the ‘romantic’, must be committed to negative liberty. The pursuit of positive liberty leads to ideological tyranny, to the closing-down of argument and the ironing-out of plurality. This is a distinction that has entrenched itself pretty firmly in some kinds of political discourse, and the suspicion of positive – ‘romantic’ – liberty is a good deal stronger than when Berlin delivered his celebrated lecture on the subject in 1958. It fits well with the assumption that a ‘secular’ perspective is the default position for a liberal and intelligent society. The sort of liberal analysis I have been sketching insists that government has no alternative but to take people’s accounts of what they want at face value and work to enable them to be realized without interference, simply guaranteeing that individuals and groups do not harm each

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other in the process. As Michael Ignatieff writes in his biography of Isaiah Berlin (London 1998, p. 226), ‘a liberal does not believe in a hierarchy of inner selves (higher, lower, true, false) or believe that there can ever be a political solution to the experience of inner human division’. In a climate where the ‘end of history’ is proclaimed with the same enthusiasm with which the ‘end of ideology’ was once greeted, there is bound to be a certain wariness about the suggestion that basic critical questions still need to be asked concerning human capacity or destiny as such, or that there is some serious difference between what people claim to want and what is in their true interest. I shall be arguing that ‘secular’ freedom is not enough; that this account of the liberal society dangerously simplifies the notion of freedom and ends up diminishing our understanding of the human person. The tempting idea that there is always an adequate definition of what everyone will recognize as public and reasonable argument needs to be looked at hard – not in order to re-establish the dominance of some unchallengeable ruling discourse, religious or ideological, but to focus the question of how a society deals with the actual variety and potential collision of understandings of what is properly human. A debate about – for example – the status of the embryo in relation to genetic research, or the legalization of assisted dying, or the legal support given to marriage will inevitably bring into play arguments that are not restricted to pragmatic assessments of individual or group benefit. While there can be no assumption that a government will or should assume that such arguments must be followed, there must equally be no assumption that these arguments may not be heard and weighed, that an issue has to be decided solely on arguments that can be owned by no particular group. This suggests that political freedom is more complex than the licence to pursue a set of individual or group projects with minimal interference. It also needs to be the freedom to ask some fundamental questions about the climate and direction of a society as shown in its policy decisions, to raise in the public sphere concerns about those issues that are irreducibly to do with collaboration, the goods that are necessarily common. For example, what makes a good educational system for a nation is not a matter best left to any person’s or group’s private agenda. Likewise, our environmental crisis is perhaps the most dramatic instance of a challenge we cannot manage on the basis of individualism or even with the exiting mechanisms of merely national policy-making. The state cannot just produce answers to such questions on the grounds of defending Berlin’s ‘negative liberty’. Nor can this answer the question of how the personal liberties of those who cannot exercise what we normally think of as reasoned consumer choice of the sort that we take for granted – the unborn, the disabled prisoners – can be securely grounded in a philosophy oriented towards negative liberty. A debate that addressed all these concerns at the needed depth would have to draw in larger considerations. A political freedom that was extended to non-choosers or non-consumers, and that included the freedom to push foundational questions about our relation to the rising generation or to the material environment, could not, I believe, be adequately rooted in a view that defined the legitimacy of a state primarily in terms of its ability to defend maximal individual choice.

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There is, of course, pace Michael Ignatieff, a genuine question about how what people say they want, or who people say they are, is manipulated and largely determined by different kinds of economic and political power. With all the necessary cautions, one would want to enter against espousing a simplistic view of political emancipation – Berlin clearly has in mind the crassness of Marxist– Leninism as practised in the old Soviet Union – there are surely issues around the questioning and criticism of certain modes of social and economic control without which ‘liberal’ society becomes as static and corrupt as old-style state socialism. Political freedom must involve the possibility of questioning the way things are administered – not simply in the name of self-interest (as if the sole ground for a legitimate government were its ability to meet consumer wants) but in the name of some broader vision of what political humanity looks like, a vision of optimal exchange and mutual calling to account and challenging between persons, through which each one developed more fully their ability to act meaningfully or constructively. This is a good deal more than the liberty to pursue a private agenda, limited only by the rather vague prohibition on harm to others (always difficult to pin down). And, to take another theme that some have argued to be basic for the understanding of liberalism, it is more than the liberty of a detached individual to ‘redescribe’ the world in art, imagination and philosophy. Liberty is more than consumer choice; and it is also more than irony. The British Marxist philosopher, Roy Bhaskar, in a detailed critique of the liberal constructivism of Richard Rorty, notes that once we have identified the sources of injustice or cruelty or social stagnation, once we have formulated a language in which to think about them, we are bound to be involved, like it or not, in an incipient process of public change – ‘action rationally directed to transforming, dissolving or disconnecting the structures and relations that explain the experience of injustice’ (Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, Oxford 1991, p. 72). Shifts in language and explanation that arise in the wake of critical understanding are bound to make different kinds of action and therefore different kinds of decisions possible. Not to act in the public sphere in consequence of such new possibilities is to make an active choice for stagnation. If ironic redescription is no more than words it is not really ironic at all; it remains dependent on the systems and power-relations it claims to challenge. But, of course, to speak of a ‘vision’ of proper exchange and mutuality is to raise the question that obviously worried Berlin. How do we avoid a prescriptive approach, an imposition of one version of what human integrity or flourishing means? This anxiety is one of the driving forces of what I shall call programmatic secularism. This assumes – to pick up again the points made briefly at the beginning of this lecture – that any religious or ideological system demanding a hearing in the public sphere is aiming to seize control of the political realm and to override and nullify opposing convictions. It finds specific views of the human good outside a minimal account of material security and relative social stability unsettling, and concludes that they need to be relegated to the purely private sphere. It assumes that the public expression of specific conviction is automatically offensive to people of other (or no) conviction. Thus, public support or subsidy directed

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towards any particular group is a collusion with elements that subvert the harmony of society overall. These are the anxieties that have been very vocally shared in the United Kingdom over recent weeks and months, and they will be familiar from elsewhere in Europe. At a time of widespread concern about social disruption and worse, it is perhaps inevitable that there should be some anxiety about visible signs of difference. Yet, the implication of this secularist rhetoric is complex and deeply problematic. By defining ideological and religious difference as if they were simply issues about individual preference, almost of private ‘style’, this discourse effectively denies the seriousness of difference itself. Every specific conviction, it seems, must be considered as if it were individually chosen for reasons that are bound to be out of the reach of any sort of public argument. This account suggests that public reasoning is purely instrumental; it is what goes on in the public sphere simply to test more and less administratively successful methods of continuing the provision of undisturbed public order. In other words, there is nothing fundamental to argue about in public. The problem is not only – as Pope Benedict has suggested – that we have lost confidence in reason and its universality; it is also that reason’s territory has shrunk. Because there is no tribunal to adjudicate arguments between basic commitments about God, humanity and the universe, it is assumed that there is therefore no exchange possible between them, no work of understanding and discernment, no mapping of where common commitments start and stop. On this account, there is public reason and there is private prejudice – and thus no way of negotiating or reasonably exploring real difference. If programmatic secularism leads us to this point, it threatens to end up in political bankruptcy. This is why I want to press the distinction between ‘programmatic secularism’ and what some have called ‘procedural secularism’. It is the distinction between the empty public square of a merely instrumental liberalism, which allows maximal private licence, and a crowded and argumentative public square that acknowledges the authority of a legal mediator or broker whose job it is to balance and manage real difference. The empty public square of programmatic secularism implies in effect that the almost value-free atmosphere of public neutrality and the public invisibility of specific commitments is enough to provide sustainable moral energy for a properly self-critical society. But it is not at all self-evident that people can so readily detach their perspectives and policies in social or political discussion from fundamental convictions that are not allowed to be mentioned or manifested in public. The alternative is a situation in which – for example – religious convictions are granted a public hearing in debate; not necessarily one in which they are privileged or regarded as beyond criticism, but one in which they are attended to as representing the considered moral foundation of the choices and priorities of citizens. This is potentially a noisier and untidier situation than one where everyone agrees what will and will not ‘count’ as an intervention in public debate; but at least it does not seek to conceal or deny difference. And what makes this more than a freefor-all where the loudest voice wins the right to impose views is the shared recognition of law, that system of determining the limits of any individual’s or

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group’s freedom which represents the agreement in principle of all groups in a society to renounce violent struggle or assertion because of a basic trust that all voices are being heard in the process of ‘brokering’ harmony. The degree to which law will reflect specific views and convictions grounded in religious or ideological belief will vary from one society to another, depending on all sorts of factors – most crucially on whether a group is thought to have persuaded a credible proportion of the population at large that such and such a policy is just or desirable. This needs saying so as to avoid any assumption that there are positions that are automatically incapable of being enshrined in law. Thus, it is possible in principle to win public arguments about the need to restrict the availability of abortion; and it is possible in principle to win arguments about legalizing euthanasia. The fact that the former may reflect the wishes of religious groups and the latter offend and contradict them is a matter of contingency. It is precisely because such decisions always remain open to argument that they can be lived with; in a society where there were rigidly fixed standards of what could rationally or properly be legislated, there would be the danger of such legal decisions becoming effectively irreformable. It would be harder to reopen questions on the basis of shifting moral perceptions. This is indeed a somewhat high-risk position – but if the alternative is a view that absolutizes one and only one sort of public rationality, the risks are higher. So, it is possible to imagine a ‘procedurally’ secular society and legal system that is always open to being persuaded by confessional or ideological argument on particular issues, but is not committed to privileging permanently any one confessional group. The recent UK debate about legalizing assisted dying brought into focus many of these matters in a quite sharp way. Considerations based on religious conviction were certainly in evidence in the debate; but what determined the outcome was neither a purely instrumental and ‘secular’ set of considerations, nor the unequivocal victory of religious conviction but the convergence of diverse concerns, both pragmatic and principled. It is an interesting model of how, in a working liberal democracy of a ‘procedurally’ secular kind, there can be interaction and public engagement between varieties of both religious and non-religious argument. Essentially, what I am suggesting is that this alone guarantees the kind of political freedom I am concerned to define and to secure. But what I further want to establish is that – paradoxical as it may seem – such secularism is in fact the outgrowth of a specific religious position. The Christian Church began as a reconstructed version of the notion of God’s people – a community called by God to make God known to the world in and through the forms of law-governed common life – the ‘law’ being, in the Christian case, the model of action and suffering revealed in Jesus Christ. It claimed to make real a pattern of common life lived in the fullest possible accord with the nature and will of God – a life in which each member’s flourishing depended closely and strictly on the flourishing of every other and in which every specific gift or advantage had to be understood as a gift offered to the common life. This is how the imagery of the Body of Christ works in St Paul’s letters. There is no Christian identity in the New Testament that is not

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grounded in this pattern; this is what the believer is initiated into by baptism. And this is a common life that exists quite independently of any conventional political security. Because it depends on the call and empowering of Christ’s Spirit, it cannot be destroyed by change in external circumstances, by the political arrangements prevailing in this or that particular society. So, Christian identity is irreducibly political in the sense that it defines a politeia, a kind of citizenship (Philippians 3.20); yet, its existence and integrity are not bound to a successful realization of this citizenship within history. There does not have to be a final and sacred political order created in order for the integrity of the Church to survive. This is the fundamental theme of Augustine’s City of God and of much of the mediaeval tradition; its roots are in the complex convergence of Jesus’ preaching of a ‘Kingdom’ to which only trust in his message gives access and membership, and Paul’s understanding of the reconstituting of the community of Jesus in and by the cross and resurrection and the foundational gift of the Spirit of Jesus. It was the belief that led the first Christians to deny the authority of the Roman Empire to command their religious allegiance. In response to challenge and persecution, they sought to clarify the strictly limited loyalty that they believed they owed to government. The tension this created arose through the natural assumption that the rival citizenship defined by the Church was simply in competition with the citizenship that Roman law defined. What was virtually impossible for the Imperial administration to comprehend was the idea that there were graded levels of loyalty: that the level of acceptance of legitimate authority which made you pay taxes or drive your chariot on the right side of the road was something different from the loyalty that dictated your most fundamental moral options on the basis of convictions about the relationships between the world and humans – in particular, to their creator. For practical purposes, most of the time, ordinary legality would be uncontroversial; the disturbing thing was that Christians believed that there were circumstances in which loyalty to God trumped the demands of the civitas. The state’s power was not the ultimate and sacred sanction. What complicated this understanding to some extent in the Middle Ages was the steady growth of practices that made the Church’s administration look more and more like a rival kind of state, a system not only safeguarding loyalties beyond those owed to a legitimate government but apparently erecting a straightforwardly parallel scheme of social relations. The radical turn of the Lutheran and English Reformations towards an often uncritical religious sanctioning of state power as exercised by ‘godly princes’ was in part a reaction against this – bringing its own equally problematic legacy. In all of this theological and political history, however, the most significant point was always the recognition that what the state could properly demand of the citizen was limited by relationships and obligations beyond the state’s reach; even in the period when Anglicans were most absolute for the rights of the monarch, there was a clear recognition (expressed notably even by Archbishop Laud preaching to the Court of Charles I) that this could not mean that the state was preserved from falling into error or tyranny, or that the state had an unqualified right over consciences. When the state was in error or malfunction, there remained ‘passive obedience’ – that is, non-violent non-compliance, accepting the legal consequences.

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One of the clearest and most interesting statements of the nature of these limitations to the state’s legitimate demands comes from an unexpected quarter, in the era of the French Revolution and in the wake of the Enlightenment. In 1793, Carl Theodor von Dalberg, Coadjutor Bishop of Mainz and soon to become Archbishop-Elector of that see, published a treatise, On the True Limits of the State’s Action in Relation to its Members. The state exists because of the need of citizens to labour together for their common welfare, and there is therefore no necessary conflict between individual and state. But, since the religious commitments of humankind demonstrate that humanity is not characterized simply by ‘interest’ (i.e. by seeking maximal security and prosperity), the state cannot act so as to undermine or deny those aspects of human action and collaboration that express identities and solidarities wider than those of the mutually beneficial arrangements of any specific state. To quote from Nicholas Boyle’s lucid summary in his biography of Dalberg’s friend Goethe, the limitations of the state ‘lie, not in the duty to respect some supposed non-political aspect of the lives of its citizens, but in duties owed to those who are not its members at all: the state may not command or permit to its citizens any action contrary to their obligations as citizens of the world – there are, that is, rights which all enjoy in virtue of their humanity, and it is a distinguishing feature of Christian states, Dalberg believes, to have recognized such rights. Similarly, the state may not command or permit any pointless tormenting or wasteful destruction of the non-human creation, animal, vegetable or mineral’ (Goethe. The Poet and the Age, vol. II, Oxford 2000, p. 33). This is a remarkable perspective whose contemporary pertinence will not need spelling out. As Boyle stresses, it is important to note that Dalberg is not claiming that there is a non-political sphere of human life that has to be left alone by the state – a tolerated ‘Indian reservation’ of private conviction. He is arguing for the interpenetration of two sorts of political action, we might say – on the one hand, the routine business of a law-governed society, and on the other, the relations and obligations that exists in virtue of something other than pragmatic or selfinterested human decisions, the solidarities that do not depend on human organization. For Dalberg, these are essentially the solidarities of shared relationship to a creator. The state cannot administer what these demand in a simple way – it has a limited and more modest purpose; but neither can it ignore them. We are, in fact, here given a sketch of what I attempted earlier to suggest in terms of the presence of certain sorts of argument and negotiation in the public sphere of a state’s legal process, as groups of strong conviction attempt to persuade the state that such and such a proposition would or would not infringe those larger solidarities. Current debates about euthanasia, about ecology or about the freedoms of religious minorities, all in different ways carry elements of this kind of questioning. Dalberg’s great-nephew was none other than Lord Acton – though I do not know whether the great historian ever made direct use of his kinsman’s work. Quite early in his political and intellectual career, Acton (writing in 1862 to Richard Simpson) asserted that ‘liberty has grown out of the distinction (separation is a bad word) of Church and State’ (David Mathew, Acton. The Formative Years, London 1946, p. 170). The mode of expression in this letter might lead us to suppose that he is thinking simply of a liberty of conscience that is basically non-political; but in fact,

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as his mature writing makes clear, this would be to misread him. He is not advocating a situation where the state conceded certain private rights, but a state that recognizes that it is not in fact the grantor of such rights in the first place; a state that recognizes that it has come into being to serve the diverse human groupings that now constitute it, that it derives its legitimacy from their co-operation and consent as embodied in constitutional form. As such, the state cannot claim to be the source of legitimate behaviour or legitimate modes of association: it has the right from time to time to judge how far particular behaviours and associations adversely affect the coexistence of the communities in its jurisdiction, but not to prescribe in advance that behaviour unlicensed by the state should be publicly invisible or illegitimate. And because the state is always a coalition of groups agreed on a legal structure, it is risky to identify nations and states, let alone races and states. Acton was a good deal ahead of his time in refusing to take nationalism for granted as a natural companion to liberalism (see Roland Hill, Lord Acton, New Haven and London 2000, pp. 414–6). His defence of federalism as a political principle merits some re-examination at a time when what once seemed the inflexible modern notions of national sovereignty are being tested severely by the globalization of markets and cultures; but that is perhaps another story. What emerges from this reading of the Christian contribution to the history of political thought, a reading shaped by both Roman Catholic and Anglican thinkers (Acton’s disciple John Neville Figgis being prominent among the latter), is that there is a serious case for saying that some aspects of liberal politics would be unthinkable without Christian theology, and that these are the aspects that offer the clearest foundation for a full defence of active political liberty. Faith is the root of freedom, and programmatic secularism cannot deliver anything comparable. The Christian presence in the Roman Empire declared that there were solidarities independent of the Empire and therefore capable of surviving political change. Augustine’s version of this opened the door to a further refinement, implying that the survival of these ‘solidarities’ could be a contribution to the reconstruction of political order on the far side of any particular disaster or collapse. And, lest that should appear an academic point, it is worth observing that the role of the Church in post-conflict societies in Africa today, dealing with education, the protection of women and children, and the maintenance of some forms of trustworthy associational life, illustrates with dramatic and poignant clarity exactly what this means. A ‘liberal’ politics that depended on the maintenance of one unchallengeable form of administration at all costs, as if no credible political life could survive its disappearance, would risk succumbing to illiberal methods to secure its survival. Whenever we hear – as we sometimes do – of the need to limit some historic legal freedom for the sake of countering general threats to our liberty, from crime or terror, we should recognize the reality of the moral dilemmas here; but also be alert to what happens to our concepts of liberty in this process. The salient point is that a supposedly liberal society that assumes absolutely that it has (as I put it earlier) the resources for producing and sustaining moral motivation independently of the actual moral or spiritual commitments of its citizens, is

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in danger behaving and speaking as if the only kind of human solidarity that really matters is that of the state. Programmatic secularism, as a shorthand for the denial of the public legitimacy of religious commitment as a partner in political conversation, will always carry the seeds, not of totalitarianism in the obvious sense, but of that ‘totalizing’ spirit which stifles critique by silencing the other. Charles Taylor, writing about de Tocqueville (Philosophical Arguments, Cambridge, Mass. and London 1995, p. 221), summarizes Tocqueville’s concern about a secularized democratic will degenerating ‘into a kind of mild despotism (despotisme doux) in which citizens fall prey to a tutelary power that dwarfs them; and this is both cause and effect of a turn away from the public to the private which, although tempting, represents a diminution of their human stature’. Procedural secularism is the acceptance by state authority of a prior and irreducible other or others; it remains secular, because as soon as it systematically privileged one group, it would ally its legitimacy with the sacred and so destroy its otherness; but it can move into and out of alliance with the perspectives of faith, depending on the varying and unpredictable outcomes of honest social argument, and can collaborate without anxiety with communities of faith in the provision, for example, of education or social regeneration. Further, the critical presence of communities of religious commitment means that it is always possible to challenge accounts of political reasoning that take no account of solidarities beyond those of the state. Dalberg’s awareness of citizenship in a transnational community, and membership within an interdependent created order, offer vivid illustrations of the moral perspectives that state loyalties alone will not secure. And, to move into a slightly different idiom, this poses the very significant question of how ‘civil society’ is to be understood; the idea that this might have a properly international dimension is in fact more and more compelling in our own day. There is, of course, one set of issues on the border of what we have so far been discussing that demands to be addressed more directly. At the moment, advocates of programmatic secularism are troubled, if not panicked, by the increasing visibility of Islam in historically Christian and/or liberal societies. But, even procedural secularists are often disturbed. Islam, so the argument runs, knows nothing of the ‘secularizing’ element in the history of Christian theology; its political theory asserts the primacy of the umma, the transnational community of believers, over every possible political arrangement; but, where Christianity has on the whole settled for ironic distance and the distinction of levels of corporate loyalty, Islam has been understood to assume that it is indeed possible to realize the full political embodiment of revealed law. In other words, it does compete for the same space as the state. In fact, the distinction in modern democracies between the way Muslims belong and the way others belong is by no means as stark as some ideologues might expect. Some Muslim scholars resident in the West, writers like Maleiha Malik or Tariq Ramadan, have discussed ways in which Muslim citizens can engage in good conscience with non-Muslim government and law. Some have observed that Islam recognizes law that is compatible with Muslim principles as ipso facto Islamic law

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so that the Muslim can acknowledge, enjoy and defend full citizenship in a nonMuslim society. Furthermore, there is already in Islam a tradition of plurality in the interpretation of Islamic law that should make us cautious about assuming that there is one and only one kind of jurisprudence represented by the word sharia. And, there are also in Islamic history abundant examples of conflict between rulers and religious scholars, government and ulema, to the degree that some have spoken of a limited analogy with the Christian tension between Church and state. These are complex historical issues, but there is enough to suggest that we need a nuanced approach to the supposedly monolithic character of Muslim political thought. That being said, there is one area of abiding difficulty. The Muslim may with a good conscience enjoy citizenship in a non-Muslim society; what exactly does citizenship mean for a non-Muslim in a Muslim society? It is important not just to cast this question as one of simple ‘reciprocity’, as if both parties shared exactly the same presuppositions and all that was in question was whether these principles were being fairly applied. But, to what extent does the Muslim state, acknowledging in more or less explicit ways the sovereignty of Islamic law, employ a notion of citizenship that also allows for legitimate loyalties outside the community of Muslim believers? Historically, there have been impressive examples of something very like this recognition; but there have also been historic examples of severe civic burdens imposed on non-Muslims. Most disturbingly, there is the tension between the great Qur’anic insistence that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ and the penalties associated with conversion and the pressures around mixed marriages in the practice of many Muslim states. So, one of the questions that Christians will want to pursue in their continuing dialogue with Islam is whether the idea of a ‘secular’ level of citizenship – with all that this implies about liberties of conscience – is indeed compatible with a basically Islamic commitment in the shape of society at large; whether the Muslim state will distinguish between what is religiously forbidden and what is legally punishable as a violation of the state’s order – so that adultery or apostasy, to take the obvious examples, do not have to be regarded as statutory crimes (let alone capital ones). Muslim jurists in several Muslim societies are raising these questions already, with much sophistication and sensitivity, and the dialogue between our communities needs to attend carefully to this debate. I have devoted some attention to this difficult question partly because of its unquestioned pertinence in many parts of the world, partly because of the somewhat inadequate way in which we sometimes discuss it. Reciprocity is a perfectly sensible notion from our standpoint; but we also need to understand why for some Muslims there seems to be no automatic symmetry between Christian and Muslim tolerance. Unless we are able to argue in ways that engage with the distinctive features of Islamic polity and politics, we are not going to connect or make any difference. We cannot collude with an interpretation of Islamic political identity whose effects for Christians have sometimes been lethally oppressive; neither can we simply expect that an argument assuming Christian and liberal principles will convince. There is ample work to do in this area.

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However, in conclusion, I want to return to the main lines I have been sketching here, and to make one or two final observations on the sort of ‘enlightenment’ accounts of freedom, faith and the secular with which I began. The case I have argued (by no means a wholly original one) is that a certain kind of ‘secularism’ has direct Christian and theological roots. By this, I do not mean that curious infatuation with the idea of a world devoid of the sacred, which preoccupied some theologians of the 1960s, but something almost opposite to this – a culture in which presence and solidarities exist that exceed and escape the conventional boundaries of ‘public life’ but which thus imbue that public life with depth and moral gravity that cannot be generated simply by the negotiation of practical goods and balanced self-interests. To put it more dramatically, I am arguing that the sphere of public and political negotiation flourishes only in the context of larger commitments and visions, and that if this is forgotten or repressed by a supposedly neutral ideology of the public sphere, immense damage is done to the moral energy of a liberal society. For that ideal of liberal society, if it is to be any more than a charter for the carefully brokered competition of individuals, requires not a narrowing but a broadening of the moral sources from which the motivation for social action and political self-determination can be drawn. However, there is an underlying question prompted by Ignatieff ’s remark on ‘inner selves’ that I quoted earlier. The liberal, Ignatieff claims, is not concerned with ‘hierarchies’ of true or false selves. The danger here is surely that of creating a political discourse in which any notion of a self-aware and self-critical person disappears. There is indeed, deplorably, a kind of appeal to ‘liberal’ ideals that effectively reduces the human self to an economic unit, a solitary accumulator of rights, comforts and securities. But, it is an odd sort of liberalism that so dismisses the significance of a freedom learned by social processes of formation and exercised consciously and intelligently for goals that are not exclusively self-interested. If the three terms of my title do indeed belong together; if a proper secularism requires faith; if it is to guarantee freedom, this is because a civilized politics must be a politics attuned to the real capacities and dignities of the person – not the individual consumer, but the self-learning over time to exercise liberty in the framework of intelligible communication and the self-scrutiny that grows from this. Such a concept of the person is, I would maintain, unavoidably religious in character; it assumes that we ‘answer’ not only to circumstance or instinct or even to each other but to a Creator who addresses us and engages us before ever we embark on social negotiation. That, after all, is why we regard the child – or the mentally challenged adult or the dying man or woman who has passed beyond ordinary human communication – as a person, whose dignities and liberties are inalienable. The struggle for a right balance of secular process and public religious debate is part of a wider struggle for a concept of the personal that is appropriately robust and able to withstand the pressures of a functionalist and reductionist climate. This is a larger matter than we can explore here; but without this dimension, the liberal ideal becomes deeply anti-humanist. And, like it or not, we need a theology to arrest this degeneration.

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Note 1

An earlier version of this lecture was delivered at the University of Manchester in November 2006 at the invitation of the Centre for Religion and Political Culture. The final version presented here was delivered at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Rome, Thursday, 23 November 2006.

4 The Bloody Skin of the Victim René Girard

Palaver: The relationship between monotheism and violence is an important question and has now caught many people’s attention. Before we talk about this phenomenon in the contemporary world, could you please summarize briefly the difference between paganism and biblical monotheism according to your mimetic theory? Girard: It’s going to be difficult in a way because the main difference has to do with the interpretation of the scapegoating, which is fundamental in both archaic religions and Christianity. If the scapegoating is interpreted from the point of view of the mob, we are in pagan or archaic religions, which are fundamentally similar and we are unquestionably in the area of polytheism. If the scapegoating is interpreted correctly as the violence of the scapegoaters against an innocent scapegoat, a violence that is unjustified, we are in the biblical and Christian area. Polytheism is very explicable because if you have one cult that originates in a scapegoat phenomenon, there is no reason to identify it as the same as another cult generated by a second scapegoat phenomenon. This is what monotheism is doing away with. In my view, there is only one monotheism, the Jewish monotheism, which reappears in Christianity and in the Muslim religion. I don’t think there is a second discovery of monotheism, and I don’t think monotheism is not a ‘discovery’. In a way, I feel that all these scapegoatings are failed adumbrations of monotheism, an inability to reach the single God, always resulting in multiple gods of violence. But, curiously, these gods of violence are both the other extreme of the God of peace, and they are related to him in a positive way too, which is very mysterious if you start thinking about it. Palaver: Is this, what you once called in your contribution to the Festschrift for Raymund Schwager, the paradoxical unity of all religions?1 Girard: Yes. There is a paradoxical unity of all religions, ultimately one should say, but it is very dangerous to say this – and I say this just between friends – the ambition of the mimetic theory is to explain all forms of religion because all forms of religion ultimately must be dependent on true monotheism made perfect by the ultimate resolution of the scapegoat riddle: the Passion of Christ.

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Palaver: Following this direction might help us explain something very important in the first stage of the development of your theory, where you introduced a rather strict distinction between paganism and biblical religion. Reading your work, I got the impression that your argument is that even those religions closest to the scapegoat mechanism, which are based upon human sacrifice, are also already longing for peace. Girard: They certainly are, and that is why they make humanity possible. Without them, humanity would destroy itself when it goes beyond a certain threshold of mimetic conflict. The main mistake about the enlightenment theory of religion, on which our sciences are dependent today, is to believe that religion is primarily an intellectual explanation of the world. This is the old view of Auguste Comte, that there are three stages of the explanation of the universe. The earliest stage is religion, which is seen as total nonsense. The second stage is philosophy, a little less nonsensical, and the third one, in the nineteenth century, is science, which is perfect knowledge. This is a totally wrong view of religion. Archaic religions have little to do with gods and a lot to do with two institutions: sacrifices and prohibitions. These are indispensable to the survival of mankind; that is the justification of their existence. Their survival value justifies, for a while, their compromises with human violence. If you look at the history of religion, you can always see that the victory is not definitive, but that all religions are victories of sorts over violence. Sacrifices are becoming less and less violent, and the type of culture they create is becoming less violent in a way which is, in some respect, comparable to what happened in the Middle Ages when the religion was Christianity itself. So, it is impossible to view them negatively, but the relationship should not be defined too hastily. I don’t think a Hegelian view would do because ultimately Hegel’s dialectic interprets the violence of history in a completely positive way that I do not accept. From a Christian point of view, sin exists, and it is present throughout history. It is, in my view, the conception of original sin. If violence therefore becomes an explanation for original sin, it is ultimately part of revelation. Palaver: I would like to stress this peaceful dimension of pagan religions because today, in contrast to David Hume, we have problems to acknowledge that without suppressing at the same time the fact that these religions relied on human sacrifice. Hume, one of the early modern critics of monotheism, clearly said that in paganism despite their cruel rites we could see a tolerating spirit.2 Could you please tell us more about the peaceful dimension of pagan religions? You once mentioned in your contribution to Violent Origins that enmity in pagan societies was somewhat less violent compared to types of absolute enmity emerging in the modern world.3 Let us take, for example, the concept of enmity in modern wars like the First or the Second World War compared to types of enmity between tribal societies. Girard: I’m not sure that we can say much about violence in terms of absolute intensity (psychological, metaphysical and so forth). But, we can say something about weapons, which are in the end nothing but instruments of human anger.

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And we can see that these instruments are getting more and more powerful throughout history. This is exactly what Clausewitz understood when he said that there is a rise in the power of weapons that is continuous as if all wars were one single war. We can see that today. But Clausewitz did not see this in an apocalyptic context. First, there was no immediate danger for the survival of the planet; he wasn’t worried about the atom bomb. Raymond Aron published a book on Clausewitz in two volumes that got me interested in Clausewitz.4 His first volume, which is entitled L’Age Europeen (The European Age), is the real Clausewitz in a historical sense. The second volume L’Age Planetaire (The Planetary Age) is about Clausewitz in the atomic age. Since Aron is optimistic, the entire book is a rather curious effort to convince himself that nuclear deterrence should work and that there is nothing to worry about. As a result, the ‘rise to the extremes’, which is always continuing and always getting worse and worse, is not going to destroy the world, because men will be rational enough to avoid atomic war. So, in a way, Aron is constantly responding to an argument that he does not dare formulate completely, because the very formulation frightens him. So, there is something fascinating about the book. My desire to write a book on Clausewitz and Aron is precisely to show that Aron’s rationalism and optimism as such is that he keeps fighting a thesis that is never fully expressed in his book, but which must be there, otherwise the book would not be significant. ‘What are you worried about?’, you feel like asking Aron. In a way, it is a very touching book. Palaver: Are you less optimistic regarding apocalyptic expectations? What is your position on this issue? Girard: My position is that apocalyptic expectations should be present and not be dismissed by saying that human reason is going to triumph. What evidence do we have to trust human reason at this point? I mean it is really amazing; it is just a desire to expel the Judaeo-Christian ultimately. But it assumed different forms. In Aron, it assumes a rather gentle form, I would say, which is less objectionable than the modern indictment of monotheism by people who do not even believe in God except for the purpose of making Him responsible for our own violence. It is a caricature of what is worst in the history of religion. Our time is more mindlessly arrogant than any previous period in history, and we scapegoat the divine only for the purpose of slandering it. Palaver: Let’s take the Psalms as a powerful example to explain the similarities and differences between pagan religions and the beginning of the biblical legacy. The Psalms are in many respects extraordinary and probably the first example of the uniqueness of the biblical revelation. What do you see as the nature of the Psalms? Girard: The Psalms are the revelation of what is going on. As we know from Raymund Schwager, we find in 100 out of 150 Psalms a narrator at the centre surrounded by his enemies.5 The narrator is a scapegoat in the making who, for the first time in history, is permitted to denounce his own fate. Therefore, it is the

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reversal of myth completely in the same way that the Gospels will be. And, the victim at the centre is complaining about being lynched. Ultimately, we do not know why the victim is lynched. But there is no need for an explanation because it is a most common human gesture to lynch the victim. I define the Psalms as the first text in which the victim speaks instead of the mob. The victim speaks about the mob, instead of the mob refusing to speak about the victim and claiming that there is a god out there, whom we found or who found us and he must be worshipped. Palaver: You once used the image of a fur turned inside out to explain what the Psalms are. Biblical literature, the early biblical texts compared to Greek texts are, as you said, bloodier, crueller and more openly violent, and that is why people think the biblical legacy is the legacy of violence. You used the metaphor of the skin of the victim to explain what happens in the Psalms.6 Girard: Yes, like an animal skin. When it has been cleaned and processed, it is so beautiful, shiny and magnificent. But if, just after killing the animal, you turn its skin inside out like a glove, suddenly you see traces of blood. And I said that the myths were like the fur and that is why everybody cherishes them, caresses them. Modern readers find the Psalms disgusting because they see the bloody skin of the victim. I recently extended this reversal to the whole Gospel and tried to formulate it as spectacularly as possible. Christians have always refused, unfortunately, the basic equation between myth and Gospels that the anthropologists discovered. The anthropologists, however, are partly right. It is the same story. They discovered the structure which is: the whole community is in turmoil and then they will get together and murder the culprit, Oedipus. And then they are ok. In the Gospels, it is the same thing; except that it’s worse because the scapegoating does not restore the peace. It is no longer convincing enough. The difference in the Gospels, as in biblical texts, is that they make us aware of the innocence of the victim. But, myths look beautiful because the violence is mostly hidden, projected against the victim. Therefore, it is only the point of view of the mob that the myth gives you, and we all believe in the point of view of the mob and the splendid, classical, archaic Greek universe. That’s what it is, the purely mythological universe that projects the violence upon its victims and makes us feel good. Palaver: There still is, however, a disturbing element in the Psalms and you emphasized this very strongly. In the Psalms, the victim gets his voice for the first time in history and he cries out for vengeance to God shouting: ‘God avenge my fate!’ Girard: He’s not a Christian yet, you are right, and he does not suffer as meekly as Christ. But who does? Why are the Gospels so special? Because, for the first time, you have a subject instead of being the perception of a victim, who is innocent, by the way, someone who is sufficiently outside to see that all these guys are fooling themselves and who is moving out of the crowd. But, in the Gospels, it is the subject himself at the centre of the Gospel who is not the narrator, but who is, nevertheless, capable of doing that. It is the victim’s point of view all the way through, so it is the perfect carrying out of the anti-mythical revelation. Some

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people accept the idea that the Gospels are at the same level as the Psalms. But I think that the Gospels are something else. Christ defines himself as the Son of God, who accepts death in order to reveal to mankind what they are doing. I do not think there is anything equivalent anywhere, even in the Bible. So, if it is only in the Gospel, we can be sure that there is something quite special about the New Testament that goes even beyond the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph is splendid in the same sense. Joseph is repeatedly scapegoated, and each time his innocence is revealed. And he never really scapegoats his brothers in return. The ‘deconstruction’ of scapegoating is the quintessence of the whole Bible from Genesis to the Gospels. If you have the Joseph story and the Gospels as a point– counterpoint, you have the whole Bible, its whole truth, its whole beauty. And, the fact that this truth, present in the Old Testament, is not quite as fully expressed means to me that Jesus must be the perfect revelation. Only the Son of God can talk like that. Who would want to talk like that, who would impersonate the truth if the crucifixion were not necessary to reveal what we, human beings, are capable of? But I think that one must also show that the crucifixion is necessary in another way, because the beginning of the Gospels is not any beginning, it is the offer of the Kingdom of God. We have to choose between a world of violence that will lead us to ultimate destruction and the peace that Jesus defines as the Kingdom of God. This offer is rejected. Only Jesus obeys the rule that would do away with violence if everybody followed it. Therefore, he is killed in the end. He embodies the whole process, not only the son-ship of God. He is the only one who can do that. Why? Not because he is a man like any other but because he is the Son of God. And, at the same time, there is the necessity of that death from a human point of view because God wants to save the world and there has to be at least one man on earth who justly earned this salvation for all of us. Palaver: So, you would say there is a development beginning with the Psalms where we hear a cry for revenge and it comes to a conclusion . . . Girard: Yes, but the cry for revenge is quite secondary. I do not think one should be obsessed by it because it is a human reaction to call upon God: ‘Save me from these people who are destroying me’. That’s absolutely natural, and these people have a good reason for it. A violent crowd is beginning to surround them, and they are about to be lynched. Palaver: I think the whole question of the Psalms of lament becomes, to a certain degree, more important today. Let us take, for example, the European thinker and writer Elias Canetti. He came from a Jewish background and was attracted by the emphasis on lament in certain religious traditions. In his important anthropological book Crowds and Power, he refers to it by introducing a specific concept of religion.7 When he talks about the religions of lament, he mentions Christianity in particular, calling it the religion of lament, but he also refers to the Shiite tradition of the Muslims’ commemorating the passion of Husain. Girard: The two examples of a religion, explicitly centred upon an innocent victim, an unjustly victimized victim, is the main reason for lamenting. Canetti

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sees something essential, I think, but not the most essential thing, the main reason for lament: the killing of an innocent victim. Archaic religions have nothing to lament, not because they abstain from killing, but because they believe their victims are guilty. Palaver: It is interesting that Canetti observes how much our contemporary world has been shaped by the religions of lament. Furthermore, he argues that the religions of lament include a lamenting pack that can easily turn into a war pack or a lynching pack. He describes how a lamenting group as an assembly of people identifying themselves with the victim easily feels justified scapegoating the scapegoaters. Girard: Is this not, up to a point, a medieval view of Christianity? Scapegoating the scapegoaters. But, there has to be that evolution because many things people reproach in medieval Christianity are real but are a distortion of Christianity. It is the Christian world absorbing slowly or refusing to absorb the revelation. I think that there is a progress in the absorption of this revelation. But, at the same time, historically, this reaction is understandable. Christianity in a way relives the whole religious experience of humanity being confronted by this text, and ideally they should be able to give up revenge instantly, like Peter in his conversion after his denial, or like Paul. But, of course, they are human beings, are they not? And it goes on for a thousand years, and so, probably we are moving towards a point where the danger must be the greatest since people are deprived of sacrificial protection and by the very advance of revelation. The biblical text does not promise us that the ending will be peaceful. But, a good or bad ending means nothing here since it is the fate of mankind itself that is at stake. Palaver: Could one say that the increase of resentment in our contemporary world explains global terrorism as an illegitimate child of the biblical revelation? Girard: This is what Nietzsche says. He thinks that insofar as Christianity prevents the direct unleashing of vengeance, it increases repressed vengeance, which is ressentiment. However, vengeance and the spirit of vengeance were not invented by Christianity. Palaver: Is it then right to say that, to some extent, global terrorism is influenced by the biblical revelation because this kind of resentment would not be possible in pagan societies? Girard: I do not think so. Terrorism is the unleashing of a violence long repressed not by Christianity but by the superior violence of the powers nominally Christian. Terrorism in the current sense becomes possible only when the wouldbe terrorists become able to sacrifice their own lives in order to kill others. Palaver: Let us focus in our final section on Islam. What do you think about Islam? Is it part of the biblical legacy? Girard: Islam is very different from archaic religions on the one hand, and from Christianity on the other, because it does not have, at its centre, any version of the

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scapegoat drama that, in my opinion, determines the main significance of Christianity. It is in contradiction and opposition to all archaic religions as well as to the biblical religions. Palaver: What about the Qur’an? Girard: The Qur’an is the main reason why I can say what I just said. The Qur’an sees the Christian Passion as an intolerable form of blasphemy. Palaver: But, I remember an interview where you refer to the story of Abraham and Isaac, of which a parallel can be found in the Qur’an, too.8 Girard: Yes, many biblical insights reappear in the Qur’an. But, the main drama is missing. What I am commenting upon is first and foremost that main drama and how it is interpreted. Was the victim innocent or guilty and whether it is the point of view of the mob that prevails, or the point of view of the victim? Palaver: Yes, but when Islam came into being, it was strongly influenced by the Jewish religion and Christianity in particular. So, it is also in some way connected to the Bible? Girard: Sure, but many people comment upon religion, theology and so forth. The Christians have always bowed in front of the Passion, but they can give it more or less importance. I am giving it a supreme importance, which is not there in Islam. Islam excludes the possibility that God could accept to suffer. Palaver: Is Islam closer to the biblical legacy or is it a left over, a remnant of paganism? Girard: Neither, precisely because it does not have that drama. Palaver: So, it is something closer to philosophy? Girard: Something closer perhaps to what the Jews would call a non-biblical form of ‘prophecy’. The title of Mohammed is ‘the prophet’. Palaver: But the Jewish prophets are all part of this drama you are talking about, right? Girard: Yes, because almost all suffer, and some of the greatest prophetic texts are tied to that drama, Jeremiah, Isaiah, the Second Isaiah in particular, but other texts are less closely connected to it. They are all connected with it in some way. I don’t know the Qur’an well enough anyway to comment about it; because I spent much of my life trying to unravel the scapegoat drama common to the archaic, the Christian and also the biblical. The collective murder of the Suffering Servant is explicitly described as a scapegoat drama. The distance between the Bible and the Qur’an seems unbridgeable to me, in spite of the similarities. Palaver: My final question is about your view on religiously – or to put it precisely – pseudo-religiously motivated terrorism. What would you like to tell us about this phenomenon?

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Girard: Should terrorism be limited to its directly religious expressions? I do not think so. Malraux, for instance, said that communism in the Far East was the arrival of Christianity. That is, of course, said too fast and unintelligible. But, at the same time, I think in some senses it was right; Christianity may show up in a monstrously distorted form. Now, what can we say about our world of today? Let us take, for example, the year 1988, the year before the second Russian Revolution. If someone had told you in 1988 that, 20 years later, the problem of communism would have disappeared and that the great problem of the West, equivalent to communism in many ways, would be with Islam, we would all have disbelieved this prophecy. That shows that suddenly the religious drama is ahead of everything. And, that is really what is happening right now. But what is the relationship between communism and Islam and what is going on now? We just do not know; we cannot be sure. Is it more of a political or more of a religious affair? We are already beyond the point where we say the religious side is pure bunk, a joke and there is no use talking about it. We know it is more important than that, but can we define it? I do not think we can. We know that something is happening and that religion is coming back, and at the same time we know that there is a politicization of religion, but which of the two is more important? Is it politics that is destroying religion today? Or, do we have to shift and say that religion is, underneath, more important than politics? I think we do not know. But we are at a turning point. I really think religion is more important. What is going on right now is especially complex because Islam cannot be regarded as some single thing that would be motionless while nationalism and communism would be intelligible. Islam must be influenced by the ‘modern world’. But, could it be that Islam is also more influenced by Judaism and Christianity than it ever was before? That could mean that too. I don’t think we are in a position to answer these things. That is why it is so interesting and terrifying.

Notes 1

2

3

4 5

Girard, R., ‘Mimetische Theorie und Theologie’ in Niewiadomski, J. and Palaver, W. (eds.), Vom Fluch und Segen der Sündenböcke:Raymund Schwager zum 60. Geburtstag (Münster: LIT, 1995) p. 27; Girard, R., Celui par qui le scandale arrive (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2001) p. 79. Hume, D., in Gaskin, J. C. A. (ed.), Principle Writings on Religion including Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998) p. 162. Girard, R., ‘Generative Scapegoating’ in Hamerton-Kelly, R. G. (ed.), Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) p. 94. Aron, R., Penser la guerre, Clausewitz, Tome 1 et 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1976). Schwager, R., Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, tr. M. L. Assad (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) p. 93.

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Girard, R., ‘Violence in Biblical Narrative’, Philosophy and Literature Vol. 23, No. 2 (1999), 391; Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, tr. J. G. Williams (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2001) pp. 116–17. Canetti, E., Crowds and Power, tr. C. Stewart (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973) pp. 168–71. Girard, R., ‘Ce qui se joue aujourd’hui est une rivalité mimétique à l’échelle planétaire.’ Interview with Henri Tincq, Le Monde, 6 (November 2001).

5 The Ambiguous Cachet of Victimhood: On Violence and Monotheism Wolfgang Palaver

Lamentations are simply the need to constantly irritate the wound. —F. M. Dostoevsky1

The increase of religiously motivated violence in our contemporary world has revived an old charge against all monotheistic religions that are again accused of causing violent conflicts.2 It is especially today’s religiously motivated terrorism that has led to this critical view of the monotheistic traditions. In the following, I will focus on the relationship between religion and terrorism in order to show in what way monotheism and violence are connected to each other. I will therefore primarily deal with violence as a consequence of resentment by discussing Elias Canetti’s concept of the ‘religions of lament’. Many other aspects of the relationship between monotheism and violence are left aside. Therefore this essay does not provide a comprehensive answer but tries to deal with one important dimension of the monotheistic legacy: The ambiguous cachet of victimhood that marks, on the one hand, the biblical overcoming of the scapegoat mechanism leading to modern human rights and the temptation of vengeful lament typical of modern terrorism, and many more distortions connected to the biblically enabled recognition of the victim, on the other.

I. Violence and the sacred At first, I would like to emphasize the very old and deep bond between religion and violence as it was reconstructed by René Girard.3 Human culture has emerged from the scapegoat mechanism, a foundational act of violence completely shrouded in religion. A crisis at the beginning of human civilization was overcome by the nonconscious and collective expulsion or killing of a single victim. Due to the fact that the expelled or killed scapegoat was seen by the lynchers as absolutely evil for

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causing the crisis and as absolutely good for bringing peace after his expulsion, he was sacralized, that is, he was first demonized and then deified.4 A religiously legitimated cultural order closely linked to the foundational murder through sacrificial rites helped to keep violence under control. A superficial view might easily come to the conclusion that contemporary forms of religiously motivated terrorism are a direct offspring of the scapegoat mechanism. But such a conclusion would be misleading. Terrorism as we know it today was not possible in archaic societies. Religious rites and prohibitions restrained the outbreak of violent conflicts to a high degree.5 Today, for example, there still exist some groups in Africa that are characterized by the concealing of all internal violence to their own members.6 Religion plays an important role in all such efforts to keep a society peaceful. Such a cultural and religious containment of violence, however, is not free of violence itself. It contains violence in both meanings of the word ‘contain’, resembling a form of structural violence almost completely permeating the environment of archaic societies. Pagan concepts of an always violent eternal becoming and perishing, the belief in the harsh regime of fate and the reduction of individual responsibility to a ‘diffuse guilt of the life-process itself ’7 are signs how violence was projected from the human group into its surrounding cosmos.8 Bloody sacrifices are traces of violence leading back to the founding murder that enabled a relative peace in archaic societies. Wilhelm Mühlmann, a German anthropologist, used the term ‘peace of God’ to discuss forms of religiously facilitated times and spaces of peace in archaic societies.9 Two examples taken from Tacitus’ Germania clearly show how these forms of peace are predicated on bloody sacrifices. The first example tells about a religious cult of the Semnones, a Germanic tribe, that took place in a pacified holy wood. Peace is visible in the fact that all the participants enter the sacred grove ‘bound with a chain’, preventing the use of weapons. The ceremony, however, contains quite open violence: ‘A human victim is slaughtered on behalf of all present’.10 An even stronger example can be found in Tacitus’ description of a feast celebrated by some tribes of the Baltic Sea worshiping the goddess Nerthus, who is identified with Mother Earth. During the days of the feast, they experience ‘peace and quiet’: ‘No one goes to war, no one takes up arms, all objects of iron are locked away’.11 But, again, this time of peace relies on human sacrifice. The slaves who were washing the equipment of the cult and maybe even the goddess herself afterwards were ‘swallowed up in the same lake’. Despite his philosophical sympathies for monotheism, the English philosopher David Hume preferred politically the tolerating spirit of the pagans: The intolerance of almost all religions, which have maintained the unity of God, is as remarkable as the contrary principle of polytheists. The implacable narrow spirit of the JEWS is well known. MAHOMETANISM set out with still more bloody principles; and even to this day, deals out damnation, though not fire and faggot, to all other sects. And if, among CHRISTIANS, the ENGLISH and DUTCH have embraced the principles of toleration, this singularity has proceeded from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate, in opposition to the continued efforts of priests and bigots.12

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Hume, of course, knew that paganism was closely linked to human sacrifices, but by comparing them to the atrocities of the Christian inquisition, he again prefers these religions that anyway killed only to strengthen the social order: The human sacrifices of the CARTHAGINIANS, MEXICANS, and many barbarous nations, scarcely exceed the inquisition and persecutions of ROME and MADRID. For besides, that the effusion of blood may not be so great in the former case as in the latter; besides this, I say, the human victims, being chosen by lot, or by some exterior signs, affect not, in so considerable a degree, the rest of the society. Whereas virtue, knowledge, love of liberty, are the qualities, which call down the fatal vengeance of inquisitors; and when expelled, leave the society in the most shameful ignorance, corruption, and bondage. The illegal murder of one man by a tyrant is more pernicious than the death of a thousand by pestilence, famine, or any undistinguishing calamity. In the temple of DIANA at ARICIA near ROME, whoever murdered the present priest was legally entitled to be installed his successor. A very singular institution! For, however barbarous and bloody the common superstitions often are to the laity, they usually turn to the advantage of the holy order.13

Enmity in archaic societies is a good example to illustrate how the violent sacred helped to keep it inside certain limits. Pagan enmity is not primarily aiming at the destruction of the adversary but is already a form of moderation of human conflicts. Due to its origin in the scapegoat mechanism, it participates in the ‘double transference, the aggressive transference followed by the reconciliatory transference’ 14 that transformed the original scapegoat into a god, a being responsible for the destructive crisis and its solution – evil and good – at the same time. Like the scapegoat, the pagan enemy is sacred. He participates in the demonization and divinization of the original scapegoat. Therefore, he is seen as an evil and respectful person – a curse and a blessing – at the same time. In Homer’s Iliad – telling us, according to Simone Weil, ‘not to hate the enemy’ 15 – it is said that Hector and Ajax, despite their fight to death, were afterwards exchanging presents, like good friends: The twain verily fought in rivalry of soul-devouring strife, but thereafter made them a compact and were parted in friendship.16

The pagan sacred protects human beings from their own violence. To take revenge is often left to the gods and not a purely human activity. Most likely, it is the sacred that causes the ‘tenderness’ that ‘lights even on an enemy, once he ceases to be excessively feared’.17 We can even find in the Old Testament remnants of the pagan sacred limiting enmity. When David spares the life of his mortal enemy Saul (1 Sam 24; 1 Sam 26) twice, it is above all caused by the fact that the ‘anointed’ King Saul is protected by God who alone is responsible for punishing the evildoer.18 Whoever would raise his hand against the ‘LORD’s anointed’, who is clearly a scapegoat-king, would not be ‘guiltless’ (1 Sam 26:9).19 David expresses the pagan logic of divine vengeance very clearly in the following words addressed to Saul: ‘May the LORD judge between me and you! May the LORD avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you. As the ancient proverb says, “Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness”; but my hand shall not be against you’ (1 Sam 24:12–13).

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Against the background of contained enmity in the pagan world, Girard is clearly aware of how much our attitude towards enemies has changed, with the weakening of the pagan sacred going along with the biblically inspired emergence of our modern world. Already, in medieval times, we can see how the double transference typical of the scapegoat mechanism is more or less reduced to its demonizing side. Victims were still demonized, but no longer divinized: ‘Medieval and modern persecutors do not worship their victims, they only hate them’.20 Enmity significantly changed its character when the pagan sacred lost its power: The more socially ‘efficient’ scapegoating is, the more capable it is of generating a positive transfiguration of the scapegoat, as well as the negative transfiguration of fear and hostility. The positive transfiguration is still present in the feudal and even the national traditions of military warfare. The enemy is respected as well as intensely disliked. This positive aspect weakens more and more in the modern world, as civil and ideological conflicts tend to predominate. The class enemy of the modern revolutionary never becomes ritualized as a good, even sacred enemy.21

II. Terrorism and religion To understand contemporary terrorism, one has to take the influence of the JudeoChristian revelation into account. Terrorism is a parasite of biblical thinking. We have to struggle with such a thesis even if it severely shutters our Christian selfunderstanding. Whereas archaic religions sided with the persecuting mob concealing the suffering of the relatively innocent victim, the Judeo-Christian revelation brought a totally new perspective into our world. Like pagan myths, the Bible narrates in many passages the collective violence against single victims. But, contrary to myths, it does not identify with the violent mob, but with the scapegoats. The biblical revelation gives these innocent victims a voice enabling them to cry out how much they suffer from violent persecution. Whereas ancient myths express a relatively peaceful harmony due to the violent sacred that suppresses open conflicts, the biblical revelation brings an enormous amount of violence out into the open. Its shocking exhibition of violence stems from its unveiling of the violent sacred. By revealing the scapegoat mechanism, it brings all the hidden and veiled violence out into the open. What has been hidden by a sacred veil becomes suddenly visible in its bloody and violent cruelty. The Psalms of lamentation in the Old Testament are a powerful example of this change of perspective.22 Many Psalms narrate the fate of a persecuted victim encircled by a murderous collective crying his desperation out to the world: For I hear the whispering of many – terror all around! – as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. (Psalm 31:13)

In this situation of a total threat, the victims cry out to their God that he may avenge the persecution they suffer: Do not let me be put to shame, O LORD, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. (Psalm 31:17)

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In these Psalms of lamentation, we can discover for the first time in history a real concern for the victim. This biblical change of perspective has undermined the pagan ways of containing violence forever. As soon as we are aware of hidden victims that enable a relative peace, we are no longer able to legitimate their suffering. At least that is true for most of us in the long run. One is reminded of the dialogue between Alyosha and Ivan in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov about the possibility to accept a perfectly harmonious and peaceful world that only necessitates the suffering of one little child.23 Both brothers reject such a perverse idea without any hesitation. And, we too, like Simone Weil, would follow the judgement of Ivan and Alyosha: ‘No reason whatever which anyone could produce to compensate for a child’s tear would make me consent to that tear’.24 But, does that mean that the biblical revelation leads automatically to a more peaceful world? Not at all. The biblical concern for victims has a twofold legacy. It is responsible for many positive sides of our modern world but also for some of the worst threats of our era. Let us take again the example of enmity to illustrate how the influence of the biblical revelation may indirectly worsen the relationship between antagonists. The biblical undermining of sacrificial culture has deprived the enemy of his sacred protection. He is now threatened by dangerous demonizations because the second transference – his divinization – is no longer possible. The biblical disintegration of the pagan sacred results in an intensification of enmity whenever people do not follow the Gospel’s emphasis on forgiveness and the love for enemies that is an integral part of its overcoming of the scapegoat mechanism. A heretical – meaning a partial – acceptance of the biblical message results in an increase of violence and destruction. Modern scapegoaters are aiming at the annihilation of the enemy because they are no longer able to divinize their victims. Religious terrorists of today eagerly pursue the satanization of the enemy.25 The protective side of the old pagan sacred has completely disappeared. Nietzsche described the modern type of enmity in his critique of the man of resentment: To be incapable of taking one’s enemies, one’s accidents, even one’s misdeeds seriously for very long – that is the sign of strong, full natures . . . Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine ‘love of one’s enemies’ is possible – supposing it to be possible at all on earth. . . . In contrast to this, picture ‘the enemy’ as the man of ressentiment conceives him – and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived ‘the evil enemy,’ ‘the Evil One’, and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a ‘good one’ – himself!26

Although the modern world has detached itself from pagan religion, it is, however, not free of new religious temptations even increasing the level of human violence. Less and less protected by the pagan sacred, a ‘theologically’ motivated hatred – theology in its heretical sense – has become more aggressive than ever before. Religious wars at the dawn of our modern world are an early example for that temptation. A tendency towards a demonization of the enemy is also already visible in Kant’s concept of the ‘unjust enemy’ that is influenced by a certain kind

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of theologically undercurrent kindred to the spirit of crusade.27 An unjust enemy means ‘someone whose publicly expressed will, whether expressed in word or in deed, displays a maxim that would make peace among nations impossible and would lead to a perpetual state of nature if it were made into a general rule’.28 According to Kant, ‘the rights of a state against an unjust enemy are unlimited in quantity or degree, although they do have limits in relation to quality’. What is visible as a dangerous possibility in Kant’s concept of the unjust enemy has become a more and more threatening temptation in our own world. The concept of collective security has a certain leaning towards the demonization of the enemy.29 Modern wars easily tend to demonize or diabolize the enemy.30 We just have to think of how people like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic or Osama bin Laden – surely all of them not innocent – had to be turned into moral monsters before it became possible to fight militarily against them.31 There is a tendency towards crusades in our world, often even without any direct religious motivation. These modern crusades stem from a moralizing view of the adversary that easily turn into scapegoating out of increased hatred.32 ‘Moral wars need a scapegoat’.33 Even some new social movements with their unconditional ethical options tend to demonize their adversaries.34 All of these examples are forms of scapegoating reduced to its demonizing side. Current forms of religious terrorism show the most dangerous exacerbation of enmity. In his 1963 book Theory of the Partisan, Carl Schmitt reconstructs the modern shift from the real enemy to the absolute enemy, from the enemy to the foe. Whereas the enmity of the partisan of the nineteenth century was fundamentally limited, Lenin, ‘a professional revolutionary engaged in a global civil war, went further and turned the real enemy into a foe’.35 Schmitt quotes Joan of Arc’s lay answer to her inquisitors asking her whether she claimed that God hated the English to illustrate the defensive character of the partisan’s limited type of enmity: ‘I do not know whether God loves or hates the English; I only know that they must be driven out of France’.36 Today, we no longer hear answers like that. Terrorism has become global and religiously motivated. A ‘member of Al Quaeda’, for instance, would answer that ‘God is with him’ and that ‘Westerners should be exterminated (or converted)’.37 And, some religious rhetoric accompanying the war against terrorism tends towards an absolute enmity, too. The attempt, for instance, to call radical Islamist terrorists ‘apocalyptic’ is a form of demonization. It mainly serves to put him hors la loi, to annihilate him by all means, legal and illegal ones, and to inhibit the search for the political causes and passions that motivate him’.38 Simone Weil, who attributed to the epic genius of The Iliad a clear rejection of the hatred of the enemy, accused both the Hebrew and the Roman tradition of having increased the contempt of the enemy, leading to unlimited destruction. With the exception of the book of Job and few similar texts, Weil accuses the Old Testament of being in favour of destroying all enemies. According to Weil, to the Hebrews ‘a vanquished enemy was abhorrent to God himself and condemned to expiate all sorts of crime’.39 This view of the Hebrews ‘makes cruelty permissible and indeed indispensable’. Jonathan Shay criticizes in a similar way the influence of the Bible on the modern dehumanization of the enemy as it became visible in

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the Vietnam War. As an example, he refers to the story of David and Goliath (1 Sam 17), where the enemy seems to be seen as vermin.40 According to Shay, this differs greatly from the respect of the enemy in Homer’s Iliad. It is therefore due to the triumph of the ‘Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) world-view’ that the old respect of the enemy has given way to his dehumanization.41 Such critical views of the Old Testament come close to the thesis of the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, accusing the Mosaic distinction between a true God and false idols to be one of the main causes of religiously motivated violence in our modern world. He views, for instance, Carl Schmitt’s ‘political theology of violence’ – meaning the ‘theologizing of the distinction between friend and enemy’ – as a direct offspring of monotheism: God is the truth, the gods of the others are lies. This is the theological basis to distinguish friend from enemy. The political theology of violence has become dangerous only on this ground and in this semantic framework. Schmitt’s political theology still belongs to this tradition of a disposition to violence stemming from a theology of revelation.42

III. The religions of lament To evaluate this currently fashionable critique of monotheism, we will discuss, in the following, Elias Canetti’s concept of the ‘religions of lament’. By this, we will, on the one hand, sharpen our understanding of the difference between pagan religions and biblical monotheism and find out what kind of temptations are going along with the biblical tradition, on the other. Referring especially to Christians and Shiite Muslims, who side with a persecuted victim in order to expiate their own guilt as persecutors, Canetti called these religions ‘religions of lament’: The face of the earth has been changed by the religions of lament and, in Christianity, they have attained a kind of universal validity. . . . The legend around which they form is that of a man or a god who perishes unjustly. It is always the story of a pursuit, a hunt, or a baiting, and there may also be an unjust trial. . . . Why is it that so many join the lament? What is its attraction? What does it give people? To all those who join it, the same thing happens: the hunting or baiting pack expiates its guilt by becoming a lamenting pack. Men lived as pursuers and as such, in their own fashion, they continue to live. They seek alien flesh, and cut into it, feeding on the torment of the weaker creatures; the glazing eye of the victim is mirrored in their eyes, and that last cry they delight in is indelibly recorded in their soul. Most of them perhaps do not divine that, while they feed their bodies, they also feed the darkness within themselves. But, their guilt and fear grow ceaselessly, and, without knowing it, they long for deliverance. Thus, they attach themselves to one who will die for them and, in lamenting him, they feel themselves as persecuted. Whatever they have done, however they have raged, for this moment they are aligned with suffering. It is a sudden change of side with far-reaching consequences. It frees them from the accumulated guilt of killing and from the fear that death will strike at them too. All that they have done to others, another now takes on himself; by attaching themselves to him, faithfully and without reserve, they hope to escape vengeance. Thus it appears that

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religions of lament will continue to be indispensable to the psychic economy of men for as long as they remain unable to renounce pack killing.43

Canetti refers to two consequences stemming from the legacy of religions of lament. First and more directly, he mentions the tremendous increase of the value of each human individual going along with the spread of Christianity. What he describes in the following passage refers to our modern understanding of an inviolable human dignity stemming from the biblical concern for victims: The image of him whose death Christians have lamented for nearly two thousand years has become part of the consciousness of mankind. He is the dying man and the man who ought not to die. With the increasing secularization of the world, his divinity has become less important, but he remains as an individual, suffering and dying. The centuries of his divinity have endowed the man with a kind of earthly immorality. They have strengthened him and everyone who sees himself in him. There is no one who suffers persecution, for whatsoever reason, who does not in part of his mind see himself as Christ. Mortal enemies, even when both are fighting for an evil and inhuman cause, experience the same feeling as soon as things go badly with them. The image of the sufferer at the point of death passes from one to the other according to who is winning or losing and the one who in the end proves weaker can see himself as the better. But, even one too weak ever to have acquired a real enemy has a claim to the image. He may die for nothing at all, but the dying itself makes him significant. Christ lends him his lament. In the midst of all our frenzy of increase, which includes men too, the value of the individual has become not less, but more. The events of our times appear to have proved the opposite, but even they have not really altered man’s image of himself. The value that has been put on his soul has helped man to the assurance of his earthly value. He finds his desire for indestructibility justified. Each feels himself a worthy object of lament; each is stubbornly convinced that he ought not to die. Here the legacy of Christianity, and, in a rather different way, of Buddhism, is inexhaustible.44

A second, much more indirect consequence going along with the religions of lament is, according to Canetti, a certain tendency to legitimate violent and revengeful actions by siding with a persecuted victim. Lament can easily turn into war. Canetti mentions a typical transmutation that stands at the beginning of wars: ‘A man is killed and the members of his tribe lament him. Then they form into a troop and set out to avenge his death on the enemy; the lamenting pack changes into a war pack’.45 The lament for the death can easily inflame war: ‘The quickforming lamenting pack operates as a crowd crystal; it, as it were, opens out everyone who feels the same threat attaching himself to it. Its spirit changes into that of a war pack’.46 With the example of the Pueblo tribes in the south of the United States, which are ‘distinguished by the atrophy of war and hunting, and by an amazing suppression of lament’, Canetti underlines indirectly the connection between lamenting and violence. According to him, the Pueblo tribes ‘live entirely for peaceful increase’.47 Despite the fact that Canetti mentions Shiism as one of the examples of a religion of lament, he sees Islam in general as a ‘religion of war’, more directly connected to

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the war pack, not really in need of the lamenting pack as its crowd crystal.48 In a broader sense, however, this also can be connected to the Abrahamic siding with the victim typical of the religions of lament. The Islamic legitimation of war is rooted in a concept of just war allowing self-defence and the struggle for a just and decent society.49 Canetti’s view of Islam as a warmongering religion is part of Western Islamophobia, and not an accurate evaluation. But, it is also true that concepts of just war can easily be misused, justifying violence caused by resentment or sheer lust for conquest. In this regard, we can find many historical examples in Islam as well as in Christianity. There are many examples of vengeful religious lament throughout history. Following Canetti’s reference, the Shiites’ lamenting Husain leads to its recent impact on the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini’s war against Iraq is an example of how lamenting a past hero can help motivate people going to war.50 Also, the Christian tradition is not free from this temptation connected to lament. The most striking examples are the Crusades, where Christians fought against Jews and Muslims, legitimating their violence by emphasizing their solidarity with the crucified Jesus.51 The temptation of a vengeful religious lament has become a common dimension of contemporary religiously – and also secular – motivated violence, especially of terrorism. Muslim, Jewish and Christian terrorists and even the Aum Shinrikyo group, which carried out a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subways in 1995, legitimate their violent acts as deeds in defence of persecuted victims.52 Osama bin Laden is a perfect example of this tendency when he accuses, in an interview from 1996, America and Israel of ‘killing the weak men, women, and children in the Muslim world and elsewhere’.53 He sides instead with all the victims and refers to oppressed Muslims in Saudi Arabia, to persecuted Palestinians, to 600,000 children suffering in Iraq because of the UN sanctions, to killed Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and even to Japanese victims who were killed by atomic bombs used by the United States in World War II. The temptation of vengeful lament has so much influenced our world that even fascism – including National Socialism – is characterized by a violent exploitation of the claim of being victimized.54 The Austrian historian Friedrich Herr, for instance, used Canetti’s concept of the ‘lamenting pack’ to explain the political religion of Adolf Hitler.55 The Dutch writer Geert Mak used Robert Paxton’s description of fascism’s violent exploitation of its feeling to be victimized to explain radical Islamism and right-wing populism in his book, reflecting on the murder of Theo van Gogh by a radical Muslim. According to Mak, the emphasis on victimhood plays a central role for such extremists to justify their violent actions (Mak 81–83, 90). As soon as such people view themselves as victims, the aggression against their enemies becomes limitless. Against the background of Canetti’s concept of the religions of lament, it is furthermore interesting to note that suicide bombers first emerged among Shiite Muslims known for their lament of Husain, the murdered grandson of Mohammed. Only later did Sunni terrorists start to imitate them.56 Terrorism is closely connected to a vengeful instrumentalization of victimhood. It is part of what psychiatrist Vamik Volkan

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called the ‘egoism of victimization’.57 Volkan explains, plausibly, how a certain view of one’s victimization, the inability to mourn properly and one’s own weakness may lead quickly towards terrorism: ‘The individual who perceives his group as victimized and whose own sense of self is threatened by that perception may be drawn to terrorist activities in the same way that a nation that perceives itself to be victimized may go to war’.58 What makes our situation today even worse is the fact that counter-terrorism, too – especially Bush’s war against terror – has been strongly influenced by the temptation of a vengeful religious lament.59 Is the temptation of a vengeful religious lament connected to monotheism? Despite the fact that Canetti views Christianity as ‘the most important of all the religions of lament’,60 his answer to our question would be negative. According to him, religions of lament can be found in different cultures and different historical periods (mythic and historical). His list of lamented victims illustrates his broad view: Adonis, Tammuz, Attis, Osiris, Husain and finally, of course, Jesus Christ, whose crucifixion Canetti calls ‘the most humane of all passions’.61 Following Canetti, it would be rather easy to reject accusations attributing the temptation of vengeful religious lamenting to the monotheistic traditions. Unfortunately, however, Canetti’s view is wrong. Already, his term ‘religions of lament’ indicates its closeness to the biblical tradition, and one just wonders why he – born to a Jewish family – uses a term alluding so closely to the Psalms of lamentation without ever referring to any Jewish example of lamenting. This strange omission surely has biographical reasons. Canetti realized that many religions narrate acts of collective violence against a single victim. What he did not understand by following thinkers like Frazer and Freud, who continued an identification of the myths about Osiris, Attis or Adonis with the passion of Jesus beginning during the Roman Empire,62 however, are the differences of perspective these religions have narrating acts of violence.63 Whereas the mythic religions did not take the side of the victim but joined the view of the persecuting mob, it is the specific biblical perspective to express vehemently a concern for the victim. Nietzsche was most likely the first who clearly understood this change of perspective in his famous fragment ‘Dionysus versus the “Crucified”’.64 Following Nietzsche, Max Weber also emphasized the enormous difference between mythic lamenting and expressions of lament in the Jewish tradition. Comparing the Servant of God in Deutero-Isaiah with a mythic dying god like Tammuz, Weber discovers a ‘fundamental change of meaning’.65 According to Weber, lamenting ‘the dying and resurrected vegetation or other deities and heroes’ in ‘all known mythologies’66 must not be identified with the biblical lament. In the prophetic tradition of the Bible, martyrdom is characterized by a unique ‘ethical turn’. Weber refers, for instance, to Deutero-Isaiah, underlining the ‘guiltless martyrdom of the Servant of God’ and his ‘unmerited suffering’. The unique ethical perspective of the Bible is its partisanship with the persecuted and oppressed victims. Weber points to the ‘pariah situation’67 of the Jewish people recognizing its climax in the prophet Deutero-Isaiah’s ‘apotheosis of sufferance, misery, poverty, humiliation, and ugliness’.68

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IV. Resentment and the Judaeo-Christian revelation Joining Weber’s recognition of the ‘Biblical “Difference” ’,69 however, forces us to deal with the fact that in this tradition we also find the origin of vengeful religious lament. Weber clearly points to this revengeful side of the biblical tradition by referring to the Psalms: ‘The psalmists raised frightful wails against the rich and cried out for revenge’.70 According to Weber, the ‘religiosity of the Psalms’ is ‘often permeated by passionate wrath and hatred or to the sharp resentment toward the godless who are well off ’ 71: The religion of the Psalms is full of the need for vengeance. . . . The majority of the Psalms are quite obviously replete with the moralistic legitimation and satisfaction of an open and hardly concealed need for vengeance on the part of a pariah people.72

Weber’s insight into the vengeful side of the biblical tradition must be taken seriously. It would be wrong to evade its challenge. Contrary to pagan myths that obscure the deadly fate of the victims, the Bible brings the violence of the persecutors in all its cruelty and ugliness out into the open. If one understands that to reveal hidden persecution means taking right and wrong seriously, one understands also why the ‘Jews cursed more bitterly than the Pagans’.73 René Girard very explicitly stresses the revengeful side of the Psalms: Many psalms are not only violent but full of hatred and resentment. The narrator complains that he has many unjust enemies who not only destroy his reputation but threaten his life and even physically assault him. In some of the psalms, the narrator is surrounded by these enemies who are about to lynch him. He curses them, he insults them; above all he asks God to rain fire and destruction on these enemies. . . . These are the so-called psalms of malediction or execration. Nowadays in order to minimize their violence many Bibles call them ‘penitential.’ They are not penitential at all but vengeful.74

Before criticizing the Bible overhastily, however, we have to realize that most of the violence that the Bible brings out into the open is the violence of the mob released against their victims. According to Girard, the Psalms: tell the same basic story as many myths but turned inside out, so to speak. They are like a beautiful fur coat. If you turn the garment inside out, you will perhaps still see traces of blood and you will become aware that, at some point in the past, the garment was part of a living creature that first had to be killed for the beautiful coat to come into being.75

The vitriolic acts of the victims – contrary to the physical aggression of the mob – consist mostly in nothing but words crying to God for revenge. Not they themselves but God is responsible to revenge their fate. Weber called this ‘the leaving of revenge to God’.76 In this regard, the vengeful lament visible in many Psalms still participates to some degree in the sacred violence typical of pagan myths that helps to distance human beings from their own violence. Modern

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versions of the vengeful lament are due to the rapidly diminishing power of the much more destructive old sacred. Now, people take revenge themselves, acting as the faithful agents of their God or their ideological programme. Bringing scapegoating to light – taking the side of the victim – was really an ethical turn that changed the face of the world forever. It was the origin of our modern concern for human dignity and our eagerness to overcome all forms of victimization. Though the biblical revelation by taking the side of the victims has contributed very positively to the development of human morality, it has also enabled human beings to increase tremendously violence and destruction. The temptation to vengeful religious lament is an important part of these destructive consequences that the biblical revelation indirectly brings with it. Already, David Hume remarks in his comparison of theism and idolatry that the ‘corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst’.77 This insight that the corruption of the best is the worst – corruptio optimi pessima – is an important key to explain negative consequences of the biblical legacy. Ivan Illich used this idea to understand the contribution of Christianity to the crisis of our modern world. Taking the temptation of resentment as a possible consequence of the biblical revelation seriously must not, however, lead us to the conclusion of Nietzsche – and partly also of Weber – that the biblical perspective results in nothing but resentment. Girard clearly rejected such a simplistic thesis. Against Nietzsche, he claims that ‘resentment is merely an illegitimate heir, certainly not the father of Judaeo-Christian Scripture’.78 Reducing the Bible to resentment would mean overlooking an enormous development that is visible in its religiosity, its image of God and its attitude towards violence. The biblical revelation is, despite its visible leanings towards resentment, ultimately resentment overcome. This is not only true of the New Testament, but also of the Old Testament. Despite her very harsh critique of the Hebrew tradition until the Babylonian exile, even Simone Weil emphasized how passages in the Book of Job, parts of the Psalms or the prophet Deutero-Isaiah are clearly taking a critical attitude towards violence.79 The image of God, as we can find it in the vengeful Psalms, is not the only image of the Old Testament. Whoever reduces biblical monotheism to a vengeful distinction between friends and enemies overlooks the development of the image of God in the Hebrew Bible. Gradually, the image of a warrior God was replaced by a God who no longer relies on military power: The warrior God was highly significant during long periods of Israel’s understanding of its faith. But this image was not the only image, and it was gradually transformed, particularly after the experience of the exile, when God was no longer identified with military victory and might.80

A good example of how strongly violence is rejected in certain passages of the Hebrew Bible can be found, for instance, in 1 Kings 3:2–15, in which King

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Solomon asks from God not a long life, wealth and the destruction of his enemies but only ‘an understanding mind’. God praises Solomon’s extraordinary plea and rewards him with a wise mind. Furthermore, God bestows on Solomon a long living, wealth and honour – for which the king had not asked.81 But, a wish that the enemies of the king should die is not fulfilled by God. This wish is revealed as a poor human projection that is not compatible with God’s being at all. In the songs of the Suffering Servant, we can find the climax of the rejection of a violent image of God in the Old Testament. Max Weber emphasized the non-violence of the Suffering Servant: The meaning of it all is plainly the glorification of the situation of the pariah people and its tarrying endurance. Thereby, the Servant of God and the people whose archetype he is, become the deliverers of the world. Thus, should the Servant of God even have been conceived as a personal savior, then he qualified only by voluntarily taking upon himself the pariah situation of the Exile people and by suffering without resistance and complaint misery, ugliness, and martyrdom. All the elements of the utopian evangelical sermon ‘resist no evil with force’ are here at hand. The situation of the pariah people and its patient endurance were thus elevated to the highest station of religious worth and honor before God, by receiving the meaning of a world historical mission. This enthusiastic glorification of suffering as the means to serve world deliverance is clearly for the prophet the ultimate and in its way supreme enhancement of the promise to Abraham, that his name in days to come shall be great and that he shall be a blessing. The specific ethic of meekness and nonresistance revived in the Sermon on the Mount and the conception of the sacrificial death of the innocent martyred Servant of God helped to give birth to Christology.82

Weber is right that this line in the Old Testament directly leads to Jesus Christ’s non-violence in the New Testament. In the Passion of Jesus, the biblical concern for victims comes to its conclusion. Contrary to all temptations of a vengeful lament, the New Testament’s solidarity with the victims does not at all legitimate any revenge or retribution. Jesus’ heavenly father personifies the love for enemies and the rejection of revenge: ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous’ (Mat 5:44–45). In accordance with his father, Jesus forgave his enemies when he was murdered on the Cross: ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’ (Luk 23:34). And when he met his disciples again after his resurrection, he offered them his peace without blaming them for their weakness and cowardliness83: ‘Peace be with you’ (Joh 20:19). The true Christian spirit contradicts vengeful lamenting and is beyond all resentment. Of course, in Judaism and Islam we can also find important ways of overcoming resentment and preventing the vengeful exploitation of victimhood. However, I am neither an expert on these two religions, nor do I belong myself to one of these two traditions. Nevertheless, I will point to two examples showing us in what direction these traditions might develop. Marc Gopin, for instance, emphasizes how important it is for a Jewish conflict resolution theory to overcome conceptions of enmity that define the enemy as the incarnation of evil.84 In Ex 23:5 (‘When

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you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free’) and in Pro 25:21–22 (‘If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the LORD will reward you’), he sees important starting points in the Bible leading to the humanization of the enemy. Forgiveness is most important to overcome the temptations of vengeful lament. It is not only recommended in the Bible, in Judaism and Christianity, but also in Islam. In accordance with God, who is seen as the ‘All-Merciful’, the Muslim believers are also called to overcome retaliation and repel evil with good. Mohamed Fathi Osman has listed some verses from the Qur’an that point in this direction: 42:40–43, 16:126, 60:7, 4:34–35.85 I will quote the first one to show how Islam also emphasizes the need for forgiveness: ‘A requital for a wrongdoing is equal to it, but whoever forgives and makes peace [with the other], his [/her] reward rests with God; He, verily, does not love the transgressors’ (42:40). The temptation of vengeful religious lamenting has accompanied all monotheistic traditions. It has remained a permanent temptation throughout Christian history too. Many secularized versions of it are also contributing to our contemporary culture of a radical victimology, often turning the concern for victims into an even more dangerous weapon.86 According to Girard, today we often ‘practise a hunt for scapegoats to the second degree, a hunt for hunters of scapegoats. Our society’s obligatory compassion authorizes new forms of cruelty’.87 This perversion of the concern for victims is the reign of the Antichrist, in which fighting persecution leads to even more cruel acts of persecution.88 As far as Christianity contributes to this perverted concern for victims, it is always a heretical version of it that does not follow the biblical revelation in its entirety: Our world is full of Christian heresies, i.e., divisions and portions. If the revelation is to be used as a weapon of divisive power in mimetic rivalry it must first be divided. As long as it remains intact it will be a force for peace, and only if it is fragmented can it be used in service of war. Broken into pieces it provides the opposing doubles with weapons that are vastly superior to what would be available in its absence. This is the reason for the endless dispute over the remains of the body of the text, and why today the revelation itself is held responsible for the evil usage that has been made of it.89

Notes 1 2

3

Dostoevsky, F., The Brothers Karamazov, trs. R. Pevear and L.Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) p. 48. Assmann, J., Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Dawkins, R., The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006). Girard, R., Violence and the Sacred, P. Gregory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).

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Wolfgang Palaver Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, tr. J. G. Williams (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001) pp. 67–8, 72–5. Girard, R., ‘Violence and Religion: Cause or Effect?’, The Hedgehog Review, Vol. 6, No.1 (2004), 12–14. Rosny, E. de. Les Yeux de ma chèvre. Sur les pas des maîtres de la nuit en pays douala (Paris: Plon, 1981). Bespaloff, R. , ‘On the Iliad’ in Simone, W. and Bespaloff, R. (eds.), War and the Iliad, tr. M. McCarthy (New York: New York Review Book, 2005) p. 58; Benjamin, W., ‘Fate and Character’ in Bullock, M. and Jennings M. W. (eds.), Selected Writings: Volume 1: 1913–26 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996) pp. 203–4. Voegelin, on Anaximander’s fragment: ‘The “cosmos” is not something that is found through observation of the external world; it rather is the projection of a human order into the universe.’ See Voegelin, E., in Moulakis, A. (ed.), Order and History II: The World of the Polis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000) p. 306. Mühlmann, W. E., Rassen, Ethnien, Kulturen: Moderne Ethnologie (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1964) pp. 313–19. Tacitus, Agricola and Germany, tr. A. R. Birley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) p. 39. Ibid. Hume, D., Principle Writings on Religion including Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion, ed. by J. C. A. Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998) p. 162. Ibid., p. 163. Girard, R., Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World: Research Undertaken in Collaboration with J.-M. Oughourlian and G. Lefort, tr. S. Bann and M. Metteer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) p. 37. Weil, S., ‘The Iliad, or the Poem of Force’ in Weil, S. and Bespaloff, R., (eds.), War and the Iliad, tr. M. McCarthy (New York: New York Review Book, 2005) p. 37. Homer, Iliad 7.301–302; see Cacciari, M., Gewalt und Harmonie. GeoPhilosophie Europas, tr. Günter Memmert (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1995). Canetti, E., Crowds and Powe, tr. C. Stewart (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973) p. 136. See Ruppert, L., ‘Klagelieder in Israel und Babylonien – verschiedene Deutungen der Gewalt’ in Lohfink, N. (ed.), Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit im Alten Testament (Freiburg: Herder, 1983) p. 156. See Palaver, W., Politik und Religion bei Thomas Hobbes: Eine Kritik aus der Sicht der Theorie René Girards (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1991) pp. 217–23; Williams, J. G., The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) pp. 134–5.

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23 24 25

26 27

28 29

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Girard, R., The Scapegoat, tr. by Y. Freccero (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 38; Girard, R., Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World: Research Undertaken in Collaboration with J.-M. Oughourlian and G. Lefort, p. 37. Girard, R., ‘Generative Scapegoating’ in Hamerton-Kelly, R. G. (ed.), Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) p. 94. See Schwager, R., Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, tr. M. L. Assad (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) pp. 101–9; Girard, R., Job: The Victim of His People (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) pp. 8–9; Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, tr. J. G. Williams (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001) pp. 115–17. Dostoevsky, F., The Brothers Karamazov, tr. and annotated by R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) p. 245. Weil, S. Gravity and Grace, tr. E. Crawford, M. von der Ruhr (London: Routledge, 2002) p. 75. See Juergensmeyer, M., Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) pp. 171–86; Juergensmeyer, M., ‘Religion the Problem?’, The Hedgehog Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2004), 30–1. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (First Essay: ‘Good and Evil’, ‘Good and Bad’, No. 10). See Schmitt, C., The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, tr. and Annotated by G. L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press Publishing, 2003) pp. 168–71; Tönnies, S., Cosmopolis Now: Auf dem Weg zum Weltstaat (Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2002) pp. 99–103. Kant, I., Metaphysics of Morals, tr. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p. 170. Palaver, W., ‘Collective Security: The Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching’ in Hans Köchler (ed.), The Use of Force in International Relations: Challenges to Collective Security (Vienna: International Progress Organization, 2006) pp. 178–81. Pollefeyt, D., ‘Ethics, Forgiveness and the Unforgivable after Auschwitz’ in Pollefeyt D. (ed.), Incredible Forgiveness: Christian Ethics between Fanaticism and Reconciliation (Leuven: Peeters, 2004) pp. 124–31. Hondrich, K. O., Wieder Krieg (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002) pp. 120–2, 138–58; Tönnies, S., Cosmopolis Now: Auf dem Weg zum Weltstaat (Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2002) p. 26. Taylor, C., ‘Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern’ in James L. Heft (ed.), Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ashland: Fordham University Press, 2004) pp. 32–5; Preuß, U. K., Krieg, Verbrechen, Blasphemie:

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35 36 37 38

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43 44 45 46 47 48 49

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Wolfgang Palaver Gedanken aus dem alten Europa (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 2003) p. 84. Hondrich, K. O., Wieder Krieg (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002) p. 121. See Burggraeve, R., ‘Because you are lukewarm, I spit you out of my mouth!’ ‘Foundations and Major Themes of Christian Ethical Radicalism’ in Pollefeyt, D. (ed.), Incredible Forgiveness: Christian Ethics between Fanaticism and Reconciliation (Leuven: Peeters, 2004) pp. 19–20. Schmitt, C., ‘Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political’, Telos, No. 127 (2004), 74. Ibid. p. 76. Klitsche de la Grange, T., ‘The Theory of the Partisan Today’, Telos, No. 127 (2004), 74. Scheffler, T., ‘Apocalypticism, Innerwordly Eschatology, and Islamic Extremism’ in I. Bellér-Hann and L. Gebhardt (eds.), Religion und Gewalt: Japan, der Nahe Osten und Südasien (Halle: Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 2003) p. 72. Weil, S., ‘The Iliad, or the Poem of Force’ in Weil, S. and Bespaloff, R., War and the Iliad, tr. M. McCarthy (New York: New York Review Book, 2005) p. 36. Shay, J., Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York: Scribner, 2003) pp. 111–15. Shay, J., Achilles in Vietnam. p. 115. Assmann, J., Herrschaft und Heil: Politische Theologie in Altägypten, Israel und Europa (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002) pp. 263–4; see also Assmann, J., ‘Gottes willige Vollstrecker: Zur Politischen Theologie der Gewalt’, Saeculum, Vol. 51, No. II (2000), 161–74. Canetti, E., Crowds and Powe, tr. C. Stewart (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973) pp. 168–71. Ibid., pp. 534–44. Ibid., p. 150. Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., p. 150. Ibid., pp. 165–8. Armstrong, K., Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) pp. 164–210; Osman, M. F., ‘God is the All-Peace, the All-Merciful’ in James L. Heft (ed.), Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ashland: Fordham University Press, 2004) pp. 62–3. See Volkan, V. D., The Need to have Enemies and Allies: From Clinical Practice to International Relationships (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1988) pp.134–5. Bartlett, A. W., Cross Purposes: The Violent Grammar of Christian Atonement (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001) p. 109.

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54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

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See Hoffman, B., Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) pp. 95–127; Juergensmeyer, M., Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) p. 12; Taylor, C., ‘Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern’ in James L. Heft (ed.), Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ashland: Fordham University Press, 2004) p. 36. Bin-Ladin, U., Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, tr. J. Howarth, edited and introduced by B. Lawrence (London: Verso, 2005) p. 40. See Paxton, R. O., The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Knopf, 2004); Taylor, C., ‘Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern’, pp. 30–6. Heer, F., Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler: Anatomie einer politische Religiosität (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein Sachbuch, 1989) p. 570. Allam, F., Der Islam in einer globalen Welt, tr. K. Pichler (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 2004) pp. 139–40. Volkan, V. D., The Need to have Enemies and Allies: From Clinical Practice to International Relationships (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1988) p. 176. Ibid. pp. 176–7. Tönnies, S., Cosmopolis Now: Auf dem Weg zum Weltstaat, pp. 46–9. Canetti, E., Crowds and Powe, p. 171. Ibid., p. 169. Girard, R., Je vois Satan tomber comme l’éclair (Paris: Grasset, 1999) pp. 10–11. Scheffler, T., ‘Vom Königsmord zum Attentat. Zur Kulturmorphologie des politischen Mordes’ in Trutz von Trotha (ed.), Soziologie der Gewalt (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997) pp. 182–99. Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, pp. 170–81. Weber, M., Ancient Judaism, tr. and ed. by Hans H. Gerth (Don Martindale, New York: Free Press, 1967) p. 174. Ibid., p. 375. Ibid., p. 376. Ibid., p. 369. Girard, R., ‘Violence and Religion: Cause or Effect?’, 14–17. Weber, M., Ancient Judaism, tr. and ed. by Hans H. Gerth (Don Martindale, New York: Free Press, 1967) p. 31. Ibid., p. 403. Weber, M., The Sociology of Religion, tr. E. Fischoff (London: Social Science Paperbacks, 1971) p. 111. Lewis, C. S., Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1986) p. 30. Girard, R., ‘Violence in Biblical Narrative’, Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 23, No. 2 (1999), 388.

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82 83

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Wolfgang Palaver Ibid., p. 391. Weber, M., Ancient Judaism, p. 260. Hume, D., Principle Writings on Religion including Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion, ed. with an Introduction and Notes by J. C. A. Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998) p. 163. Girard, R., Job: The Victim of His People (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) p. 108; Girard, R., The Girard Reader, ed. by James G. Williams, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996) p. 252; see also Fraser, G., Christianity and Violence: Girard, Nietzsche, Anselm and Tutu (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2001). Weil, S., Intimitations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks (London: Routledge, 2003) pp. 60, 137, 161; Weil, S., Letter to a Priest (New York: Penguin Books, 2003) pp. 14, 18, 24, 64. United States Catholic Conference, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our response. A Pastoral Letter on War and Peace by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1983) No. 32. 1 Kings 3,11–14: ‘God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right,12 I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.13 I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you.14 If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”’ Weber, M., Ancient Judaism, pp. 375–6. Schwager, R., Jesus in the Drama of Salvation: Toward a Biblical Doctrine of Redemption, tr. J. G. Williams and P. Haddon (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1999) pp. 146, 152, 207. Gopin, M., Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp. 41–2, 78–9. Osman, M. F., ‘God is the All-Peace, the All-Merciful’ in James L. Heft (ed.), Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ashland: Fordham University Press, 2004) pp. 58, 69–70. See Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, pp. 178–81; Girard, R., The Girard Reader, pp. 208–9, 275; Girard, R., ‘Violence and Religion: Cause or Effect?’, 18–9; Girard, R., ‘Violence and Religion’ in Peter Walter (ed.), Das Gewaltpotential des Monotheismus und der dreieine Gott (Freiburg: Herder, 2005) pp. 180–90, pp. 188–9; Taylor, C., ‘Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern’ in James L. Heft (ed.), Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam,

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pp. 29–30, 67–8, 35–7; Waldmann, P. Terrorismus und Bürgerkrieg: Der Staat in Bedrängnis (München: Gerling Akademie Verlag, 2003), pp. 232–8. Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p. 158. Girard, R., Quand ces choses commenceront . . . Entretiens avec Michel Treguer, (Paris: Arléa, 1994) p. 65; Girard, R., I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p. 181. Girard, R., The Scapegoat, tr. Y. Freccero (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 116.

6 Monotheism and Violence Terry Eagleton

Ward: In your books Holy Terror and Sweet Violence, the motif of sacrifice runs throughout. Holy Terror ends on the nature of the sacrifice. How important was the work of Girard for your project? Eagleton: I kept thinking that I must go back and read while I was working on this project. Eventually I did, but didn’t find his work as useful as I had expected for what I was up to. I was trying to develop a notion of sacrifice that he really wasn’t much help with. I suppose, among other things, there is a certain functionalism about his view of sacrifice which I don’t share. Ward: I was wondering whether you were going to say that. Whenever Girard does appear in your book, it seems what impressed you most are the work he does on Oedipus and his work on the classical texts. Eagleton: There could obviously be an anxiety of influence there. But, consciously at least, I felt that our thoughts about sacrifice were diverging. One rather glib way of putting the point is that he is not political enough about it. Part of what I was trying to do myself was to bring ancient notions of sacrifice together with modern ideas of revolution. In both cases, the reviled, the unclean is transformed, made holy; the shit of the earth becomes fertile; the outcast and polluted are raised like Oedipus or Christ to a sacred (which means dangerous, transfigurative) status. Girard didn’t help much there. Ward: The other thing that seems to be quite a common theme, in your work, is the appeal to Catholic Christianity as some kind of benchmark. Let’s talk about the role of religion. Eagleton: Yes, I suppose both Sweet Violence and Holy Terror argue that the paradigm of holy terror is Yahweh himself, in all the Janus-facedness of his terrifyingly violently love. This is how you might call violence sweet – the sheer ruthlessness of divine love and forgiveness, its bulldozing through the landscape rather than conforming meekly to its contours, which connects to the militant avant-gardism of Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom. But, there are also dangers in terror, apart from

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the obvious ones. I have just finished a big book on ethics called Trouble with Strangers, which among other things engages in a critique of what might call a Lacanian ethics of the Real. This, too, involves a kind of terror; but in the hands of Lacan and some of his acolytes, this kind of extreme, extravagant, uncompromising ethic, summarized in the celebrated Lacanian slogan ‘Do not give way on your desire’, is in many ways scornful of ordinary, common or garden morality. There is a very Gallic vanguardism or aristocratism of the spirit about it, which incidentally is also very modernist. Lacan and some of his followers are actually quite scathing about everyday ethics, which are too suburban and petty-bourgeois for them. In a Nietzschean spirit, compassion and human welfare are really only fit for shopkeepers. I am attracted by the idea of not giving way on your desire – partly because it can be translated as ‘don’t lose faith with death’ (since emptiness of desire prefigures the emptiness of death), partly because there is something exemplary about the tragic figure who cannot abandon the desire that is constitutive of his or her very selfhood, and who thus goes to her death (think of Antigone) rather than surrender this desire to the powers of this world – those, in short, who can’t walk away from their desires. You get a lot of this in Ibsen. I suppose Jesus goes to his death because he cannot give up on this desire for his father, which is faith. The problem, however, is to reconcile this necessarily tragic tenacity and commitment with the other face of a Judeo-Christian ethics, which is all very commonplace, materialist, sober and non-extravagant. Salvation is about giving someone a cup of water, not being locked into some room 101 of the spirit. It is not about sublimation, it is about bathos. Ward: That seems not so much Catholic than Calvinist. Eagleton: Well, here we come up against the same problem. At least, there’s a kind of absolutism here, a sense of trauma, of violent transgression and deep violation. Žižek talks of what he calls the ‘angelic’ face of the Law, as well as of its obscene and demonic underside, which is the vindictiveness of the superego and finally of the death drive. But I think this formulation isn’t dialectical or oxymoronic enough. It’s not just that God has an angelic and a demonic face, but that his love is terrifying, and will burn you to bits if you are not careful. The Devil is a fallen angel. Ward: Is there not a Gnosticism there? Because I find in Lacan that there is something quite Gnostic going on. Eagleton: It is important to see ethics as traumatic, disruptive – that is, in Lacan’s terms, Real rather than just imaginary or symbolic (though there are also valuable forms of ethics of just those kinds, as I argue in my new book). But, the price one risks paying for this – and here I come to your point about Gnosticism – is a certain abstraction or elevation of the ethical over the material world, a certain fine Nietzschean disdain for it. Perhaps idealism would be another word for it. And, if you want a critique of this too-sublimated, too-high-toned, too-anti-normative ethics of the Real, Judaeo-Christianity can in my view provide it. It brings the poetry of the commonplace together with what one might call the ‘good’ side of an

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‘extreme’ ethics of death, suffering, self-dispossession and deprivation. Even Levinas, who is rather more fleshly than the Lacanians, ends up making morality sound like a rather intimidating affair, though he too tries in Judaic fashion to bring ethics as Real or traumatic or ‘extreme’ together with ethics as the vulnerable everyday face of the other. The whole Gallic tradition here (Barthes, Derrida, Lacan and so on) needs a good dash of Anglo-Saxon earthiness. In fact, sometimes I think that is all we can provide . . . Ward: I’m interested in that New Testament concept of bathos, and, just where does the crucifixion of Christ figure? It does seem to figure quite a lot, particularly Sweet Violence as a benchmark of something, which crosses civilizations. Eagleton: The crucifixion indeed comes back very centrally. If the Law is seen as essentially as Satanic – as punitive, vindictive, sadistic, in short, superegoic (what Freud calls ‘a pure culture of the death instinct’), then it has a fatal complicity with desire. It has this complicity because of our primordial masochism, our desire to be punished. Law and desire are thus locked in cahoots. The crucifixion unpicks or deconstructs this pathological knot because it shows up the law not as Satanic but as the law of love. Astonishingly, it is not the law that is transgressive – a most un-postmodern case, to be sure, and no doubt all the better for that. It is by being faithful to the law of justice and mercy that you get yourself strung up. Jesus on the cross doesn’t give up on his desire, can’t do so, and thus becomes the classical tragic protagonist who conquers by failing – who ‘succeeds’ through the faith or resoluteness with which he confronts and embraces his own breakdown and finitude. I dislike certain of the solitary, anti-social elements that Lacan see in Antigone, but I think even so he’s seeing something important here about the crucifixion. Not giving up on your desire even when there is nothing in it for you – this is the only kind of tragic emptiness that can finally bring you life. Ward: So, the crucifixion kind of acts emblematically as this oxymoron, in its most dramatic form? Eagleton: Yes. There is a need to endure here a certain deformity, what the Gospel calls the descent into hell. The encounter with the fearful slime of nihilism, the sheer cackling mockery of those wedded diabolically to nothingness. No redemption short of that descent can be worth anything. It will just turn out to be another dose of reformism, pouring new wine into old bottles. The only way out of the Real of hell is to stare it per impossible in the face, to turn one’s gaze on the Medusa’s head of utter futility. This for me is what Jesus’ descent into hell signifies. And it must really and truly be a cul-de-sac, not just a simulacrum of one, if it is also to be the point of entry to transfigured existence. If you have a canny eye on an escape hatch, the thing won’t work, there can be absolutely no resurrection. You need to be well and truly dead, not just laying down and playing possum with an eye to Easter morning. There is an emancipatory extremism about Christianity of which I find a resonance in a Lacanian ethics of the Real. But, whereas Lacanian ethics are ultimately heroic, Jesus is exactly not. There is nothing in the least heroic about this squalid, hole-in-the-corner death. That is an enormous difference. There is no

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bathos in the Lacanian legacy, no carnivalesque dimension. You cannot imagine the great Jacques riding a donkey, even though he was Hosannah-ed quite a lot in his lifetime. Ward: I’m just wondering, about that. It’s not just Christ, Christianity figures throughout Holy Violence. The whole notion of agape is important for you, and also the notion of piety as a form of politics: the Eucharist as a good form of nothingness. It’s almost as if you’ve got a Lacanian reading of contemporary culture, and, then, this Christian kind of dialectic that could assist in deconstructing or at least shedding light on this situation? Eagleton: I’m not quite sure what the relationship between Christianity and psychoanalysis is – except perhaps to say that if psychoanalysis is right about humanity, then probably nothing short of Christianity is going to save us (which doesn’t mean that it necessarily will). I mean, psychoanalysis outlines an immensely cogent and persuasive version of original sin, which radical politics in itself is not equipped to redeem. But then, there is no reason why it should. It can still do other important things for us. The fact that it can’t conquer death doesn’t mean it can’t vanquish capitalism. Herbert McCabe argues that Christianity is the ultimate revolution because it penetrates to the stuff of the body itself. Or, to put it this way: if the psychoanalytical Real as horrific and death-dealing and obscene as it is, then only the presence of some Real that is on our side, which for all its own unspeakable terror is friendly to humanity, is going to do. So, on the one hand, you have petty-bourgeois moralists who don’t want God to be a friend and lover because that would undercut their attempts to get on terms with Him by being impeccably well-behaved; and, on the other hand, you have got the more aristocratic, Nietzschean or Lacanian moralists for whom the Real is simply horrific (Dionysian, Nietzsche would say) and for whom the ideas of friendly, loving, down-to-earth, incarnation Real is an impossibility. In fact, you could write a history of modern thought in terms of how friendly or malicious the Real – the desire that makes us what we are – is considered to be. Friendly in the end for Hegel, for example, but not in the least for Schopenhauer or Freud. Ward: Do you see any parallels between what you’re doing and what Žižek, Agamben and Badiou are doing, trying to find resources within Christianity? For example, they are even going back to writing commentaries on Romans: to try and use it or see that text as a political resource. I mean Žižek or Badiou, would say they don’t believe at all. But, nevertheless, they want to refer to religious texts. What is that about? Eagleton: It is interesting, isn’t it, that in an era when religion is in one sense at its most obnoxious, all the way from Texas to the Taliban, theology in some of its guises is providing radical political resources for a world bereft of them. God, so to speak, is active on both sides of the fence. Some would no doubt claim that it is precisely a sign of our parlous time that theology – of all things! – should offer a radical discourse largely abandoned elsewhere. Are we shorn of secular political resources that we have to turn to the science of God? Or were those secular

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resources in fact versions of that science all along? In an epoch of political downturn, I think, there are almost always gains as well as losses. For one thing, a less euphoric left begins soberly to appreciate the limits as well as the strengths of the political. For another thing, a left that is often in sectarian mood when the political going is good begins to relax a bit, becomes a less stiffly orthodox and appreciates that there are heterodox sources (theology among them) which it now doesn’t have the luxury to look in the mouth. For Walter Benjamin, the political crisis through which he lives, and finally destroyed him, was so urgent that there was no time for that sort of theoretical purism. His implicit slogan, you might say, is ‘Never reject anything, because you never know when it’ going to come in handy’. With, of course, the implicit corollary: ‘If it doesn’t come in handy, ditch it out without nostalgia’, which you might say is the more Brechtian dimension of Benjamin. Ward: Is that a post-war Salford householdism? Eagleton: A certain authentic northern meanness perhaps, in my case, masquerading as a revolutionary economizing . . . Žižek would be a case, wouldn’t he, of a thinker who has recognized that some theological notions are a lot more radical and destructive than some of what we currently have on offer from a somewhat impoverished secular left. This is wholly surprising because there is a sense in which psychoanalysis, Žižek’s stock-in-trade, is highly religious. Not only because it is made up of a lot of bickering sects and high priests, with its own rituals of confession and excommunication, because it is arguably the discourse that poses for modernity the kind of impossibly profound questions – Who are we? Where are we from? Can there be love among humans? What do we want in the end? What is the nature of our desire? – which theology has traditionally raised. Though, of course, it raises them within a far more disenchanted, even tragic perspective, it has its own vision of original sin as well. For Lacan, our entry into the symbolical order is the fall. Though, like all the best falls, it is one up, not down. Ward: I’m interested in the way in which people are using that, because that’s another way in which people are making religion visible. You’ve got a number of sociologists who want to say that the return to religion is the return to consolation. That, in fact, culturally, it’s so dire out there. It doesn’t seem to me, from what you’re saying, nor from the way in which Žižek uses theology, that there’s any kind of nostalgia. It is actually much more about trying to find a resource, to be more radical than the kind of bourgeois, liberal democracy, which, simply, is sedating that possibility. Eagleton: Whose limits have also been starkly exposed, in our time, by the expansion of the global, capitalist system? That, again, in periods that can fund social democracy, in a deep kind of way, that you might be prepared to go along with those positions, but when you see the limits of that, then, maybe, you turn elsewhere. The consolation question is interesting, though. It seems, to me, much too simple, and glib, to say that they turn to religion for consolation. They might, on the other hand, turn to it because they’re frightened, and that deep anxiety, perfectly understandable, in this kind of world. Then, I think, interestingly,

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it takes the form, not of some teddy bear, cuddly consolation, but takes the form of aggressive, militant fundamentalism. It’s anxiety that feeds that, very much, as anxiety stands behind so much aggression, so that what we’re seeing is not, yes, the consolation argument is right, insofar that fundamentalism is, among many other things, an attempt to cling onto old, certain values, in the face of their erosion. On the other hand, it does that in an extraordinary militant and aggressive way that doesn’t seem, to me, to fit in with the tradition of spiritual consolation, contemplation, and so on, so that what we have is a bifocation. On the one hand, the spawning of extremely ugly forms of religious belief, which become the political enemy, in many ways, at the very moment when theology, having, in late modernity, to some degree, having passed the buck, to adjacent discourses, like psychoanalysis or, God help us, literary criticism (Ward: Literature, anyway) Literature, which is certainly a very theological idea, theology having done that as, in a sort of era of crisis, when the left has been running down, begun to reclaim that field. Ward: It’s a very interesting phenomenon. When you’re looking at the situation, as it is now, you’ve used the word late modernity to describe this situation. Do you think that fundamentalism is a reaction? Is this the postmodern reaction to modernity, to the Enlightenment project? Or is this a new romanticism? Eagleton: I wonder how new it is, actually. In one sense, obviously, it is: new forms have sprung up. On the other hand, I suppose, Enlightenment and CounterEnlightenment have danced, a hand-to-hand minuet, throughout history – sometimes to the point where it becomes not easy to sort them out. Yes, to that degree, reaction might be too weak a word. Enlightenment has always harboured its opposite in its bosom, either in extremely creative ways, as in certain elements of romanticism, or in deeply irrationalist, vicious ways and so on. One thing that interests me, there, about Marxism, in that respect, is that it’s very hard to fit into either of those categories. It’s immanent critique of Enlightenment, you might say. The problem is: the difficulties in which Marxism is hindered in its attempt to adopt an immanent critique that’s now bifurcated into a shallow enlightened rationality, on the one hand, and an increasingly irrationalist CounterEnlightenment, on the other. Ward: One of the reasons I was asking that is because that there are certain elements in Sweet Violence and Holy Terror that actually remind me of people who have been talking of the re-emergence of the Gothic imagination. Words like ‘terror’ and ‘the sublime’. Now, just thinking about it, somebody once suggested to me, and I think it may have been you, that we should read Das Kapital as a Gothic novel. Eagleton: I wish I’d said that, as the man said to Oscar Wilde (to which, of course, he replied: ‘You will, you will . . . ’). Gothic doesn’t actually figure in my preoccupations at the moment, thought it did when I wrote about the culture of Ireland (Dracula was a Dubliner, of course). What interests me, however, is the way that the Gothic or the horror movies reproduce the traditional tragic responses of pity and fear. On the one hand: How nice he’s being destroyed and not me!

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On the other hand: what a shame! In my new book on ethics, I argue that almost all ethical theories can be classified in one or another of Lacan’s categories of the imaginary, symbolic and Real. Or some permutation of the three. One of the strengths of an imaginary ethics, by which I mean an intuitive, empathetic, benevolent, eighteenth-century sort of ethics, is its cultivation of sympathy and compassion, which is, in a broad sense, ‘imaginary’. But it does so at the expense of a sense of strangeness, and of our difficult relationship to strangers, which concerns the symbolic and the Real. It has, if you like, pity, but it can make nothing of fear. It’s a warm world, but a coterie as well. It can’t really deal with aliens, whereas the symbolic deals with us all too much as though we’re alien to each other. And the Real deals with the alien as intimate – as closer to us than breathing. Christian faith is very uncompromising when it comes to strangers: it says, outrageously, that you have to be prepared to die for them. I mean, dying for a friend – well, maybe, that’s just OK; but for a stranger! As for the ethics of the Real, well, once again, it has a deep and absolute appreciation of the traumatic otherness of the neighbour, what one might call the sheer hideousness and abrasiveness of this apparently cosy figure: but it lacks the concern with workaday sympathies and friendship, which is more typical of the imaginary. Ward: The Unheimlich, ja? Eagleton: It is; that’s right. The gothic as yet again the dark side of the Enlightenment; as raising what, necessarily, it has to repress in order to be what it is. Ward: For both you and Žižek, the aesthetic concept of the sublime is quite important in actually thinking that through. Eagleton: Yes, the more I look at it, the more I see the sublime as a kind of secularized holy terror. It’s one place where divine holy terror migrates once God has been gentrified by the Enlightenment, when he has become a super-watchmaker or Eminently Reasonable Being. You need a stand-in for divine terror, and the sublime is among other things just that. Most aesthetic concepts are theological ones in disguise. In late modernity, the sublime will then pass the buck in this respect to the unconscious. Sublimity becomes sublimation – which means raising up a lowly thing to the status of the infinite, switching ontological gears, as it were. The theological implications of that are self-evident. Because this brings us back to the notion of sacrifice – of the object passing from the reviled to the sacred. Ward: The last question I was thinking about, in terms of the sense I had in reading Sweet Violence, was that we need to get back to tragedy. Do you see that the culture we’re in needs the sublime, needs the tragic? Otherwise it’s just sinking in banality. Eagleton: Well, some might ask whether there isn’t there enough tragedy around already. What we need perhaps is not tragedy, but the sense of value that tragedy involves. There cannot be tragedy without value. A world without value would not be in the least tragic. It would have nothing to contrast its dismal condition with. Some might argue that Samuel Beckett is already in this post-tragic condition.

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For a certain kind of patrician Kulturkritik, like that of George Steiner, the problem is that tragedy is dead. But, this is partly because he trades on a jealously exclusive idea of tragedy. The gods have turned their backs on us; the tragedy can’t survive without their intolerable presence. This strikes value out of the commonplace, so that tragedy becomes impossible. But for Christian faith, God has ‘turned his back on us’, become invisible, by being at one with us in the sacredness of the ordinary, which is why there can indeed still be tragedy. At the centre of human history lies the image of a tortured and murdered political criminal. This is certainly a matter of tragedy – though Steiner and his ilk would not see anything as ignoble and unheroic as the crucifixion as tragic at all. Tragedy has to involve the death of princes, and princes don’t get themselves born in stables. Ward: The terrorism, violence and, if you like, tragedy now are so technologized that, in fact, they’re permeated with the secular values that disenchanted the world. So, it seems to me that what you are exploring in Sweet Violence is an aesthetics of tragedy that could actually reinstall the sacred. Eagleton: Do we need tragedy? Do we need to confront it? Well, yes, but not in the sense of getting our heads blown off. That’s why tragedy is originally a matter of art rather than life. Tragic art sublimates and gives shape to the intolerable, rather perhaps as we can confront the Real of the crucifixion only through sign, through sacrament. It is a kind of Ersatz or aestheticized terror. Rather, as for psychoanalysis, you don’t literally have to slay the father; all that is now encountered and confronted at the level of the symbolic. There is a difference between saying we need that, and saying that we need catastrophes in real life. Ward: One of the terms, a number of sociologists use when they are trying to describe the culture we’re in (I’m thinking of people like Zygmunt Bauman), when they’re trying to describe the neo-romantic strains in this culture, a culture that plays with pop-transcendence, kitsch-transcendence, whatever, is the word ‘re-enchantment’. This is trying to overturn a Weberian reading of the modern. Is that the kind of vocabulary, I’ve never heard you using it, but is that the kind of vocabulary that actually you would feel at home with? Eagleton: I would probably draw it more from Benjamin than Bauman. Certainly, for Benjamin, the commodity is a kind of false enchantment, a deceitful promesse de bonheur. One side of the commodity is deeply, cynically materialist – like a whore, it will shack up with anyone for money – and the other side is seductive and angelic. The fetishistic side, if you like. And the one can be turned against the other. Since Benjamin’s day, this new form of bogus enchantment has become celebrity. What Adorno shrewdly saw about the movies was that technology (which in Benjamin’s view is disenchanting, strips off the aura) is now harnessed to a new form of magic. And then celebrities get God, going for the ultimate form of enchantment . . . It is a terror of everyday life, which in this view has become unendurable cheapened and prosaic. So you start believing that events on earth are controlled by spaceships behind the clouds. You would not believe this if you only had a thirty-eight quid in the bank. Postmodernism, though, to do justice, does

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indeed accept the everyday, and like all, Surrealism finds its illumination there. Though if high modernism is sometimes too captivated by enchantment (not least the enchantments of form and style), postmodernism is sometimes too disillusioned about it. Charles Taylor reminds us that the concept of everyday began in Christianity. Eric Auerbach in Mimesis rightly pushes it back to Judaism. Ward: Do you think there is still a possibility for that? Eagleton: Well, the last big chance for it was surely the revolutionary avant-garde of the early twentieth century, which was precisely concerned with the dissolving of the enchantment of art into everyday life. Reading your poetry through a megaphone in the factory yard, like Mayakovsky, or scribbling poems on people’s pyjamas. Finding the sacred within the profane, the discarded and marginal (Benjamin spoke of the ‘profane illumination’ of Surrealism), rather than having a hotline to the transcendent But, there is also a sense for Benjamin in which the aura must be preserved as well as dispelled, and this comes through when he speaks about memory. Memory for Benjamin being, of course, potentially revolutionary: it is memories of enslaved ancestors that drive you to revolt, as he says, not dreams of liberated grandchildren. Memory as the repository of the hopes and failures and the still living energies of the dispossessed of the past. It is this for him that is in danger of slipping away in a world in which experience itself is under threat, increasingly banal and consumer-wrapped. Certain collective political memories have an aura of preciousness, as some personal ones do for Benjamin’s beloved Proust, which for Benjamin fascism is trying to wipe from the human record. Once we exhausted the resources of tradition, meaning the fight against oppression, we are finished. In our situation, postmodern ‘presentism’ is a threat to such radical tradition, as is the whole false auraticizing of so-called heritage. Ward: Well, that’s the difficulty. A lot of it is commodified nostalgia. Opposed to someone like Damien Hirst, you find people like Anselm Kiefer, for instance, who are trying to do something more evocative. And I’m just wondering what the possibilities are for this good aesthetics that you want? Eagleton: Well, part of the problem is that artists cannot legislate the right conditions for themselves. That is up to politics. The aesthetic takes its cue from the historical. If one is materialist, one does not believe that a new aesthetic can just spontaneously appear. What made Benjamin and Brecht possible in the end was the existence of a mass German labour movement with its own theatres, newspapers and so on. We can’t have that kind of culture because we don’t have the material infrastructure for it. Materialist cultural critics may commit many sins, but vanity is hardly likely to be one of them, since one’s materialism tells one that in the end culture isn’t where it’s at. None of the crises now facing humankind is in any precise sense of the term cultural, not even the so-called war on terror. But, to know that culture is not everything is not to say that it is nothing. You can define it, for example, as what people are prepared to kill for. And that is hardly nothing.

7 The Art of Disappearing: Religion and Aestheticization Yves de Maeseneer

It has become a cliché to characterize our contemporary context in terms of ‘aestheticization’. But, is this notion more than a phrase – as catchy as it is empty? For lack of definition, the term has become exchangeable with a lot of more or less related terms, like, for instance, ‘re-enchantment’ or ‘trivialization’.1 In this essay, we will depart from one of the few attempts to define the notion of ‘aestheticization’. Although that definition resonates with the mainstream use of the term, we will question it by means of a close reading of two epoch-making aesthetic theories (Theodor W. Adorno’s and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s).2 In particular, an exploration of the structural components of aesthetic experience (subject–object relation and form), within their respective philosophical and theological approach, will open up a different perspective on aestheticization and its impact on religion.3

I. A mainstream definition: aestheticization as subjectivization A helpful point of departure is the survey article written by the German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch, covering the different aspects involved in the mainstream use of the term.4 Welsch defines aestheticization as the process in which the nonaesthetic is being made aesthetic or conceived of as aesthetic. Or, to put it the other way around, aestheticization is the process by which the aesthetic exceeds its bounds and extends over non-aesthetic spheres. But what then is the aesthetic? Generally speaking, the aesthetic concerns the sensible on different levels: sensorial perception, emotions, and more specific, the beautiful, whether with regard to the arts or not. In line with this multi-layered notion of the aesthetic, Welsch distinguishes the process of aestheticization into different levels, in which various facets of the aesthetic come into play: a.

First of all, one can discern a surface aestheticization: the emergence of a ‘spectacle society’, in which aesthetic practices like entertainment, face-lifting

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and fashion provide the paradigms for the different non-aesthetic spheres in society. Politics, for example, becomes a business of spin doctors and imagebuilding advisers. b. More fundamentally, there is an in-depth aestheticization of the material and social world, and of the human subject. Reality is virtualizing – it loses objectivity – and becomes manipulable by means of mass media, genetic technology, etc. In this aestheticized world, the human subject experiences an increasing possibility of constructing his or her own identity. c. Finally, Welsch considers the former processes as manifestations of what he indicates as ‘epistemological aestheticization’. This epistemological aestheticization refers to a fundamental shift in our perception of what truth, the human subject and reality are. Welsch sketches this process as a modern trajectory that began with Kant’s transcendental philosophy, over to Nietzsche’s genealogy of knowledge, and towards the widespread postmodern view that truth is always the product of a constructive activity – as Richard Rorty puts it: ‘truth is made, not found’. In this perspective, the human being discovers itself as an animal fingens – a fictive animal (fictive in the active sense of the word) – and the world as its design. Along these lines, aestheticization is understood as the radical consequence of the modern turn to the subject and the underlying modern project of emancipation from authority: in an aestheticized context, human beings are finally enabled to become the authors of their own life and world. In such a context, the religious system is undergoing a drastic mutation. Aestheticization fosters an aesthetic, noncommittal attitude towards religious traditions. Postmodern subjects behave as consumers of religious goods: being creative individuals, they consider traditions as a repository of materials for their identity construction. Religious motives are instrumentalized in a process of ‘bricolage’. Religious experiences are sought after as far as they reinforce the subjective identity. Religion loses its authoritative power, and becomes a function of the self, a self that considers itself as the author of its own life. This evolution of aesthetic subjectivization seems to imply a drastic devaluation of religion, and a denial of its authority.

II. Prophets for an aesthetic turn revisited: Adorno and von Balthasar Aestheticization, the process in which the aesthetic functions as a paradigm for non-aesthetic spheres, seems to come down to a radical subjectivization. At first sight, Welsch’s notion of aestheticization sounds self-evident: at least, it corresponds to our spontaneous idea of it. However, such a notion of aestheticization presupposes a somewhat naive concept of the aesthetic as a modern, subjective category. In this chapter, we will challenge this notion of aestheticization with a different view on the aesthetic and the modern subject, and on the interrelation

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between both terms. We will draw upon two influential texts that were in some sense ‘prophetic’: Theodor W. Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory (1970)5 and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Glory of the Lord I. A Theological Aesthetics (1961).6 Both thinkers were, already in the 1960s, pleading for a turn towards the aesthetic to break through the Modern impasse. The German philosopher of the ‘Frankfurt school’ does not need an introduction. The Swiss theologian von Balthasar may be less famous outside of the faculties of Divinity, where his voice, after an initially hesitant reception, is nowadays dominantly present. Von Balthasar is representative for a certain Christian revivalism: he is called ‘the Pope’s favourite theologian’ – both John Paul II and Benedict XVI highly appreciated his work – and he influenced the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams as well.7 Adorno and von Balthasar are often considered as antipoles; however, a close reading of their respective works brings to the fore a surprising convergence.8 Our aim is a detailed comparison of Adorno and von Balthasar – We will only use them to elaborate an alternative notion of the aesthetic, and consequently of aestheticization, in order to formulate a critical perspective on the situation of religion today. Our method will be a close reading focusing on the crucial notion of aesthetic experience in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory and von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics. Note that the notion ‘experience’, which is central in their respective frameworks, draws attention to aspects which are overlooked in the productivist notion of aesthetics as it is used in the mainstream definition presented above.

Adorno: aesthetic experience versus modern instrumentalization Adorno’s analysis of the twentieth-century context – Nazism, capitalism and Stalinism – comes down to a diagnostic of a modern instrumentalization of reason.9 This instrumental reason subsists in the levelling out of all differences. The modern subject identifies everything in function of itself. The imposition of a totalitarian identity upon the non-identical serves the aim of a total control. A particular example of this context is, for Adorno, the modern culture industry, which offers cultural goods for mass consumption. As such, the culture industry fosters a false subjectivization. In clear distinction from the surrogate experience offered by the culture industry, Adorno states that the authentic aesthetic experience shatters the coercive logic of identification. This aesthetic experience places the observing subject at a distance from the object. The aesthetic object is a form with its own autonomy: it stands apart, an sich. This object can never be reduced to the subject, can never be identified as a function of the self. As such, the aesthetic experience interrupts the modern instrumental relation to the object. Throughout his Aesthetic Theory, Adorno uses spatial metaphors to describe this experience.10 This enables us to schematize his view on aesthetic experience, as follows.

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The distance between the beholder and the work of art opens up a space within which two movements take place. On the one hand, aesthetic experience involves a going out of oneself towards the object – see movement M. It is about a ‘stepping outside of itself ’ 11 of the subject in order to ‘go into the object’,12 ‘to submerge in the work of art’,13 or, ‘referring to a comparison by Goethe, to enter into the work of art as you enter a chapel’.14 The subject is decentred in order to surrender itself to a movement M’ ‘which starts from the object’.15 This is a ‘countermovement to the subject [. . .] It demands something on the order of the self-denial of the beholder, his capacity to address or recognize what aesthetic objects themselves enunciate and what they conceal’.16 The subject has to become radically receptive in favour of a ‘priority of the object’ 17: Involuntarily and unconsciously, the beholder signs a contract with the work, agreeing to submit to it on condition that it speak. [. . .] a pure self-abandonment.18

With regard to the work of art, Adorno shows that the standard modern relation between subject and object is inverted. While the modern culture industry promotes the consumption of cultural objects, the true relation to art was never one of its incorporation [Einverleibung, which can also mean ‘consumption’ or ‘physical devouring’], but, inversely, the beholder disappeared into the material; this is even more so in modern works that run the viewer over like a locomotive does sometimes in a film.19

So, in the aesthetic experience, the consumption relation is blocked and inverted; the same happens to the instrumental relation of projection: The spectator must not project what transpires in himself on to the artwork in order to find himself confirmed, uplifted, and satisfied in it, but must, inversely, relinquish himself to the artwork [sich entäussern], assimilate himself to it, and fulfill the work in its own terms. In other words, he must submit to the discipline of the work rather than demand that the artwork give him something.20

What is required is an ‘inverted identification’: the subject does not make the aesthetic object identical to itself (as in an instrumental relation), but the other way around. Over against a subjectivizing projection, Adorno pleas for a relinquishment to the artwork in order to fulfil it, an ‘aesthetic surrender to the

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object, the artwork’ (ästhetische Entäusserung 21). Adorno presents this inverted identification explicitly as a disappearing of the subject: ‘to lose oneself, forget oneself, extinguish oneself in the artwork’.22 The real relation to art is the one in which he the beholder vanishes.

Von Balthasar: Christ experience versus subjectivization Von Balthasar – albeit in a different language than Adorno’s – makes a similar diagnostic of modernity in terms of coercive identity and subjectivization.23 In the introduction of his theological aesthetics, von Balthasar indicates that his project aims to counter the impoverishment within theology, which is the result of the loss of the aesthetic dimension. In the modern era, this impoverishment, which implies not in the last place a poverty of experience, is closely related to the emergence of a modern subject instrumentalizing the world in function of himself. To counter this evolution, von Balthasar proposes the phenomenon of aesthetic experience as an analogy of the Christian experience. Similar to Adorno, he points to the distance shaped by the aesthetic form (in von Balthasar’s idiom: Gestalt), ‘in its being-in-itself (and not only in its being-for-me)’.24 The form is irreducible: it blocks every appropriation by the subject: The quality of ‘being-in-itself’ which belongs to the beautiful, the demand the beautiful itself makes to be allowed to be what it is, the demand, therefore, that we renounce our attempts to control and manipulate it, in order truly to be able to be happy by enjoying it.25

In short: it forbids every functionalization. Like in Adorno’s aesthetic theory, spatial metaphors are used to evoke the double structural dynamics of the aesthetic experience in von Balthasar’s work. On the one hand, von Balthasar describes the decentring effect of the aesthetic experience: the radical ‘extraversion’ 26 of the subject (in the scheme above: movement M). In the enrapturing experience of beauty, a self-surrender takes place in service of the beautiful. The human gives up his or her autonomy in order to obey the law of the beautiful form: the aesthetic experience is in the first place an act of passivity. Beauty is said to be ‘literally “trans-porting”’.27: Before the beautiful – no, not really before but within the beautiful – the whole person quivers. He not only ‘finds’ the beautiful moving; he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it. [. . .] Such a person has been taken up wholesale into the reality of the beautiful and is now fully subordinate to it, determined by it, animated by it.28

As such, the subject is, as it were, incorporated by the aesthetic form. The other way around, the aesthetic object is represented as actively moving towards the beholder (M’): all our senses are engaged when the interior space of a beautiful musical composition or painting opens itself to us and captivates us: the whole person then enters into a state of vibration and becomes responsive space, the ‘sounding box’ of the event of beauty occurring within him.29

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In this experience, we make room in ourselves in order to correspond to the form that exacts imitation. How this aesthetic dynamics delivers the pattern to develop a religious worldview becomes clear when von Balthasar proposes this aesthetic structure as the most appropriate analogy for the Christian experience. Von Balthasar is describing the Christian experience along the lines of the same structural dynamics. In the Christian experience, which consists in the encounter with the image of Christ (Christusgestalt, literally: ‘Christ form’), the human being is decentred, ‘expropriated’.30 In an exegesis of Saint Paul’s letters, von Balthasar develops the notion of Christian experience in line with the aesthetic experience as the progressive growth of one’s own existence into Christ’s existence, on the basis of Christ’s continuing action taking shape (Sicheingestalten Christi) in the believer: ‘until Christ has taken shape (Gestalt) in you’. (Gal 4:19) 31

The German notion ‘Eingestaltung’ is hard to translate: it is in-formation, literally understood as the impressing of a form into somebody, but it also refers to the entering of someone into a form. It is a process of a trans-formation: the transfer of a form, and the transport into a form. Here, you have both movements (M and M’) at once, which indicates a strong inversion of the standard modern relation between subject and object. This presupposes a fundamental receptivity, a primal passivity, an openness for an active form. By making room for the form of Christ within oneself, the believer is letting Christ take shape in her/himself, up to the Paul’s famous cry ‘It is not I that live, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20).32 In this movement of being expropriated for God, of surrender in faith, the believer finds her/himself already being grasped by Christ. Christian experience is ‘entering into Christ’.33 The core of Christian experience is transformation: ‘Constant contemplation of the whole Christ, through the Holy Spirit, transforms the beholder as a whole into the image of Christ’ (2C or 3:18).34 Through this imitation of Christ, the believer participates in His life. In this context, von Balthasar recurrently plays with the musical metaphor of ‘tuning’ (Stimmung). The end of Christian experience is ‘to make the whole man a space that responds to the divine content. Faith attunes man to this sound [. . .] preparing him to be a violin that receives just this touch of the bow’.35 The fundamental pitch of the Christian experience is the tune of Christ. This involves attuning (sich-einstimmen) oneself deliberately to ‘the accord (Stimmen) between Christ and the mandate from the Father’, which is a kenotic accord: we speak, therefore, primarily of an empathy with the Son who renounces the form of God and chooses the form of humiliation; we speak of a sense for the path taken by Christ which leads him to the Cross; we speak of a sensorium for Christ’s ‘instinct of obedience’.36

The fundamental experience, the disposition (Stimmung) of the Christian is to become expropriated for God and for her/his neighbour. This kenotic tune is

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mediated by the Church, especially in Mary, in the saints, in all of those in which ‘the transformation of the individual soul into an anima ecclesiastica’ 37 takes place. In this expropriation to the Church and through it to the world, the Christian experience is brought to the test: the love of the neighbour.38

Ambiguity of the aesthetic Thus far we have seen how both Adorno and von Balthasar present late modernity in terms of a coercive identity in which everything is instrumentalized in function of a totalizing subject. Over against this subjectivization, both authors bring to the fore aesthetic experience, an experience marked by an irreducible distance between subject and object: outside of and over against the subject, an objective alterity appears. This irreducible exteriority breaks through the logic of instrumental identification; the subject is not able to control the aesthetic object. In the aesthetic sphere, the subject’s relation to reality is inverted; the subject is no longer the centre of its own experience, but is involuntarily oriented towards the aesthetic object. What is more, the object opens itself as a space in which the subject is incorporated and transformed. The aesthetic form actively imprints itself on the receptive subject. As far as they are object-centred (or image-centred), both Adorno’s and von Balthasar’s aesthetics risk ending up as objectivist. It is interesting to have a closer look at this tendency, because we think this objectivist turn is not accidental, but reveals an often-overlooked aspect of the aesthetic. What is at stake here? In the aesthetic experience, the break-through of the modern identification processes risk coming down to a mere inversion of the coercion; instead of the modern subjectivization, the aesthetic experience risks ending up as a desubjectivization, in which the subject disappears under the pressure of the aesthetic object. The theme of aesthetic destruction of the self – its disappearance – is obvious in the quotes from Adorno mentioned earlier. In opposition to the consumption by the modern consumer, Adorno hints towards an inversion of the incorporation in which the subject in its turn is consumed. The aesthetic appears, as it were, in a cannibalistic form. In this light, our scheme of the aesthetic experience sketched above reveals an unexpected resemblance: the aesthetic object looks uncannily like Pac-Man, the round figure with the insatiable mouth out of the legendary video game. Similar uncanny overtones surround von Balthasar’s view of the aesthetic. Let us look at the quotes again: ‘when the interior space of a beautiful musical composition or painting opens itself to us and captivates us . . .’ . The beautiful form appears as a cage, imprisoning us. Another quote tells us about the experience of ‘being moved and possessed by [the beautiful form] . . . fully subordinate to it, determined by it, animated by it’. Does not this experience turn the human person into a marionette? And what should we think of von Balthasar’s musical metaphors? The human person is changed into a ‘sounding box’? In its radical receptivity, the subject appears reduced to an ‘echo’. In von Balthasar’s theological–aesthetic account of the Christian experience, one can find annoying images: the Christian ‘tuning’ seems to reduce the subject to a violin that receives, in a radical passivity,

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the touch of the divine bow. The human ends up as a mere instrument of the divine; along these lines one could quote von Balthasar recurrently calling the human a ‘function of the divine’.39 As such, the aesthetic register allows the theologian to counter modern instrumental reason, but the effect seems the mere inversion of the instrumental relation. To avoid the modern subject functionalizing God, von Balthasar, inversely, portrays man as God’s instrument. All of this strongly suggests that the aesthetic manifests a tendency towards a kind of ‘cannibalistic’ dynamic, in which the subject is completely absorbed by the object, even destroyed. Adorno and von Balthasar are themselves aware of these possible undesirable manifestations of the (religious) aesthetic, which have to do with the intrinsic ambiguity of the aesthetic. One could refer here to von Balthasar’s comment on the classical formula ‘pulchritudo circuit omnem causam’ (‘beauty encircles everything’).40 Referring to this encircling movement, von Balthasar warns that a beautiful image always risks enclosing itself, becoming a closed circuit. As such, the image may function as a kind of cage, even a ‘mousetrap’. Adorno is even more sensitive to the ambiguity. Lucid comments can be found in his Aesthetic Theory on ideological forms of aesthetic objectivism, for instance.41 This critical awareness notwithstanding, both authors are involuntarily using the same objectivist rhetoric when they present their own alternative aesthetics – as has been shown in our detailed analysis of their metaphors concerning aesthetic experience. One could object that von Balthasar and Adorno themselves avoid the potential negative effects because their specific aesthetic objects (Christ, respectively, the modern art) are marked by kenotic brokenness and reticence, which would avoid the crushing of the subject.42 Von Balthasar, for instance, is not simply promoting blind obedience to the divine ‘tune’, but links the Christian surrender to the specific form of Christ, ‘who renounces the form of God and chooses the form of humiliation; we speak of a sense for the path taken by Christ which leads him to the Cross’. The cannibalistic potential of the aesthetic relinquishment (Entäusserung) is dismantled by a certain reciprocity: the form who takes the lead in the inverted relation is itself marked by kenosis (Entäusserung), that is, Christ crushed by the Cross. Whether this kenotic antidote is able to remedy von Balthasar’s objectivist tendency is a theological question beyond the scope of our essay.43 Nevertheless, the need for a remedy highlights the structural risks that are revealed by the rhetoric of aesthetic experience, especially when applied to religious forms.

Paradoxical fulfilment: the aesthetic turn as desubjectivization Forty years after Adorno’s and von Balthasar’s aesthetics, their ‘prophecies’ seem to be fulfilled in a paradoxical way. In our globalized context, there is a manifest turn towards the aesthetic indeed. In contemporary aestheticized phenomena, one can easily recognize the same structure of aesthetic experience in powerful aesthetic forms decentring the subject. Although, today’s aestheticization is not exactly what they had in mind . . . Adorno, for example, emphasized in his theory that the aesthetic is not to transgress the bounds of its own sphere. Anyway, the fatal transgression did happen, and aesthetic processes became operational, which

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can be understood along the lines of the structure of the aesthetic we reconstructed above. Two brief examples may suffice. a) Imagination and the power of the logo Both Adorno and von Balthasar stress how in the aesthetic experience the relation between subject and object is inverted. The same holds true for their concepts of ‘imagination’. Whereas a modern view defines the imagination as the subjective power to produce (or project) images, Adorno and von Balthasar present the process of imagination in objectivist terms. Von Balthasar understands imagination (Ein-bildung) as Ein-gestaltung (as we saw before, to be understood as ‘in-formation’ in the literal sense of the impressing of a form into somebody). Imagination subsists in ‘imprinting images on the subject’.44 Imagination is the process in which images make their way towards and through the subject. As Adorno puts it, imagination is ‘the course taken by the form through the subject’.45 In the relation to the image, a decentring of the subject is at stake in favour of a priority of the image. Forty years ago, Adorno and von Balthasar appealed to the power of the image over against the almighty modern subject. Today, however, it is fascinating to see how powerful images, such as commercial logos, function in processes of branding.46 Branding refers to the aesthetic strategies of large corporate brands (e.g. Nike, Coca-Cola, etc.) to imprint their image(s) everywhere. The logo, as a major aesthetic figure in the context of globalization, appears surrounded by a kind of religious authority. The reading of von Balthasar and Adorno invites us to understand the current context of aestheticization in objectivist terms. Concerning branding aesthetics, the initiative is clearly not in the hands of the subject; there is a constitutive power of the image at work, which actively transforms the subject. Between the consumer and the logo, the relation appears as inverted: logos constitute the consumer. Logos not only invade our world and minds, they even build up our identities and reality, up to the degree that the consumers are incorporated in the logo. In a certain way, consumers are themselves consumed by the logo. In this whole process, the subject is disappearing. b) Totalitarianism and aesthetic ideology Postmodern thinkers like Paul de Man have pointed to the fact that totalitarian politicians prefer to think of themselves in terms of the aesthetic. A sinister example of this can be found in the following quote: Art is the expression of feeling. The artist is distinguished from the non-artist by the fact that he can also express what he feels. He can do so in a variety of forms. Some by images; others by sound; still others by marble – or also in historical forms. The statesman is an artist, too. The people are for him what stone is for the sculptor. Leader and masses are as little of a problem to each other as color is a problem for the painter. Politics are the plastic arts of the state as painting is the plastic art of color. Therefore politics without the people or against the people are nonsense. To transform a mass into a people and a people into a state – that has always been the deepest sense of a genuine political task.47

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This is a quote from Joseph Goebbels, Nazi chief of propaganda. Similar aesthetic visions of the political could be found in the speeches of Stalin’s cultural commissioner Andrei Zhdanov. Paul de Man suggests that these totalitarian excesses reveal an inherent potential of the aesthetic whenever it enters the political sphere. One of the reasons why (totalitarian) politicians like the idea of presenting themselves as artists is precisely due to the fact that a work of art evokes a voluntary surrender to its power, as we saw in our analysis of the structure of aesthetic experience. Even worse, in the aesthetic experience, one does not really choose to surrender. Attracted by the aesthetic object, one is absorbed and, without noticing, one loses oneself in the aesthetic object. Aestheticized politics aims at a state of marionettes. Here again, the subject is threatened with disappearance.

III. Aestheticization as formalization These examples strengthen our intuition: contrary to a common underestimation of the aesthetic as ‘merely aesthetic’, aestheticization does not consist of a subjectivization that weakens religious authority. Conversely, we claim that aestheticization implies a specific authoritative dynamics, in which different kinds of distortions can appear with the concurrent result of the disappearance of the subject. This process of de-subjectivization is intimately connected to the surrender to the aesthetic object, or in von Balthasar’s words, the ‘obedience to its form’, involved in the aesthetic experience. Instead of the vague term ‘aesthetic object’, it is more accurate to speak of ‘form’. Aestheticization would then be the process in which aesthetic forms are active. Therefore, Adorno’s view on aesthetic form is highly instructive.48

The cruelty of form Adorno points to the paradoxical character of form. On the one hand, form is precisely the aspect of the aesthetic object that guarantees its objectivity, its autonomy and its power to resist instrumentalization. Form is the way in which the work of art is able to distance itself from the subject, and from the surrounding context, which are both governed by the principle of identity. As such, form can become a kind of asylum for the endangered non-identical, saving it from commodification. On the other hand, however, this form involves a kind of violence, which Adorno calls the ‘cruelty of the form’: In aesthetic forms, cruelty becomes imagination: something is excised from the living, cut out from the body of language, from tones, from visual experience. The purer the form and the higher the autonomy of the works, the more cruel they are.49

Such is the paradoxical law of the form: ‘By wanting to give permanence to the transitory – to life – by wanting to save it from death, the works kill it’.50 Form’s attempt at saving the non-identical is ineluctably caught in a deadly dynamics: ‘They kill what they objectify by tearing it away from the immediacy of its life’.51 And further: ‘If the idea of artworks is eternal life, they can attain this only by

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annihilating everything living within their domain’.52 As Adorno puts it, form has something Egyptian, and in this respect, art resembles a process of mummification. In probably the most ominous passage in the history of philosophical aesthetics, it says: The affinity of all beauty with death has its nexus in the idea of pure form that art imposes on the diversity of the living and that is extinguished in it. In serene beauty, its recalcitrant other (the non-identical, the amorphous) would be completely pacified, and such aesthetic reconciliation is fatal for the extra-aesthetic. That is the melancholy of art. It achieves an unreal reconciliation at the price of real reconciliation. All that art can do is grieve for the sacrifice it makes, which, in its powerlessness, art itself is. Beauty not only speaks like a messenger of death – as does Wagner’s Valkyrie to Siegmund – but in its own process it assimilates itself to death.53

To understand the aesthetic soteriology that lies behind this cryptic quote would require a long detour. Let us just limit ourselves to Adorno’s interpretation of modern art with regard to form. Adorno distinguishes two tendencies in this regard: on the one hand, a radical formalization of art, and on the other, a kind of modern aesthetic kenosis.

Formalization as mimesis First, Adorno interprets modern art as a tendency to emphasize the aspect of form, in one word, a tendency to ‘formalization’.54 According to Adorno, this formalization has to be understood over against the modern context of coercive identity. Form guarantees the autonomy of art as art’s distance against society. However, the law of form at the same time itself involves violence, namely, ‘the cruelty of the form’. In line with this paradoxical nature of form, the formalization of modern art is, simultaneously, resistance against the surrounding coercion and itself showing coercive features. As far as form is violent, it resembles the violence of the surrounding context. Adorno interprets this violence of the form as ‘the mimesis of art to its counterpart’.55 As such, modern art’s radical formalization mimes the deadly dynamics of modern capitalist commodification. Adorno interprets modern art’s formalization as both opposition to modern society and as its mimetic double, or better, in a dialectical twist of the paradox, as opposition through mimesis. Whereas art opposes society, it is nevertheless unable to take up a position beyond it; it achieves opposition only through identification with that against which it remonstrates.56

To explain how modern art’s mimesis to the deadly can be interpreted as a critical position, Adorno hints at a kind of homeopathic remedy: ‘in accord with the ancient topos, to heal the wound with the spear that inflicted it’.57 The key to understand this is to examine Adorno’s complex and idiosyncratic notion of mimesis, which is not to be equated with imitation, but has to do with a certain self-reflective potential of the form.58

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Modern art and its kenosis Thus, on the one hand, Adorno interprets the intrinsic violence of the aesthetic – which lies at the roots of the potential distortions we saw in paragraph 2.4 – as a mimesis that allows for a reflexive attitude towards the modern coercive identity. On the other hand, Adorno points within modern art to another tendency, which can be called ‘aesthetic kenosis’. In line with a growing aesthetic awareness about the violence of form, Adorno writes about the prospect of the rejection of art for the sake of art [. . .] This is intimated by those artworks that fall silent or disappear.59

These modern works of art can be characterized by a tendency of ‘Entäusserung’.60 Adorno repetitively uses the word ‘Entäusserung’: it can be translated as ‘relinquishment’, but also as ‘kenosis’. As we have seen before, Adorno uses the same term ‘Entäusserung’ with regard to the aesthetic experience to indicate the required relation of the subject to the aesthetic object.61 So, in the modern aesthetic sphere, both subject and object undergo a kenosis.62 In this context, Adorno mentions artworks that ‘burn themselves’.63 According to Adorno, this aesthetic self-cremation could well be the only way to remain faithful to art’s utopian potential: ‘to achieve the promise by casting it away’.64 Or, in terms echoing the Gospel: ‘artworks have to lose themselves in order to find themselves’.65 Scars of damage and disruption are the modern’s seal of authenticity; by their means, art desperately negates the closed confines of the ever-same; explosion is one of its invariants.66

Adorno adds that this Entäusserung of art is motivated by a reflexive mimesis to the surrounding negative modern context: ‘Art indicts superfluous poverty by voluntarily undergoing its own; but it indicts asceticism as well and cannot establish it as its own norm’.67

IV. Concluding perspectives: three scenarios of disappearing Our Adornian notion of formalization offers a conceptual tool to characterize the dynamics of contemporary aestheticization. Applied to the field of religion, three different hypotheses could be developed68:

Religion formalized: the cruelty of the format The notion ‘formalization’ highlights the common idea that aestheticization implies a predominance of form over contents. If then the aesthetic paradigm is more and more governing the different spheres of our cultural context, formalization, which

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involves the incorporation into a form, threatens to eliminate all contents. As such, aestheticization comes down to the disappearance of all non-aesthetic spheres. One can think here of the formalizing process at work in television programmes: television makers are using ‘formats’ and adapt everything to their ‘format’. Formalization means that the format, the framework, determines the contents in advance and, as such, dictates what can be said. When religion, for example, is incorporated in these formats, it stops having a voice of its own. Another illustration of this kind of formalized religion is the musealization of religious buildings and objects. Those preservation strategies, often state supported, at first sight seem to save the endangered religious traditions, but in the end come down to mummification, which effectively seals the fate of religious life.

Religion formalizing itself: religion transforms itself into an authoritarian ‘format’ In line with Adorno’s notion of resistance through mimesis, religion could also transform itself according to the ruling aesthetic paradigm. In this case, religion would not be a victim of the contemporary aestheticization (as in the first scenario), but religion would become itself an agent of aestheticization. Religion would become a religious–aesthetic format, which incorporates the faithful by means of authoritarian image strategies, comparable to those of the commercial logo. This would imply the disappearance of true religion, because this aestheticized religion makes the believers disappear in its formats. As far as faith involves the free answer of free subjects, faith becomes impossible. Being a European Roman Catholic theologian myself, I do not need to mention examples from American televangelists or ideological forms of other world religions. Adorno’s notion of mimesis challenges me to ask the question of how far our contemporary theological pleas, for a turn towards the aesthetic, are not just miming the overall context of aestheticization, which implies a new form of coercive identity – this time not driven by the Modern subject, but by the religious–aesthetic objects. The critical question targets some major contemporary Christian theologians who formulate a critique of today’s context, and therein use aesthetic motives. At this point, theology’s opposition to the context risks falling back into a mere mimesis of the aestheticized context. We can think here of Jean-Luc Marion’s reference to the inverted experience of the icon, or John Milbank’s plea for a participation in the divine aesthetic order.69 Our analysis of the ambiguity of the aesthetic can serve as a warning against too much theological aesthetic enthusiasm. In the case of, for example, Marion’s rediscovery of the icon, we have to draw attention to the fact that the abandoning of the modern instrumentalizing subject – its ‘relinquishment’ – does not necessarily result in a desirable comeback of the religious attitude. Does not the icon’s decentring of the subject find a mimetic double in the dynamics of today’s corporate logo? Another example, with regard to theology’s aesthetic retrieval of participation, concerns how far theology is able to avoid ending up as an uncanny incorporation of the subject? The ultimate cannibalistic fantasy?

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Kenosis or self-destruction? Adorno’s idea of kenosis as a self-reflexive, critical answer opens up a horizon for formulating a negative-theological critique of aestheticization. Applying Adorno’s dictum on art to religion, the ‘prospect of the rejection of religion for the sake of religion’ remains a luring avenue, especially among European intellectuals.70 But here, context matters. The question must be asked whether negative theology today, as a kenotic–mimetic attitude, will not end up in an act of mere selfdestruction. As theology has lost its traditional authority in an aestheticized context – we speak about Western Europe in particular – is negative theology not a vain attempt to make a virtue out of our theological powerlessness today? Is kenosis, that is, the voluntary self-emptying of the powerful, an option for those who in fact are already powerless, emptied of power? Does it not come down to the kind of regression that is evoked by Adorno in the following passage in his Minima Moralia (1946–47)? For as long as I can think, I’ve been happy with the song, “Between mountain and deep, deep valley”: by the two hares who were stuffing themselves with grass, who were shot down by hunters, and upon realizing they were still alive, ran off. But I only understood the lesson quite late: reason can endure only in despair and crisis; it requires the absurd, in order to not be overcome by objective madness. One should act exactly like the hares; when the shot rings out, fall foolishly to the ground as if dead, collect oneself and one’s senses, and if one still has any breath, run like blazes. The energy to fear and that for happiness are the same, the limitless state of open-mindedness for experience, raised to self-sacrifice, in which the one who is overcome can find themselves again. What would any happiness be, which did not measure itself according to the immeasurable sorrow of what is? For the course of the world is deeply unsettled. Whoever cautiously adapts to it, partakes of its madness, while only the eccentric holds fast and commands the absurdity to halt. Only the latter may navigate the semblance of calamity, the “unreality of despair”, and innervate from this, not merely that one still lives, but that there is still life. The cunning of the powerless hares redeems, along with themselves, even the hunters, whose guilt they pilfer’.71

Notes 1

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The first question in the interview with Peter Weibel is symptomatic of this situation. See ‘The Re-enchantment of the World and the End of Modern Art’, in this book, pp. 117–28. Our ambition is not to write a review article on the topic. For a brilliant review article on the contemporary aesthetic turn from a Christian theological perspective, see Jantzen, G. M., ‘Beauty for Ashes: Notes on the Displacement of Beauty’, Literature and Theology, Vol. 16 (2002), pp. 427–49. For a stimulating book with many bibliographical references: Plate, B. S., Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics. Rethinking Religion Through the Arts (New York/ London: Routledge, 2005). The specific semantic interest of our inquiry deliberately leaves detailed contextual analysis of concrete cases aside in favour of conceptual clarity. The

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reader is invited to apply, for oneself, this notion to the many illustrations in, for instance, Alexander Ornella’s article ‘ The End is Nigh’: A Reflection on the Relationship between Media and Religion, in this book, pp. 129–50. Welsch, W., ‘Ästhetisierungsprozesse. Phänomene, Unterscheidungen, Perspectiven’, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Vol. 41 (1993), pp. 7–29. Adorno, Th. W., Ästhetische Theorie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970) [further abbreviated as ÄT]; ET: Aesthetic Theory. Newly translated, edited, and with a translator’s introduction by Robert Hullot-Kentor, Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1997 [= AET]. Balthasar, H. U. von., Herrlichkeit. Eine theologische Ästhetik. I. Schau der Gestalt (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961) [= H I]; ET: The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. I. Seeing the Form (Trans. by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1982) [= GL I]. See Joseph Card. Ratzinger’s 2002 speech The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty (on many Roman Catholic websites), and Rowan Williams’ afterword in Graham Ward, Lucy Gardner, David Moss, Ben Quash (eds), Balthasar at the End of Modernity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999). For a critical introduction: Oakes, E. T., Moss, D. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). In this regard, the encounter between Adorno’s successor Jürgen Habermas and von Balthasar’s pupil Joseph Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict XVI, in 2004 might not be coincidental. See Habermas, J., Ratzinger, J., Dialektik der Säkularisierung. Über Vernunft und Religion (Freiburg/Breisgau: Herder, 2005). Moreover, in the 2007 Papal Encyclical Spe Salvi (nos. 42–43) the Pope is even quoting Adorno on his alleged rejection of images. A brief summary of this analysis can be found in Adorno, Th. W., Horkheimer, M., Dialektik der Aufklärung (Amsterdam: Querido, 1947) pp. 9–19; ET: Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972). A similar reading of Adorno’s notion of experience can be found in Sherratt, Y., Adorno’s Positive Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). The difference with our interpretation is that she values the objectivist features of it one-sidedly as ‘positive’. For our evaluation, see infra, 2.4. ÄT, pp. 100–101.361. Translation mine (whenever there is no reference to the English version, the translation is mine). All italics in this paper are mine, unless indicated otherwise. ÄT, p. 409. Cf. ÄT, p. 246. ÄT, p. 110. 262. 268. ÄT, p. 530. ÄT, p. 262. ET: AET, p. 346; ÄT, p. 514. ÄT, p. 111. ET: AET, p. 73 (slightly changed). ÄT, p. 114; cf. ÄT, p. 166. 494. ÄT, p. 27. ET: AET, p. 275; ÄT, pp. 409–10. ÄT, p. 178. Cf. ÄT, p. 33. 361.

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Yves de Maeseneer ÄT, p. 33. Cf. ÄT, p. 267. Cf. H I, 15–21.42–53.66–74. passim. A more systematic criticism of Modernity can be found in the following volumes of Glory of the Lord, especially vol. 3 and 5. ET: GL I, p. 152; H I, p. 145. Ibid. H I, p. 175. ET: GL I, p. 221; H I, p. 213. ET: GL I, p. 247; H I, p. 238. ET: GL I, p. 220; H I, p. 212. H I, p. 216. ET: GL I, p. 224; H I, p. 216. Cf. ET: GL I, p. 227; H I, p. 219. ET: GL I, p. 222; H I, p. 214. ET: GL I, p. 242; H I, p. 233. ET: GL I, p. 220; H I, p. 212. ET: GL I, p. 253; H I, p. 243. Cf. H I, p. 246. For a theological account of von Balthasar’s notion of Christ experience, see Maeseneer, Y. De., ‘Gloria: The Ultimate Experience? The Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar’ in Boeve, L. and Laurence P. Hemming (eds), Divinizing Experience (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), pp. 226–45. For example with regards to the archetypical figure of Mary. Cf., for example, H I, 295. 318 See Balthasar, H. U. von., Herrlichkeit. Eine theologische Ästhetik. II, 1. Klerikale Stile (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962) pp. 351–2. Von Balthasar’s sharpest comments on the inherent risks of the aesthetic can be found in his essay ‘Offenbarung und Schönheit’ in Verbum Caro: Skizzen zur Theologie. I (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1960). For Adorno’s approach to aesthetic form, cf. infra, 3. In their respective aesthetics one can find other security mechanisms against undesirable aesthetic turnings as well: for instance, von Balthasar’s use of the theological principle of analogy, or Adorno’s strict limitation of the aesthetic to its own sphere. In both cases the scope of the aesthetic is qualified by non-aesthetic standards. See Chia, R., ‘Theological Aesthetics or Aesthetic Theology’, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 49 (1996), pp. 75–95. See Papanikolaou, A., ‘Person, Kenosis and Abuse: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Feminist Theologies’, Conversation in Modern Theology, Vol. 19 (2003), pp. 41–65. As von Balthasar puts it in a word-play which is hard to translate: H I, 172: ‘Man müsste deshalb die Einbildungskraft, die vor allem von innen nach aussen projiziert, eher Ausbildung nennen, während man den Prozess der Ausbildung, in welchem die objektiven Bildgehalte von aussen nach innen assimiliert werden, eher Einbildungskraft nennen müsste.’ ET: GL I, 178–9 (slightly changed): ‘the Einbildungskraft (“imagination”) which primarily

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projects from within toward the exterior, ought rather to be called Ausbildungskraft (“power-to-externalise-images”), whereas the process of Ausbildung (“education”, “formation”, “development”), in which the objective content of images is assimilated from the outside toward the interior, ought rather to be called Einbildung (“imaging”, “imprinting an image on the beholder”).’ ET: AET, p. 24; ÄT, p. 43. See the religious overtones in, for example, Atkins, D., The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers into True Believers (New York/London: Penguin, 2004). For an elaborated sketch of this analogy between the logo and von Balthasar’s notion of form, see Maeseneer, Y. De., ‘Saint Francis Versus McDonald’s? Contemporary Globalization Critique and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics’, Heythrop Journal, Vol. 44 (2003), pp. 1–14. An Adornian analysis of contemporary logos could begin with the provocative statement ‘The absolute artwork converges with the abolute commodity’ (ET: AET, p. 21; ÄT, p. 39). Quoted in Man, P. De., Aesthetic Ideology (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) pp. 154–5. See also Siebers, T., ‘Hitler and the Tyranny of the Aesthetic’, Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 24 (2000), pp. 96–110. In the reception of Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory this violence of the form is often overlooked. If it is mentioned at all, it is immediately minimalized: cf., for example, Bernstein, J. M., ‘Why Rescue Semblance? Metaphysical Experience and the Possibility of Ethics’ in Zuidervaart, L. and Huhn, Th. (eds), The Semblance of Subjectivity (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1997), p. 204. Only Shierry Weber Nicholson makes this aspect clearly explicit in her Exact Imagination, Late Work. On Adorno’s Aesthetics (Cambridge/London: MIT, 1997) pp. 74–8. ET: AET, p. 50 (slightly changed); ÄT, p. 80. ET: AET, p. 134; ÄT, p. 202. ET: AET, p. 133; ÄT, p. 201. ET: AET, p. 52; ÄT, p. 84. Cf. ÄT, p. 274. ET: AET, p. 52; ÄT, p. 84. This is what adversaries of modern art indicate when they complain about its abstract character such as in the following: ‘modern art is empty, it lacks soul, it lacks contents’. ÄT, p. 201. ET: AET, p. 133; ÄT, p. 201. ET: AET, p. 134; ÄT, p. 202. See Wolin, R., ‘Utopia, Mimesis, and Reconciliation: A Redemptive Critique of Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory’, Representations, Vol. 32 (1990), pp. 33–49. AET, p. 53; ÄT, p. 85. ÄT, p. 96. 230. 265. Cf. supra, 2.1. This is similar to von Balthasar’s kenotic understanding of Christ. Cf. supra, 2.3. ÄT, p. 265. AET, p. 135; ÄT, p. 204. ÄT, p. 220.

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Yves de Maeseneer AET, p. 23; ÄT, p. 41. AET, p. 40; ÄT, p. 66. Again we deliberately stretch Adorno’s framework beyond the scope intended by himself. His aesthetic theory did not aim application to religion – given the prominence of the secularization thesis in his days, today’s renewed visibility of religion was beyond his expectations anyway. See Milbank, J., Theology and Social Theory. Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 422–30: ‘Augustine is basically right: truth, for Christianity, is not correspondence, but rather participation of the beautiful in the beauty of God’ (p. 427); Marion, J.-L., Dieu sans l’Être (Paris: Fayard, 1982) pp. 15–37. See Schrijvers, J., ‘Ontotheological Turnings? Marion, Lacoste and Levinas on the Decentring of Modern Subjectivity’, Modern Theology, Vol. 22 (2006), pp. 221–53. Bulhof, I. and Kate, L. ten. (eds), The Flight of the Gods. Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000). Adorno, Th. W., Minima Moralia. Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1951) pp. 381–2 [nr. 128: Regressionen].

8 The Re-enchantment of the World and the End of Modern Art Peter Weibel

Larcher: We want to start with some elementary questions concerning the current aesthetic turn in Western society. On the one hand, we have a continuing secularization process and, on the other, an aestheticization of the reality, a re-enchantment. As the director of the Centre for Arts and Visual Culture in Karlsruhe, how would you account for this paradoxical situation? Weibel: I would agree with your characterization with the contemporary situation. In fact, there is a deeper paradox here: Modernism itself – the main trend in modern art – was concerned with disenchantment as famously analysed by Max Weber. Disenchantment started with the Enlightenment, that is with Kant, Hegel etc. But there was also the alternative trend of Romanticism. From the perspective of an art historian, and this is perhaps not the same as from the standpoint of a philosopher, Romanticism was directed against the Enlightenment and against industrialization. The dominant concern of Romanticism was enchantment. So, we can say that over the last two hundred years of art, we can see both, Modernism and Romanticism. That is, modern art’s continuation with disenchantment coupled with the romantic trend with re-enchantment. Let me give you a very interesting example. Seven years ago, there was a show at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris, with the title: Is contemporary art religious?1 This was something completely unexpected because it was always understood that modern art is not religious. So, this was a big surprise because the modern movement implied secularization even when we have book titles like Spirituality and the Origin of Modern Art. From Malevich to Mondrian, there was always a kind of obscure spirituality, even obscurantism, driving modern art. So, in fact, when we look closely at the origins of it, we can observe that there was always a religious subcurrent. Yet, in the main modern art was about something rational, and as such a result of secularization. Nevertheless, there has always been a tendency to keep the tradition of Romanticism alive, or in other words, the re-enchantment of the world.

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The problem is that the ‘hard core’ of modern artists, and followers, view Romanticism as a kind of fascism. There have been books published in English with titles like: Romanticism from Wagner to Hitler. The modernist, rational perspective in modern art has triumphed especially in America. This American version of Modernism, a subcurrent of modern art, is strongly secular. Despite the fact that there were artists like Mark Rothko who used art to express the religious. But, as we can observe now, there is – for different reasons – a notable return of religion. In the book by Grenier,2 in some exhibitions, and more generally in society, there is a renewed interest in religious questions and a return to the re-enchantment in art. Larcher: Would you say that what we are experiencing today is a new Romanticism? Weibel: Exactly. One of the problems here is subjectivity because this was one of the axioms of Romanticism, strong subjectivity. Artistic intuition was based on Empfindung (sentiment). This is potentially something that could get out of control, because when I base my art on Empfindung, I appeal to what I feel at this moment. Even a poet like Peter Handke is a man of Empfindung. In fact, he wrote a book called Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung.3 The community has no control over the question ‘what is the true sentiment’. From the perspective of the modernist, sentiment can be something dangerous to occur because it implies a dictatorship of subjectivity. Whenever people realize that they are losing control of their subjectivity, art becomes functional. Art becomes, as Odo Marquart describes, a kind of strategy for recompensation. Precisely what you lose in real life, the possibility of subjectivity, you gain as an illusion, as a recompensation in art. Larcher: So, there is an aestheticization that is superficial, which is only compensatory, whereas Romanticism in its true sources was quite deeply rooted in the spiritual heritage of Europe, in a profoundly religious sense. Is it right to suggest that today’s aesthetic undercurrent issues from Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the death of God, and the idea of the ‘last man’ and his diagnosis of modernity as a process of deconstructing metaphysics, religion and traditional world-views? Weibel: It is a matter of the ultimate deconstruction. We have even a name for this deconstruction: it is what people call modern art, Modernism. But now – and this is what I would like to say – we realize, by this return of religion, by this return of a surrogate religion, this nouveau Romanticisme, the crisis of modernity and the end of modernity. Even a Marxist critic like T. J. Clark, who teaches at Berkeley, wrote a big book – as a modernist – called: Farewell to an Idea. So, it becomes more and more clear that we have to face to fact that we are experiencing the end of Modernism. That means not only Modernism as a programme of disenchantment, but as a programme of deconstruction. The end of this deconstruction, as Nietzsche describes it, is what is called modern art. But, people have been thinking that this kind of universal, international art would be there forever. They could never accept that Modernism is just describing an epoch, like the baroque or the rococco. They thought that Modernism was a universal language. But, now they have to realize that it is just a Western language. Even worse, it is just a Western subject. I would

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include the critique staged by Romanticism; even Romanticism is a subjectivity as a Western philosophy. Larcher: But, within Western philosophy, we must distinguish between different Western European traditions, that is, there is English, French and German Romanticisms. Weibel: We have to realize that there are multiple conceptions of the subject, of subjectivity. Besides this, we have to realize that we have multiple Modernisms. There is not one Modernism – our Western, French or German or whatever Modernism. Which is the correct one? There is also North American modern art. For decades, for example, we have excluded modern art from East Europe because of the Cold War. This is so strange because when you look at Dada, two of the five Dada founders (Tristan Tsara, Marcel Janku) were from Rumania. There is also the Russian avant-garde, etc. So, after 50 years, as an effect of the defeat in Second World War, as an effect of the Cold War, we have a narrow understanding of Modernism. Now, we discover suddenly that there have been parallel modernities, and therefore also multiple modernities. What we did is, we made the art of other nations and other cultures ethnic, because we in our museums of art conceive them as museums of ‘Western’ art. We have in these museums images of Christ, but what is very strange is that we don’t have images of Buddha or Mohamed. This shows that it was clear for us that art is a Christian Western tradition. And now, the crisis of modern art is a real problem. So, the return of re-enchantment is only a signifier for the crisis of Modernism. And this has to do, I repeat, with the fact that the hegemony of the Western subject, Western subjectivity, Western art, is in a crisis. Larcher: Has art ‘sublated’ religion? Weibel: I would say this Hegelian model implies that first came religion, and after religion came art. But now, art is dead – and now, according to Hegel, we have philosophy. For Hegel, the end of art came about because we have philosophy as a representation of the truth. Before, there was art, and before art, there was religion. Now, we could turn this around and say religion comes instead of philosophy, philosophy comes instead of art, etc. But I would say these linear models don’t function at the moment any more. I would say that the crisis emerges from the fact that secularization was not done thoroughly enough. People did not realize – this is a thesis by Slavoj Žižek that I find very interesting – that God was not really dead, he had just moved from the conscious to the unconscious. But as we know from Freud the unconscious is more powerful than consciousness. So, that means, if God is not really dead, if God is now residing in the unconscious, then secularization is not accomplished. Larcher: Does this mean then that the Enlightenment project of emancipation was never fulfilled? Weibel: Exactly. Larcher: But could it not be that the current aestheticism and Romanticism are a self-correction of modernity?

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Weibel: But a self-correction only in the sense of Bruno Latour,4 who has written the book We Have Never Been Modern. That means, because we have never been really modern, because God never was really dead, we still have the possibility of this romantic re-enchantment. Once again this romantic re-enchantment is only a symptom; it is not the truth, the real thing. It only teaches us that if you wanted complete secularization, it didn’t happen. Larcher: And would it be desirable that God is entirely dead, definitely dead? Weibel: There are many interesting explanations of the emergence of the cosmos, ranging from evolutionism to intelligent design. So, I would say, the result of a complete secularization would be to conceive religion as an ethical system. It’s a kind of collective memory with a lot of experiences, and these experiences are similar in the different world religions. And I think that we don’t necessarily need traditional theology, but we do need the ethics behind religion, or moral and ethical behaviour as the result of religion, because the danger of re-enchantment, in my opinion – and this is what I see – is the triumph of uncontrollable subjectivity and Empfindung, sentiment. Larcher: So, you do not interpret this present religious re-enchantment optimistically? Weibel: No, not at all. It is interesting, for example, that Slavoj Žižek has similar ideas. For me, the reason why Christian religion was much more successful than other religions was because it had a programme that we call in technical terms ‘delete’. ‘Delete’ means you don’t store it. You forget it. It is directed against the idea of revenge. Jesus Christ says that if somebody punishes you, you should turn the other cheek. That means you don’t store up what is done to you. You don’t say ‘an eye for an eye’, ‘what you did to me I do to you’. The history of revenge ignores this. In contrast, I say ‘what you did to me, I will forget’. And what does it mean when you say, ‘please forgive me’? Does it mean that you keep it in your memory, but you just say, ‘Okay, I will tolerate it’, or does it mean that you forget it? Larcher: It is very interesting that some former Marxist thinkers like Slavoj Žižek or Giorgio Agamben are referring to Saint Paul’s theory of grace. Giorgio Agamben recently wrote a book on it and actualizes the theory of grace for a contemporary foundation of ethics. Weibel: I think what is interesting is precisely this kind of the return to religion; not religion as a simulation of enchantment, but as an ethical imperative. Ornella: Let us take now a look at the return of religion in the imagery of your exhibition ‘Iconoclash’ in 2002. Our question would be, why did you call it iconoclash? Does it bear any relation to the iconoclast debate in the eighth and ninth century? Weibel: We have two schools. One is ‘iconophilic’, in which Christians believed you could have images of God, of Jesus Christ. You can use images to disseminate

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a belief system. You come before an image, before a sculpture, and you pray. An image can be a representation, this is obvious. The other is related to the Jewish religion, and other religions that claim you are not allowed to make an image of God. This is also true for Calvinism. The origins of both iconophilia and iconoclasm are basically religious. In ‘Iconoclash’ I, among others, wanted to show that this religious tradition permeates visual culture, even when people don’t recognize the religious origins (e.g. the Dadaists). Twentieth-century art is mainly iconoclastic because in abstract art you are not allowed to make a picture of an object. I would say modern abstract art is the secularization of iconoclasm. So, our exhibition ‘Iconoclash’ was concerned to show the tradition of iconophilia and iconoclasm, the for-and-against representation and its religious origins. And still today, people do not know that it is religious. So, as I said before, God was not really dead, so religious experts say: his image was never really dead. Belting, for example, wrote an important book about Bild–Kult (The Cult of the Image).5 There is a lot of worship still today. People believe more in the power of the image and even more when it is being destroyed. So, we wanted to show that iconophilia and iconoclash are the two sides of the same coin. Both positions are still religious; because when you say you have destroyed an image, the compulsive drive to destroy something is even more an act of worshipping the image. So, ‘Iconoclash’ means that two traditions of representation came together. This is precisely what we wanted to reflect upon, and not to make a decision for or against iconoclasm or iconophilia. We exhibited both iconophilia and iconoclasm, and at the same time, we showed that neither are what we think, so iconoclasm is a deeper worshipping and heroization of image, whereas iconophilia as such, in fact, is a little bit too superficial. We tried to reverse the traditional understandings of both positions in order to handle representation in a different way. Ornella: The exhibition ‘Iconoclash’ was in 2002. What do you think has changed since then? Weibel: I think what has changed is that the power of the image has become even greater. The image has become a tool like a tool in medicine. And when you use a tool then you don’t say it is God, you don’t say it is an object; it is neither a sign, nor an object. This is precisely the status of the image. When you think of other images in the world, or of what you see on television, this is precisely how it is used. For example, when we had the images of Abu Ghraib, with these American soldiers and their prisoners, they were not pictures of cruelty, because in fact the only cruel scene was the picturing itself. The Americans did not really harm the people, they only made them look as though they were very oppressed; the degradation was the picturing itself, the picturing was a tool of degradation. So, it is very clear that people use pictures more and more as a tool. So that means the picture has become similar to money. Money is not an object, but you can exchange it for an object. So, money is not a real thing, but you need it to obtain a real thing. And, in this sense, a picture has become something in between the classical idea of a representation and its new role as a tool.

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Larcher: ‘Iconoclash’ also meant, if I remember correctly, the cleaning up of situation, with a lot of rubbish on the one side, pictures from media society of commercial culture, and on the other, the very pure idea of pictures.6 Do you seek criteria to distinguish between a lot of rubbish in our contemporary pictorial society and some precious, pure art? Weibel: I think my focus was more to on how we use pictures, not on the pictures themselves. Because we have this evident flood of pictures, even the overflow of the pictures, the intention was more to think how we use them and what their purpose is. As I said previously about Abu Ghraib, we do not use them to report something. The picture is itself the fact. What is also interesting is what kind of next step in secularization this represents. Now there is a more democratic use of pictures. There is no aura of danger or of power. Today, we have the so-called amateur photographers. Every magazine advertises: take a picture, send it to us, and you can make some money. So, if there is a traffic accident, the first people on the scene are some amateurs. When we have a tsunami, we have private video cameras to film it. These people are not experts, they are purely amateurs. This is a difference. When it is a famous photographer, when it is an expert, then you say, ‘oh this is a very important picture’. Today, we don’t consider this picture as important any longer; we just think it is the use of this picture that is important. Larcher: Are we getting more illiterate and more visually obsessed? Weibel: We see today the complete triumph of visual culture. And when the world becomes more and more visually orientated, this has deep effects. For example, this has the effect that people have a drive to or obsession with consuming. So, today we are affected strongly by media, by visual culture from television to film, which did not exist before, because for centuries, people did not see as many images as we do. The church very rarely produced new images. Eventually they had printed images, books, whatever. But today, we are flooded by visual cultures, which means that the subjective structure of what we desire is defined by this hegemony of visual cultures. We become more and more objects that desire other objects, and the consequence is consumer culture. Larcher: Do you see any possibility of countering the drawbacks of media civilization, for instance through the works of art? Weibel: This is what makes me so sad. Art is not able to do this. On the contrary, art is first victim. In order to survive culturally, art has to become part of this kind of consumer culture. This is true for all the famous artists we have at the moment, from Andy Warhol onwards. Andy Warhol was precisely this guy who painted consumer objects, who painted celebrities, famous people. When we speak about soap opera, he invented it. Or take Damian Hirst, for example. These people are producing for the mass media. So, to get attention, young artists know that our only marketplace is the mass media. Art has become a victim of this new demand for visual culture, and there is nothing to resist it; art is just part of it. Ornella: You said earlier that in art there are two tendencies: dis-enchantment and re-enchantment, and I think the same thing can be observed in the media context.

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On the one hand, the media tried to be secular or neutral towards religion, and on the other, in commercials, for example, or on TV and film, we find a lot of religious stories, religious symbols and religious images. Weibel: Precisely, the mass media, from television to radio, magazines, etc., are part of this re-enchantment. They are producing the re-enchantment through a cult of celebrity; instead of God, we have celebrities. The mass media teach people to worship stars, which is completely crazy. It is nearly pathological to force people to read all these magazines like Hello, Bravo, etc., when all you have are celebrities. Larcher: Is there not a deeply rooted symbolic archive in human beings, from which you can draw a force for resisting the cult of celebrities? Weibel: I would say not from inside the system. I would say we are now at a very fragile moment, and I compare it to the turning point of the year 1900. The question here is about media and the problem of the construction of reality. There is a famous story by Borges about the map and the land. He tells of a king who wanted to have a map made of his country, but then insisted that the map be bigger because he wanted to see more of his street. Then he said, ‘no it is still not big enough. I want to see every room in the houses on the street’. So finally, the map was as big as the country. This story was taken up by Baudrillard, who viewed media as a map of reality. Sometimes, he says, the map is so detailed, as in Borges’ story, that you cannot tell the difference between the simulation (which is the map) and reality (which is a land). But I would go a step further and say it is even worse: the map is constructing reality, the media are constructing reality. Larcher: But would you not, as an artist yourself, have confidence in the regenerative power of the arts, of the critical power of the arts, even of media arts? Is there not a chance for art, if you think of your own experience as an artist over decades? Weibel: So I would say if there is a chance for art, then it is precisely by the means you say, it is media art; because media and media art share the same tool. Media art can be deconstructive. This is precisely what has happened in media art. Since the 1970s and 1980s, artists have been using the media to deconstruct or analyse mass media. They have neither been successful in the art market, nor in the museum. If I still have some trust in art, then it is especially media art. Larcher: And what about classical arts? Weibel: Not much! Larcher: Are they over, are they finished? Weibel: Let me clarify why this is the case. Art – as you remember – started by this fight against death. The death-cult is the beginning of image making, because when you die you make your mummy and you make your representation and then, later the Romans emboss coins with your image, etc. So it is always about, ‘I die, but my image is still there’. After that, there were the rich people and the

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aristocracy, and painting became a medium of storage, technically speaking. Today, we still have rich people who want to be ‘stored’ by paintings, but the power today is with the mass media. So the artists who make paintings, from Gerhard Richter to Andy Warhol, in fact use images from the mass media, and therefore the storage medium is the mass media. The banality of the mass media, its triviality, is a treasure trove for the mass media. I think they are like servants. They are very poor servants, not of the aristocracy, not of the Church, as it was in former times; they are the servants of the mass media. And therefore, the mass media say Warhol is great, Richter is great, because they do the jobs they themselves cannot do. The mass media are not able to ‘store’ themselves, because the magazines appear and disappear everyday. Larcher: Mass media and the market? Weibel: Exactly. But the painting, which was the best means of storage up to now (because a painting can survive 1,000 years and doesn’t change much), has evolved into the mass media as a the best means of storage. Nevertheless, media art still has the potential to be critical. Larcher: Is there a possibility that the arts as well as religion (since both are minority interests in today’s society), can express the ‘entirely other’ as a corrective for what’s going on in contemporary society? Weibel: I would say this is possible if people who work in the media acknowledge that technology is in fact always tele-technology. We say tele-vision because ‘tele’ means ‘far’, we say also tele-phone; so art as a ‘tele’, as a technology, is always teletechnology. Tele-technology is about the overcoming of distance of space and time. Telephone, television – we want always to overcome, not death (this is religious), but we want to overcome something similar to religion, only a little bit smaller; we want always to overcome not eternity and death but the smaller distances of time and space, the distance of Australia and Graz or the distance between now and 500 years ago. And therefore, we invented the book, because the book is the first technology, the first medium in which we can store events that happened at another time and in another place. Thus, we overcome distance. Nowadays, we have audiovisual media that do the same job. So, in fact, every tele-technology is secretly also a ‘theo-technology’, insofar as it concerns something that religion promised; because religion promised that if you die here, you will survive in another place, or be it in a different state. It is not the end; there is another universe. This was said to counter death, and the greatest myth is that Jesus Christ said he was the resurrection. The Christian religion says this is the proof; this is the ultimate; if you believe with us, you can experience the same ascension into heaven. Therefore, we have so many images of the ascension, etc. Larcher: What about the incarnation? Weibel: There are so many conceptions of religion, and I would say they are about dogmatic certainties; eternity, incarnation, etc. In technology, we have similar conceptions, but they are relative. Technology, I would say, is a kind of relativity theory

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of religion. But if both parties realized this, then they could team up. However, for religion, it would be difficult to leave behind the absolute nature of its conception, and for technology, it would be difficult to leave behind its own restricted relativity. I think to exhibit religion as a medium from a purely technical point of view, that is, the medium of writings and the medium of history, it has changed over the years. That is why I am preparing an exhibition in a year’s time called ‘medium religion’. Ornella: What would happen if religion and technology would team up as you suggested? Weibel: On the one hand, it would demystify religion, because traditional religion had so many paradoxes and miracles, and it was always difficult to explain why somebody should be born of a virgin and why God had to kill his own son, etc. You could demystify it, so that religion became more secularized. On the other hand, technology has a tendency to make itself religious by giving itself an aura. Both would benefit from becoming tools. This is not acceptable to religion for sure. But then, religion would emerge as the first human attempt to make a tool for its own survival; as an ethical system. Larcher: This is an interesting, enlightened and progressive critical programme. But you cannot deny that there is a lot of discussion today about iconoclastic commandment, the notion of the sublime and thematizing the totally other through art and religion. Furthermore, there is evident need by people for mysticism or spirituality. How do you explain this? There is a lot of deconstructed Christian elements in our culture and in art; for example, the notion of the body, the passion of the body, the eros, love of the body, the notion of commemoration, of time experience – it all derives from the Christian origin of art. Weibel: There is an answer to your observations: the most successful media artist today is also the most religious one; that is Bill Viola. He is the most religious artist because he also uses technical effects to imitate religious experiences. At the beginning of the 1970s, he was a very good technician; he had learned his craft. And today, he is – being more or less a mixture of a Christian and a Buddhist – very religious. He always expresses in all his installations, as you know, falling angels, following the water or coming from water or the fire, and all the symbols of religion from burning bushes to being baptized by water. He uses these images constantly. So, we have here a mix of religion and technology, but I would say neither helps the other. I would say that he uses tele-technology to illustrate religion and he uses religion to give his art works a kind of spiritual experience. As I said, there is a tendency even in technology, in media art, to aspire towards the absolute, to aspire for the spiritual. This desire is fulfilled by Bill Viola. Larcher: Also, he fulfils the desire to have a narrative, the classical narrative of the history of salvation: Elizabeth hailing Mary and so on . . . thereby, he is playing with allusions to classical art. Weibel: This makes him so powerful. But when I think of a marriage of theology and technology, then, on both sides, it must be more critical.

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Ornella: Would you agree or disagree that the spiritual experiences that art offers are equivalent to the experiences that religions offer? Weibel: This is precisely the point: they are comparable. But we have to define what happens if you have a religious experience. I would say we have an experience that is not an everyday experience. But it is always about our sense data. We collect data, and sometimes we experience something that is not ordinary everyday life, because the data collection process is different. But you still have the same eyes and the same ears, so something must happen in your consciousness, that the normal data are changed. You can have a hallucination, you can see somebody, an angel or you feel possessed by a ghost, whatever. But, this is still an experience in your brain, in your consciousness; so it is not out of the world. Naturally, you can say, if you accept that this is still your body and your consciousness, it is not out of the world, then you can say ‘ok, that must be it, something’s happened’ with your sense organs and with your sense data. The same experience can be achieved by the media. The media can also try to manipulate you in a similar way. It is not as good as a religious experience, but it is analogous. You can make flick effects in film, or you can look at an artwork that gives you so much information that you are really in shock, and you experience something similar, though not quite the same to something you can compare to a religious experience. I would say simply we have always the coordinates of time and space. So, these are for me the four bars of this prison of space and time. Religion was the first way to get out of this prison. We wanted to communicate with somebody who was already dead or we wanted eternal life, whatever. The fundamental idea was how to get out of this prison of space and time. Therefore, God can return and can be in heaven and can save somebody from the prison of space and time. Of course, art can give you all these experiences. Truly authentic art is able to simulate these kinds of experience, as we say in German ‘entrückt’. That is, you suddenly jump beyond these four coordinates and everyday life, and you experience something with your own brain, with your own organs, which is completely different from normal everydaylife experiences. Therefore, religious and aesthetic experience can be compared. Larcher: Is this not a gnostic misinterpretation of religion? Because religion does not only transfer you to heaven, it first incarnates you here in time, space and history as a creature. Weibel: But this is, if I understand it correctly, part of the ethical system. Larcher: The ethical system remains, but is there not a certain gnostic attitude underlying it? Weibel: Precisely. Larcher: So redemption is freeing the body from these bars of space and time. Weibel: That is a very good analysis, and I am grateful; it’s a gnostic interpretation of religion. This is precisely what technology is about. But, therefore, people like Bill Viola want to make it again more non-gnostic; maybe closer to a religious experience.

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Larcher: Yes, it is true under the conditions of time and space and bodily existence. And I would also say that religious experience is not only the enchantment of being transferred to somewhere else, it is rather making you aware that you are this finite being now under these conditions of time and space and yet in confrontation with the absolute. Take Friedrich Schleiermacher at the beginning of Romanticism; his concept of ‘Anschauung’ of the universe infers the double movement of myself being ‘angeschaut’ by the universe and also ‘Ich schaue das Universum an’. I experience the universe in the relation of absolute dependence, which means freedom for the subject. So, this would also be, I think, the fundamental nature of religion: to be aware of this finite situation in correlation with the absolute. Weibel: But this is also something art can do. Larcher: This is what I mean, that art and religion, Christian religion, are somehow companions. Weibel: But, is the point where we can see that modernity is, as we said before, not modern enough and still not secularized? Modernity still is religious, and we do not discuss whether this is good or bad. But now, we realize that this kind of modernity is going to end. This is the end of art. We have worked for two hundred years since the Enlightenment to find a solution, and the first step was modernity, but now we experience that this first solution is coming out to an end. Larcher: But art is not ending. Weibel: Not art, modern art is ending – modern art is a mistake. Larcher: And art with a greater range of activity is beginning, in an open laboratory. Weibel: Only the historical form of art is ending, not art itself. We have a different way of doing art, and we are trying now to define new ways of doing art. The first attempt was postmodern art, but this was a failure too, and now we are trying to define new ways of doing art. Larcher: We trust in the critical power of art, of this new notion of art as an open laboratory. Weibel: Exactly. I call it sometimes an open field of enactment, not enchantment, not re-enchantment, but enactment. This is also Christian, because enactment is participation in a belief system. I always refer to the famous parable by Blaise Pascal, who asked, ‘do you believe and then you kneel down or do you kneel down and then believe’. He says, ‘first you have to kneel down and then you believe’. The point is, you see performativity; when you speak religious you must also performatively do what you believe. And it is precisely in this sense that art is an open field of enactment, a kind of platform for communication. Larcher: The intersection for social life in which religion plays a part? Weibel: Exactly.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

Grenier, C., L’art contemporain est-il chrétien? (Nîmes: Chambon, 2003). Grenier, C., L’art contemporain est-il chrétien? Handke, P., A Moment of True Feeling (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977). Latour, B., We have Never Been Modern (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993). Belting, H., Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (München: Beck, 1990). Latour, B., ‘What is Iconoclash? Or Is There A World Beyond the Image Wars?’ in Latour, B. and Weibel, P. (eds), Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (London: MIT Press, 2002) pp. 16–42.

9 ‘The End is Nigh’: A Reflection on the Relationship between Media and Religion Alexander Darius Ornella

‘The end is nigh’ 1 are the opening words of The New York Times’ film review of Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA 2006), a film set in the not-so-far future, in the year 2027, in a world in which society has become infertile, Britain has turned into a war zone and humanity is struggling for its survival. While not a Christian or explicitly religious film, that is, a film on a religious topic, such as The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, USA 2004) or The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, USA 2006), the film still qualifies as religious – in a broad sense – as it depicts an apocalyptic scenario in which humanity is threatened with extinction because it is no longer able to reproduce. Fortunately, there seems to be hope, humanity’s last hope on earth, in the person of a pregnant, black woman on whose survival (and that of her child) the future of humankind depends. There are several filmic elements identifiable in Children of Men that qualify this film as both apocalyptic 2 and religious. First of all, Children of Men deals with an apocalyptic scenario, and explicitly says so. On the film’s website, one can find phrases such as ‘humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction’ and ‘the planet’s last remaining hope’.3 While biblical apocalyptical narratives look beyond a given historical context at the kingdom to come, the apocalyptic perspective of this film unfolds in a concrete, local and mundane context. The ultimate goal in the film is to prevent the catastrophe or the apocalyptic end. The film, however, also uses explicit religious motifs. For instance, in one scene towards the end of the film, the mother carries her baby through a group of soldiers. As she passes by, one of the men kneels down and crosses himself. The portrayal of the mother and her child, who is to become the humanity’s saviour often reminds of the depiction of Mary and Jesus. Kee, the mother of the saviour-to-be, and Theo, who is supposed to take care of the mother and her baby, are in a barn, and the mother is surrounded by cows when she reveals to him that she is pregnant. Finding out about the pregnancy, Theo responds by exclaiming ‘Jesus Christ!’. Due to its religious references, the film has often been called a modern-day nativity story.4

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Slavoj Žižek states that the film is ‘obviously a spiritualist Christian parable of resuscitation, bringing new life and so on. The novel [sic!] ends with baptizing. It’s clear Christian parable. [sic!] The film is a model of how you can take a reactionary text, change some details here and there and you get a totally, a totally different story’.5 Children of Men is but one example among many in which films either use religious motifs or have a religious meaning or relevance. Thus, the film is characteristic for a broad use of religious symbols in a variety of different and often divergent contexts, for example, religious, political and economical. Despite various claims of secularization theories,6 religion, religious topics and religious symbols still play a crucial role in public discourse; in fact, media, religion and society are closer connected than ever. Stewart Hoover states that ‘[r]eligion and the media seem to be ever more connected as we move further into the twenty-first century’.7 Current analyses cannot but acknowledge the ‘omnipresence’ of religious symbols in media, be it on TV, in films or advertising. They also acknowledge an interrelationship between the two: analyses describe media as a ‘symbolic inventory’8 of cultural and religious symbols or identify the ritual aspects of media staging and performance in today’s society.9 While most scholars agree that there is an increasing presence of religious symbols in media and the public sphere, the controversial question is how to evaluate this presence in the respective contexts and cultures and how it affects religious life and religious experience. In his book Consuming Culture, Vincent Miller tries to account for the various ways the consumer culture – a culture that is heavily influenced by media – has an impact on religion and religious life. In particular, he deals with the commodification of religion and religious symbols, understanding it as a loss of religious ‘power to inform the concrete practice of life’.10 Miller focuses on commodification and deliberately skips other dynamisms, such as globalization, detraditionalization and communication technologies,11 which contribute to the transformation of religion in Western societies. In this chapter, I will put valuable analyses such as Miller’s or Hoover’s into a bigger picture. I argue that the mutual influence between religion, media and society has to be understood as interdependence in order to understand the ongoing transformation processes, as those fields cannot exist, be thought of or be analysed without each other. In the following, I will suggest four aspects in which this interdependence becomes visible especially in European culture. These aspects can be defined as (1) the mutually dependent operational relationship between media, society, religion and culture, (2) the exchange of discourse between those four fields, (3) the fluidity in role assignment and (4) the commodification of religion. I have deliberately chosen the following four because they too are (a) mutually dependent and thus reflect the interdependence that is fundamental for the processes and dynamics we witness in these areas; (b) they are all shaped and influenced by media and communication technologies and their developments. It is surprising that this has often been underestimated in religious analyses of media society although human culture has been a media culture ever since; (c) they address and reflect the blurring of boundaries between private and public sphere; between

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reality, virtuality and simulation; and between traditional religion, the religious and consumerism.

I. Interdependencies 1. None of these fields – media, society, culture, religion – can function and operate without the others. To meet their own needs and the needs and desires of the people involved, media, society and religion each are dependent on the characteristics, functions, roles, structures and needs of the other fields. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, as media have always played a crucial role in passing on religious and cultural traditions and knowledge.12 In fact, religion and media are mutually dependent. Religion itself is and acts as a medium between transcendence and immanence. It uses media to disclose its message and represent what otherwise is not accessible.13 Christianity, for example, has been communicated through media since the early beginnings. With his numerous letters, Paul can be counted as the first ‘media apostle’ to spread the gospel not only verbally to a small number of people, but to people he had not met before, people whose first contact with Paul, and the Christian message was in fact a mediated one. Throughout history, in handing down her teaching and her tradition and celebrating liturgy, the Church relied on mediation through arts and writing. Today, Christian denominations, non-denominational congregations as well as non-Christian religions not only use electronic communication, but heavily rely on and use public media to broadcast their message and religious events. These broadcasts can either be produced in cooperation with ‘secular’ (i.e. non-religious) media corporations or by denominational/religious media. Examples are the Vatican’s website, Vatican Radio, Catholic news agencies, etc. Often, the internet is the only possibility for smaller religious communities (small congregations and non-denominational groups) to easily reach out to a larger number of people. Many religious communities also offer a ‘prayer service’ to the world community on the WWW. People who search for spiritual offers or want to request a prayer get millions of search engine hits,14 such as liveprayer.com, sacredspace.ie, worldprayers.com, gebetsanliegen.de, which are all easily found through Google. For religious groups, the WWW has become an important – and often the only – platform to reach out to the world; for the individual, it is an opportunity to choose whatever caters best for her or his needs. Religious text messaging services (SMS), for example, during Advent or Lent, or crisis lines and telephone counselling services, are other examples of religious communities using and depending on technology to get in touch with people and offer their services. ‘[W]ithin the multiplicity of sources available, specifically religious channels and services that can accommodate religious and spiritual interests and uses, are increasingly possible and available’.15 Media, on the other hand, are dependent on the ideas, values and symbols of religions and religious heritage. Without drawing on, altering, and reusing religious stories and imagery, media (in a broad sense) and technology16 would neither

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be able to meet the expectations of the recipients and users nor be able to fulfil their functions in human identity construction, by augmenting and enriching human experience, facilitating and altering interaction and communication among humans as well as between humans and machines. Filmic narratives often pick up religious motifs or follow the structures of religious narratives, myths or rituals. Some mainstream movies use religious rites of initiation to introduce the hero, thus ensuring audience identification by providing a source of identity constitution for the audience, and thereby support the financial success of the film.17 Arthouse film makers, for example Tarkovsky, often draw on or depict religious ideas and concepts, such as the idea of the transcendence.18 Obviously, media do not only employ symbols and motifs from Christianity, but often synchretistically draw on a variety of religious traditions and a pool of grand narratives. The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999), for instance, features motifs from Christianity, Buddhism and Greek mythology. A similar process can be noticed in economy. With the help of media, economy often tries to attach a more profound meaning to their products, a spiritual ‘surplus’. It is a value that in fact does not add anything to the functionality of a product, but nevertheless increases its financial value, alters what people associate with a certain product and transcends the product’s actual value and function. Those ‘spiritual values’ are not necessarily explicitly religious. However, they often refer to values and motifs that are important in humanity’s grand narratives and the life of the individual, such as love, passion, life or death. Another – recent – example of a social or cultural sector to breach into and borrow from the religious sphere is the inspiration Donatella Versace drew from Georg Gaenswein, Pope Benedict’s personal secretary, for her latest collection. The Telegraph, for example, entitles one article ‘Gorgeous Georg’s priestly chic inspires a new Versace show’.19 Versace states that ‘[i]t is the right moment to show an ethical and spiritual man, free from all those pointless details’.20 At the same time, Italian newspapers, for example, the Corriere della Sera, handle Gaenswein as a sex symbol.21 Gaenswein is but one example of the aestheticization and in-formation of media, arts (fashion) and the economical sector through the religious. This in-formation of media through the religious does not only apply to media products (e.g. films), but also to media themselves. Media have often been described using religious and theological terms.22 Bruno Forte, for example, mentions the terminological parallels between religion and computer programs with words such as ‘save’ and ‘convert’.23 Further, media and technology are often hoped to further human evolution,24 surpassing humanity’s current state and transforming it into some sort of transcendent state. While a certain degree of interrelationship between religion, media, society and culture can be traced throughout history (as I have pointed out above), today we have arrived at a stage at which we need to reconsider this relationship: Those four areas are becoming increasingly dependent on each other, but nonetheless, their relationship resists clear definitions, but is flexible and fluid. 2. There is an exchange of discourses between media, society, religion and culture, or in other words: what is discussed or of concern in one of these fields affects the

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discourses in the others. Examples for this exchange are numerous, for example, the abuse of children by priests had first and foremost been discussed in media, was then discussed within the Catholic Church (partly because of public and media pressure) and finally returned to the inner-Church sphere, resulting in the ‘zero-tolerance-policy’ of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Another example can be seen in the debate that followed the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. While sparked off by ‘secular media’, the publication resulted first in inner-religious debates, then ‘secular’ debates on the freedom of speech, followed by debates on the relationship between religion and ‘secular’ culture in Europe and moved back to a discourse within the religious sphere. Another example is MTV UK’s show Popetown. Before even airing the first episode, MTV UK, the original producer, cancelled the show due to numerous protests.25 On MTV Germany, however, the show was aired despite the threat of court orders that were initiated by the Roman Catholic Church among others but finally failed. ‘The channel said it had been prepared for resistance to Popetown but was surprised at the extent of the backlash from the Catholic Church’.26 Only a few hours before the premiere, the Roman Catholic Church tried to get a court order prohibiting MTV to air Popetown. Finally, MTV Germany decided to show the first episode, get the viewers’ feedback, and invited Church representatives to a discussion about the show after its initial airing. Analysing this discourse, we are presented with the following structure: Originating in secular media, the show – due to its usage of religious symbols – caused a discourse within religion, which in turn caused a discourse between religion and media producers as well as media consumers. This discourse had a direct effect on MTV’s programme. These few examples show that an exchange of discourses in today’s media culture is inevitable. Any attempts to carry on a solely inner-religious debate will fail as there is a necessary exchange of information due to the interconnectedness of media, religion, society and culture. The same applies for debates that occur ‘exclusively’ in a media and/or social context. The development and use of communication technology, the content of media productions, as well as social, cultural and political trends usually cause excitement or rejection among media users, or are followed by critical reviews by citizens and those who are directly involved in those developments at particular (and often public) fora, such as messaging boards on the internet or exhibitions such as the CeBIT. The debates, however, do not stay in these restricted spheres of technology, politics or culture, but always involve or are followed by ethical assessments by diverse ‘authorities’ as well as the analyses of how these developments will affect public, social, cultural and, last but not least, religious life. 3. The assignment of roles between those fields (media, religion, society and culture) is not static anymore. Functions that have once almost exclusively been provided by one field are now provided by one or more of the other ones; authority over certain questions is no longer attributed to a particular institution or realm, but is freely floating according to context, social situation, media coverage and user preference. As institutions, companies and organizations (e.g. media providers) become both more specialized and more closely connected (but also compete

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with each other), it becomes easier for people to satisfy their needs by choosing from a variety of different sources, and media are in fact ‘devoted to the production of cultural artefacts intended to shape consciousness, if for no other reasons than economic ones’.27 This phenomenon is especially important when looking at the European cultural and social landscape. Compared to Americans, but probably also compared to the rest of the world, Europeans are said to be becoming less and less religious. This is true, insofar as traditional religious communities face a decline in membership and in the attendance of religious services. We do, however, witness the phenomenon of a redistribution of religious and religious-like authorities from traditional religious communities into the public and into the media sphere. Some of those redistributions involve explicitly religious and media/ economical elements. While televangelism itself is an ‘old’ phenomenon that emerged in the United States, now a German private TV station, VOX, features the weekly broadcast of The Hour of Power, Robert H. Schuller’s weekly religious service. In Europe, religious services, especially those of the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations, have been broadcasted on radio and television of (mostly) public TV stations for years. What in my view is new with the appearance of broadcasts like The Hour of Power on European TV is the fact that it is broadcast on commercial television, which is dependent on the number of viewers and the income from advertising. While The Hour of Power is an explicitly religious TV programme, it is an example for religious authority moving away from traditional denominations into the media sphere. Media themselves, however, can assume religious, religious-like and spiritual authority independent from actual Christian communities. By this, I mean that people turn to media and media content to look for and fulfil their need for spiritual and religious guidance, as well as ethical and self-help advice. Media act indeed as sources of meaning making. In this process, the authority over spiritual questions is transferred from religious communities to the media. An example from German television is AstroTV,28 where people can call and ask fortune-tellers either to read cards or look into a crystal ball to predict their future and advise them in financial or relationship problems. The tools the fortune-tellers use (cards, crystal balls) and the questions the callers ask (from questions about their love life to the request to contact their diseased relatives) can be understood as indications that the supernatural as well as spiritual authority and guidance are still important to a lot of people, but they look for that authority in places other than traditional religious communities. A shift of authority can also be noticed concerning moral issues. Media do not only deal with moral and ethical questions, presenting criteria for what is right or wrong, but ethical authority itself is transferred to the media, insofar as they offer different (and for many desirable) lifestyles. The MTV show Made, for example, is not primarily a show about moral decisions, but it does touch on the question of how to live life as it features teenagers who want to dramatically change their lives and either overcome their inferiority complexes or aspire to become like one of their idols. This ‘conversion’ process includes coaching and is guided by experts, celebrities, or trainers and counsellors and is documented by MTV; hence the

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name of the show ‘Made’: while usually a person has to put effort into changing their habits, the terminology used in this context suggests that someone is effortlessly ‘made’ into someone else, something new, not at least by media. One might argue that shows like this aim at only a minority of the TV audience. In a greater picture, however, media indeed pass on the grand narratives of humanity. Comparable to ancient mystery religions, media perpetually re-enact the drama of human existence. Be it the above-mentioned Children of Men, in which humanity faces its extinction, the recent The Pursuit of Happiness (Gabriele Muccino, USA 2006) or the many daily TV shows – media often represent some sort of substitutional suffering and struggling. By identifying with the characters and longing for what is portrayed or advertised in media, the audience is immersed into the media world and experiences – together with the protagonists and other characters – healing and salvation. On the other hand, religious communities themselves maintain news services to provide their members as well as the general public with ‘authentic’ news, for example, the Vatican’s internet presence vatican.va or Radio Vatican. During the obsequies that followed John Paul II ’s death, many images that the world audience got to see came from CTV, the Vatican Television Center. The Austrian-based Kath.Net, the Catholic News Service 29 and Catholic World News 30 are yet other examples of news services related to a religious community, either initiated by its leaders or independent of hierarchical structures by its members. The Catholic News Service, for example, was founded by US bishops in 1920. Today, it claims editorial and financial independence,31 but is still closely affiliated with the Catholic Church. In their mission statement, they proclaim that The mission of Catholic News Service is the mission of the Church itself – to spread the Gospel through contemporary means of communication. Our mission is to perform this task by reporting the news which affects Catholics in their everyday lives. [. . .] Our mission is to report fully, fairly and freely about the involvement of the Church in the world today.32

All these agencies are examples of the fluidity in the role assignments. In former times, the Church had a great influence on what was displayed and communicated through various media, for example, paintings. Individuals had access to those means only on rare occasions. Today, almost anyone has access to media to spread their (religious) messages and claim (religious) authority. Religious communities – both on an official as well as on an individual level – increasingly are using publicly accessible media for news coverage from their own perspective and with regard to issues that are on their agenda. Traditional Catholics, for example, do not simply trust the reports of public media when it comes to political, ethical and moral issues, but turn to a coverage that is informed by their own religious background, and that today is readily available through the internet, TV, radio or newspapers. While in former times the status and role of (especially traditional) religious communities in public and social life and their influence on the state and politics (especially in Europe) was often clearly defined, this has changed over the past

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years. Religion is increasingly perceived not as something that is necessary for salvation, but as one part of Europe’s cultural heritages. Religion, and with it religiously motivated art, music or painting, is seen and evaluated according to its contribution to cultural and social life. Religion is increasingly losing its sole authority in the spiritual realm, but is seen as a by-all-means valuable but nonobligatory aspect of human life. Thus, religion and religiosity have not become obsolete. What has changed, however, is the role they play in society. The individual does not necessarily need to turn to religion anymore to look for meaning but ‘[t]he modern individual is condemned to pick and choose from a wide arrangement of meaning systems’.33 Media, in their interdependence with religion, have intensified to this transformation process. 4. We witness a commodification of religion and religious symbols. Nowadays, religious contents and symbols are omnipresent in both religious and secular media, for example, religious channels on cable/satellite TV, mainstream feature films like The Passion of the Christ, The Da Vinci Code (Ron Howard, 2006), The Chronicles of Narnia (Andrew Adamson, 2005) and, the most recent, The Nativity Story, or TV commercials. Media draw on, alter and reuse religious symbols and have become a pool of religious, quasi-religious and spiritual symbols that people can choose from to satisfy their religious/existential needs. Religion, and this is one of theology’s challenges today, has been changing over the past decades, and this change has often been described as ‘marketplace religion’ and commodification of religion. These transformations involve religious practices as well as the structures, functions and roles of religion.34 ‘On the most fundamental level, these changes have been rooted in overall changes in the nature of contemporary social consciousness and social experience’.35 On a very basic level, the marketplace situation and commodification of religion can be analysed from at least two perspectives to help to understand the interdependence between religion, media, society and culture: a consumer’s and a producer’s perspective. While some aspects of these two certainly overlap (e.g. a producer is most likely also a consumer), for my purposes it is necessary to distinguish between them to some extent, as there are different motivations, strategies, expectations and desires that play a role in why those two participate in the market economy, are involved with religious symbolism and how this situation contributes to what is called the commodification of religion. Interestingly, from a consumer’s perspective, commodification of religion can first be identified in the very realm of religion itself. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, but has increased with the availability of media. Thus, commodification of religion already happens whenever and wherever a believer is persuaded that buying and using a religious ‘gadget’, ranging from a key-chain with a Christian symbol to necklaces with a Buddhist symbol promising inner peace and protection, contributes to his or her personal salvation, or that through buying from and supporting a specific producer or dealer, she or he does not only get a product or tool (as some sort of ‘insurance’) for their personal salvation, but contribute to evangelize and save their own country or the world itself. In this context,

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salvation and redemption transform from originating from God’s grace, freely given, to something that the individual can obtain on his or her own terms. Admittedly, in Europe, this perspective of commodification might apply only to a small minority of believers. It differs from a mainstream understanding of ‘commodification’, as personal effort, such as taking time for certain rites, prayer and reflection, is still required and connected with the product. However, phenomena such as BibleTV, GOD Channel or religious publishers, producers and dealers of devotional objects mark this specific form of commodification. It is the tendency that through spending money one can either gain personal salvation or have a spiritual offer delivered into one’s private space (or living room). Additionally, especially through the mediatization of religion, one gets the feeling of belonging to a larger community, a community that does not only exist on a spiritual level, but one can, in one way or the other, interact with and directly participate in. This idea of spending money to gain personal salvation is not unique to twentieth and twenty-first-century media culture but was a driving force behind the selling of indulgences, too.36 It is, however, the dimension, the extent, and above all the easiness with which religious offers invade and pervade the private spheres through media that is characteristic of our times. This affects deeply devout people as well as those who Stewart Hoover – for the American context – has labelled ‘seekers’37: ‘[A]ll of contemporary religious practice could be expected to take on aspects of a seeking sensibility, particularly as regards its relationship to cultural materials available in the media’.38 This does not mean that there would be no differences between individuals, depending on the social and cultural context, anymore.39 A much broader impact of the commodification of religion from a consumer’s perspective can be called ‘spiritual’. It is more individualized, emotional, not necessarily tied to Christianity and usually does not involve worships or religious services. It is first and foremost about whatever an individual thinks would best fit his or her needs and help them to find their inner self. It is an offer that is easily (and often ‘anonymously’) available through media (internet, TV, books, etc.). Further, it is an offer that does not involve specific (i.e. dogmatic) religious ideas, denominations or commitments. It is, however, marked by a general interest in the supernatural, the belief in fate, higher powers or reincarnation. Usually, this ‘spirituality’ is informed by and depends on media as a primary source of symbols, meaning and information. Media – in a very broad sense – are also used in this context to create a sphere that helps the individual to connect to their own spiritual path. In the free market economy of media, both media producers and media consumers are dependent on each other and contribute to the readily available pool of religious imagery, symbolic narratives and the production of meaning through media and their products. This kind of commodification includes an aestheticization, or ‘aesthetic undercurrent’,40 that is almost omnipresent in media culture. It is the tendency to add a value to a product that transcends its original and actual functionality as an end in itself. The motivation to buy a certain product is, then, often not only the interest in the product, but the desire to obtain and grasp some of these transcendent values that were associated with the product.

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The second perspective I want to just briefly touch on is that of the producer. It is a highly complex perspective, not least because of power structures, company mergers, consumer behaviour, managing this consumer behaviour and the desire of the customer for a unique consumer experience. In this complex relationship, ‘commercial meaning making’ seems to be one of the essential factors for the success of a product or a producer. By this, I refer to the attempt of a producer to link their product(s) to values or lifestyles that are desirable for their customers. For example, instead of advertising Alfa Spider’s technical specifications, the TV spot links the car with the possibility to explore and experience ‘new horizons’, ‘freedoms’ and a ‘new life’.41 Apple’s marketing strategy functions similarly, and with success: many people, especially younger ones, buy Apple products not only for their technical features and their quality, but for the attributes they represent, for example, coolness or flexibility. Rather than selling specific products, producers try to sell dreams and the access to another world, not least because they expect better profit. Commodification and commercialization are not (necessarily) about a product being superior to and more entertaining than its predecessors or competitors (however important that is for the sales numbers), but the individual’s desire to transcend what currently is available and possible and thus grasp at something that is promised, but not yet given or available to them. The loss of the aura of an object or work of art that is technically reproduced, as posited by Walter Benjamin,42 seems to be – at least in the eye of the consumer – given back to the object through promises, lures and the symbolic meaning that is associated with it in a commercial setting through the very interdependence of religion, media, society and culture.

II. Intersections Today, the pivotal point of social communication is situated at the intersection of media, religion, culture and society. On a very fundamental level, they form a discursive and performative Sinnzusammenhang (context of meaning) in which all constituents shape each other and contribute to the social and cultural transformation processes. An adequate analysis of the status of religion in Western Europe therefore necessarily has to consider those divergent but interdependent processes and phenomena. As less people all over Europe affirm their affiliation to a specific church,43 it is important to define different parameters to examine the disinterest in institutionalized religion, the ongoing ‘secularization’, yet at the same time the presence of the religious in everyday life, and the spread of ‘self-made’ and ‘independent’ spiritual lifestyles and philosophies of life as well as the fascination with the supernatural. With ‘independent’, I mean independent from any dogmatic restraints, but influenced and shaped by the presence and the boom of religious symbols in media. We encounter ‘religion’ (or what seems to be religious) and religious symbols in our daily activities. Depending on the context, these symbols are used to transmit different and often diametrically opposed messages, thus changing and redefining

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their meaning in this process, which is often called repurposing 44 or appropriation. If, however, the meaning and quality of a religious symbol change (and they do vary in different contexts), what happens to the referent, and our understanding of the referent, for example, grace, forgiveness, beauty, guilt, God? Even more importantly, who or what is or becomes the referent of the transformed symbols? What happens to the referents that do not have anything to do with each other but are more or less arbitrarily brought together through a (transformed) religious symbol? Or, rather, is the original (religious) referent completely replaced through an arbitrary object that is then linked to the meaning of the symbol but fails to actually replace the referent and leaves its spot empty? What, then, happens to the symbol in case it does not refer to any referent anymore? Can symbols still function in an economic environment if they no longer refer to any referent? These are important questions, because, as Vincent Miller points out, there is a relationship between what people do, what they are confronted with in everyday life and their spiritual, religious and ecclesiastical life.45 When we talk about the ‘new’ visibility of religion or the religious in a media society, the impact of this ‘new’ presence on the meaning of the symbol and its relation to the referent, we necessarily have to raise the question of what happened to what we could call the ‘old’ manifestations of the religious? In what ways does this ‘new’ visibility differ from traditional religion? Does it completely replace what was there before? Do we witness a complete loss, a return or neither?46 Religious symbols and religious imagery have always been mediated to a certain extent, for example, through writing and holy scriptures, arts, music, narration, etc. Over time, a certain medium becomes naturalized, that is, becomes an accepted and authentic tool to transport, that is to mediate, a certain religious message or meaning. Medium and message are linked in such a way that any other means of communicating the message may seem to compromise it. Thus, when a ‘new’ medium enters the arena, it can disrupt naturalized processes, causing confusion, interruption and scepticism.47 Content usually cannot be exchanged between different media without considering the properties of a specific medium and adapting the content to these properties. This process of adaptation, translation and interpretation, at least emphasizes different aspects of the message, but usually involves both a gain and a loss on different levels, for example meaning, accessibility, availability, tangibility, etc.48 Thus, the representation and mediation of a religious message or symbol in a medium that differs from its more familiar context necessarily involves a transformation in its meaning, because we experience and interact differently with various media and their mediations. Furthermore, the ‘use of particular media [. . .] appeals to specific senses and generates particular religious experiences’.49 A medium is not merely a container that leaves that which is being transported unaltered; the medium and the message are closely connected. While a transformation process is indeed taking place, the message, the meaning or the religious symbol, respectively, has to retain some of its original meaning in order to fulfil its function in the new context, for example in advertisement. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s theory of remediation can provide a framework for

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understanding the relation between ‘old’ and ‘new’, innovation and tradition and the phenomenon of the ‘new’ visibility of religion in society. Remediation, according to Bolter and Grusin, describes the ways in which new media refashion and improve on older media. It is a multilayered process ranging from simple repurposing of meaning or media content to the representation of one medium in another one.50 Remediation is driven by the so-called ‘double logic of remediation’51: immediacy, the desire to experience the real and hypermediacy, the simultaneous presence of many media in the act of mediation to appeal to many of our senses at the same time and thus achieve the Real.52 Whenever a new medium enters the arena, it does not erase or eliminate an older one, but refashions it; in fact, according to Bolter and Grusin,‘the new medium remains dependent on the older one in acknowledged or unacknowledged ways’.53 In order to apply Bolter and Grusin’s notion of remediation to the presence of the religious, it is necessary to use a broad definition of media and understand symbols as media, as means of communication and transporting a message. In fact, in today’s social discourse, a variety of symbols and symbolic acts are used as media to communicate one’s own agenda to a broader audience.54 The term ‘remediation’ is often used in an environmental context and refers to a whole array of measures to clean up contamination. Originally, it derives from the Latin remederi, to heal or restore, and is used by Bolter and Grusin to express the notion that new media improve on the older one, try to fulfil the promise of immediacy that older media failed to.55 This might suggest that all acts of remediation are positive, that is, provide a better, more immediate or richer (religious) experience with that which is mediated. This is not necessarily the case, and a more differentiated approach is important. A synopsis of religious visibility and the notion of remediation, however, take serious media as agents in today’s society and cultures, helps avoid a technological determinism56 and, at the same time, acknowledges the multiple transformation processes at work in their complexities and interdependencies as laid out above. For mediatization and commodification of religion to work, that is, to achieve the desired effect, for example in an economic or even religious setting, the commodified or remediated/refashioned symbol has to retain its original meaning at least to a minimal extent (‘acknowledged or unacknowledged’ as Bolter and Grusin pointed out above). This does not prevent a specific symbol from transmitting a different, refashioned or even entirely opposite message or meaning. It does, however, at the same time lose as well as gain meaning and the power to inform and affect everyday life. For example, in 2003, Unilever launched the advertisement campaign ‘Magnum 7 Sins’ to promote its latest and limited ice cream creation. Naming the different tastes, it drew on the Christian notion of the seven capital sins. The campaign TV spots, which featured visual and acoustic fireworks, certainly deserve a closer look with regard to the impact on the public understanding of the term ‘sin’. For Unilever, the campaign resulted in a huge success, boosting the brand ‘Magnum’.57 ‘Magnum 7 Sins put the sex back into the brand and seduced European women to sin to their hearts content, all to put Magnum back where it deserves to be: on top!’58 The Magnum ice cream campaign is but one of many

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examples that show that today religious symbols – even if remediated and refashioned – are still powerful media to transport a meaning and a message. Following Bolter and Grusin’s remediation theory, these refashioned symbols do not merely replace their predecessors (regarding both form and content), but remain dependent on their historical roots. To unfold their power, they still draw on the ‘original’ meaning and the cultural memory of the original use and context. The theory of remediation applied to the ‘new’ visibility of religion also reminds us that media participate (and always have done so) in the cultural construction of symbolic meaning, symbolic power and symbolic conflict. Today, symbols, objects and referents are brought together and linked in an extremely powerful and profound way through media, their omnipresence and their interdependence with religion, society, culture and economy. We are immersed into this fluid merging for which there are hardly any rules except consumers’ behaviour and complaints, since there are hardly any activities or life events that are not affected by media in some ways. ‘[I]s there anything you do that remains essentially unmediated, anything you don’t experience reflexively through some commodified representation of it? Birth? Marriage? Illness?’59 This applies to religious symbols and their referents, to religious imagination and religious ritual too. Religious communities have lost their control over religious symbols and rites, in that they are not restricted to a distinct realm or authority anymore but are lived, performed as and informed by mediated practices. The mediatization of religious acts and symbols as well as an ‘apotheosis’ of mundane objects turn believers into consumers/customers and consumers/customers into believers (though not believers in a traditional sense, nevertheless ones with strong convictions). Both, media and religion, become agents in the society’s search for meaning through a continuous construction and satisfaction of customers’ (and believers’) needs and desires. In this perpetual process of manufacturing social reality and both bodily and virtual desires and needs, media are not neutral, nor do they simply transmit information. By contrast, the content they offer, the symbols they use and the stories and narratives they tell reflect and influence users’ agency, social perspectives of reality, political and ideological stances, values, interests of power and economy.60 In fact, as Nick Couldry points out, media power cannot be attributed to a single player or institution, but has to be understood ‘as a broad social process that operates at many levels’.61 Furthermore, he points out that ‘[t]hrough seeming natural, media power is normally inaccessible to criticism; it is legitimated automatically’.62 Disruption and protest is difficult63 and often happens after an initial approval of the message in a second step.64 In order to avoid a biased view that might be implied in the above thoughts, I think it is important to point out that the presence of ‘the’ religious in media does not necessarily have to result in commodification. Today, religion is understood as being a lot more than just a set of beliefs65; media can in fact create sacred spaces, open the possibility for the sacred to enter or foster the manifestation of the religious.66 Thus, the ‘return’ of the religious is not only about the presence of religious iconography and its transforming meaning, but about a whole aesthetic experience created by a variety of sources we immerse ourselves. De Nora and Lynch’s

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argument about the religious and popular music applies to the broader question of the new visibility of the religious as well. It is: precisely the aesthetic and affective qualities of music that make it an effective tool in managing one’s identity and environment. It may not, therefore, be so much the cognitive content of song lyrics that are seen as important by listeners, but the entire aesthetic effect of listening to a particular piece of music in a particular setting, with particular people, at a particular time of day that makes popular music an important aesthetic tool for managing one’s experience of self and the world.67

Not only does society and religion undergo changes, but we ourselves, both causing these change and being entangled in them, radically modify our perspectives, our ideas of what our desires are and the answers to the fundamental questions of humanity: of who we are, where we come from and where we go to. ‘Not only are we changing radically, body and mind, but we are becoming actively involved in our own transformation. [. . .] It’s a matter of consciousness. We are acquiring new faculties and a new understanding of human presence’.68 This transformation includes all areas of our lives, our inner selves, radically questioning conventional understandings and definitions of the world we live in, and especially of religion and our relationship to the divine and transcendent.69 No one phenomenon – neither media nor commodification – can be singled out as a cause for the transformation of a traditional religious society to a postreligious to a postsecular society.

III. Implications Has religion become obsolete in Western Europe? Do we have to describe the status quo of religion as one of ‘decline and loss’70? One of Vincent Miller’s fundamental assumptions in his book Consuming Religion is that when ‘we relate to cultural and religious traditions as commodities, they lose their power to inform the concrete practice of life’.71 Miller is right, insofar as the meaning and role of religion and religious symbols are transforming in many ways. However, with my own analysis above, I have tried to present a different and broader perspective to Miller’s views that considers the complex relations between the different but increasingly overlapping domains of social life. As he himself points out, the commodification of religion is just a small part of the picture.72 Rather, we have to recognize the many ways the religious enters the public sphere today. In this context, media play a crucial role as they are fundamental for today’s social communication; they shape cultural, social and religious practices, and provide a framework for aesthetic experiences. Furthermore, media (in the broadest sense) are a repository of all different kinds of motifs that almost anyone can draw on today; be it motifs from classical art and traditional Christian iconography or the (new) symbolic meaning emerging from a traditional icon being used in a new context (e.g. associated with a commodity).

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What Roy Ascott says about contemporary Western Art – that there is a shift from appearance, the representation of reality, to apparition, the construction and transformation of reality 73 – resembles the status quo of religion and its relation to media. The purpose of religious symbols in the public sphere and the intentions of using them have changed, causing a transformation in their meaning. Religious imagery in art, media and communication is no longer only about visualization and communication – and thus representation – of dogmatic declarations, but transforms into a multipurpose communication vehicle serving religious as well as economic functions and interests. Furthermore, media as well as the presence of a (transformed) religious iconography in media increasingly frame religious acts, rituals and practices, thus influencing and transforming how we understand ourselves and our role and relationship to the world. As Gordon Lynch points out, ‘the ways in which the expansion of globalized media is providing a new set of practices and resources for conducting religious rituals, shaping and reinforcing one’s religious identity, and refining the religious meanings through which one interprets personal experience and the wider world’74 are at least as important as the role and impact of representations of religious symbols in media. The mutual dependency of media, religion, culture and society is not so much about the question of whether the status of religion today is one of ‘decline and loss’ as it is about the impact of media on everyday life. Media, even if they contribute to a commodification of religion, are not an antagonist of religion; on the contrary, through both their presence in life and the broad variety of content they offer, they might not be so dissimilar from religion after all, as Günther Thomas75 argues. Furthermore, commodified representations of religious symbols have to be evaluated from a critical distance. The context of those representations is often a secular or economic one, and the producers are most likely not driven by a religious motivation. Many of the symbols used are topoi not only present in Christian iconography but are found in other world religions and non-religious contexts as well. Occurrences of common topoi do not necessarily or automatically have to have a religious meaning or function, and a more differentiated approach that considers the mutually dependent relationships, the context, the power structures as well as the question of who the actors involved are is necessary. Bolter and Grusin’s notion of remediation turned out to be a helpful tool to analyse the relationship between a symbol and its referent. There is no doubt that the meaning and quality of religious symbols – and thus their relation to the respective referents – are transforming. However, applying the theory of remediation to these transformation processes, we can establish a link between the original symbol–referent relation (or at least what we think the original to be) and the remediated one. Many religious symbols are powerful means to express a meaning or a certain message, but they draw their very power from the link between the original and remediated symbol–referent relation. Above all, it is important to become aware that we are immersed in a media multiverse that is shaped by our desires and expectations, our interests and behaviour and in turn contributes to how we perceive the world, who or what is important

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to us and how we understand ourselves as religious and spiritual beings. Technology and media – and thus mediated interpersonal communication – are a fundamental aspect of today’s cultural and social context, a context that is both shaped by humans and in return shapes those who come in touch with it and live in it. The omnipresence of media and communication technology – which will increase over the coming years through, for example pervasive computing – frames our social, religious and everyday life. Today’s conditio humana is one of being immersed in media and technology, their aesthetic language, their social impact and their code of communication forming the human being as homo aestheticus and homo medialis.

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Manohla, D., ‘Apocalypse Now, but in the Wasteland a Child is Given’, New York Times, 25 December 2006, http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/ 25/movies/25chil.html, accessed 15 April 2007. Valentin, J., Zwischen Fiktionalität und Kritik. Die Aktualität apokalyptischer Motive als Herausforderung theologischer Hermeneutik (Herder: Freiburg, 2005) p. 323. http://www.childrenofmen.net/, accessed 17 January 2007. Stevens, D., ‘The Movie of the Millennium’. Alfonso Cuarón’s fantastic Children of Men, Slate Magazin, 21 December 2006, http://www.slate.com/id/ 2155950, accessed 16 April 2007. Žižek, S., ‘Reaction to Children of Men’, http://www.childrenofmen.net/, accessed 27 January 2007. For a more detailed analysis of secularization theories confer James Sweeney’s contribution in this volume. Hoover, S., Religion in the Media Age (Routledge: London, 2006) p. 1. Ibid., p. 56. Höhn, H.-J., Postsäkular. Gesellschaft im Umbruch – Religion im Wandel (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007) pp. 110–11. Miller, V. J., Consuming Religion. Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum, 2004) p. 13. Ibid., p. 12. Assmann, J., ‘Vier Formen von Gedächtnis: Von individuellen zu kulturellen Konstruktionen der Vergangenheit’, Wirtschaft & Wissenschaft, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2001), 34–45; Assmann, J., Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (München: Beck, 1997). Höhn, H.-J., Postsäkular. Gesellschaft im Umbruch – Religion im Wandel p. 128. Google produces approximately 80,000,000 hits for the word ‘prayer’. Hoover, S., Religion in the Media Age, p. 48. I would like to emphasize that it becomes more and more difficult to differentiate between technology and media since all new/digital media are computer-based, that is, technological advancements.

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Kröppel, F., ‘Different Initiations – Different Heros’. Knauss, S. and Ornella, A. D. (eds), Reconfigurations. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a PostSecular Society (Vienna: LIT, 2007). Loughlin, G., ‘Video Divina. Viewing Tarkovsky’ in Reconfigurations. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society (Münster: LIT, 2007). Moore, M., ‘Gorgeous Georg’s priestly chic inspires a new Versace show’, The Telegraph, 17 January 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2007/01/16/wversace16.xml, accessed 18 January 2007. Moore, M., ‘Gorgeous Georg’s priestly chic inspires a new Versace show’. Rodotà, M. L., ‘Padre Georg, sex symbol consapevole’, Corriere della Sera, 19 August 2006, http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/ 08_Agosto/18/rodot.shtml, accessed 29 January 2007. Esterbauer, R., ‘Gott im Cyberspace? Zu religiösen Aspekten Neuer Medien’ in Kolb, A., Esterbauer, R., Ruckenbauer, H.-W. (eds), Cyberethik. Verantwortung in der digital vernetzten Welt (Stuttgart 1998), 115–34. Forte, B., ‘I nomi del bello e il misterio di Dio’ (paper delivered at the Istituto Trentino di Cultura, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, 1 February 2007). Hayles, K. N., My Mother was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts (London: University of Chicago Press, 2005) pp. 2, 22; see also transhumanist and posthumanist thinking. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/01052006/325/mtv-germany-blasted-popetownsatire. html, accessed 27 January 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4968614.stm, accessed 29 January 2007. Hoover, S., Religion in the Media Age (London: Routledge, 2006) p. 47. http://www.astrotv.de/, accessed 26 January 2007. http://www.catholicnews.com/, accessed 27 January 2007. http://www.cwnews.com/, accessed 27 January 2007. http://www.catholicnews.com/aboutcns.htm, accessed 27 January 2007. http://www.catholicnews.com/aboutcns.htm, accessed 27 January 2007. Casanova, J., ‘Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective’, The Hedgehog Review, 22 March (2006), 7–22. Hoover, Religion, p. 50ff. Hoover, Religion, p. 51. See also Ward, G., ‘The Future of Religion’, JAAR, Vol. 74, No. 1 (March 2006), 179–86, p. 185. Hoover, S., Religion, pp. 77ff. Hoover, S., Religion, pp. 77. Hoover, S., pp. 77ff. Larcher, G., http://www.art.man.ac.uk/RELTHEOL/network/conference% 20proceed.pdf, accessed 17 January 2007. http://www.spider.alfaromeo.com/, accessed 26 January 2007. Benjamin, W., Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1977) p. 13.

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Alexander Darius Ornella In the United Kingdom for example, about 50 percent state they are not affiliated with any religion. Lynch, G., ‘The Role of Popular Music in the Construction of Alternative Spiritual Identities and Ideologies’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2006), 481–8, p. 481. Bolter, J. D., Grusin, R., Remediation. Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000) p. 45. Miller, V., Consuming Religion. Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (London: Continuum, 2003) p. 179. Heinrichs, J. and Spielmann, Y., ‘Winter 2002 Editorial’, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2002). http://convergence.beds.ac.uk/issues/volumeeight/numberfour/ editorial, accessed 1 June 2007. Hughes, S., Meyer, B., ‘Guest Editor’s Preface’, Postscripts. The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds, Vol. 1.2/1.3 (2005), 149–53, p. 152. Hayles, K. N., My Mother Was a Computer. Digital Subjects and Literary Texts (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005) pp. 89ff. Meyer, B., ‘Religious Remediations. Pentecostal Views in Ghanaian VideoMovies’ in Knauss, S. and Ornella, A. (eds), Reconfigurations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society (Vienna: LIT, 2007), 93. Bolter, J. D., Grusin, R., ‘Remediation: Understanding New Media’ (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000) p. 44ff. For the relation between remediation and repurposing and an interpretation of Bolter’s and Grusin’s terminology. See also Vandenbussche, B., ‘Remediation as medial transformation. Case studies of two dance performances by “Commerce”’, Image & Narrative, Vol. 6 (2003). http://www.imageandnarrative.be/mediumtheory/bertvandenbussche.htm, accessed 15 June 2007; Baetens, J., ‘Novelizaiton, a Contaminated Genre?’ Critical Inquiry, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Autumn 2005), 43–60, pp. 50–4. For my argument, I interpret repurposing to be one aspect of remediation because the lines between content and form, that is, message and medium are often blurred and I want to avoid a binary understanding of repurposing/remediation. Bolter, J. D., Grusin, R., Remediation. Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000) p. 5. Ibid., pp. 5, 19, 21. Ibid., p. 47. Couldry, N., Listening Beyond the Echoes: Media, Ethics, and Agency in an Uncertain World (Colorado: Paradigm, 2006) p. 93; Meyer, T., Die Inszenierung des Scheins. Voraussetzungen und Folgen symbolischer Politik (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1992) p. 55. Bolter, J. D., Grusin, R., Remediation. Understanding New Media p. 59. Ibid., p. 19. According to an e-mail conversation with Unilever Austria. IPA-News, Fifty-three agencies enter 2004 IPA Effectiveness Awards, http:// www.ipa.co.uk/news/news_archive/displayitem.cfm?itemid=1314, accessed 16 June 2007.

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Zengotita, T. de, Mediated. How the Media Shape Your World (London: Bloomsbury, 2005) p. 9. Schmalzbauer, J., ‘Journalism and the Religious Imagination,’ in Badaracco, Claire H. (ed.), Quoting God. How Media Shape Ideas about Religion and Culture (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005). Couldry, N., The Place of Media Power. Pilgrims and Witnesses of the Media Age (London: Routledge, 2000) p. 39. Ibid. Ibid. Kardes, F. R., Consumer Behavior and Managerial Decision Making (Reading/ MA: Addinson-Wesley, 1999) p. 49. Schofield-Clark, L., ‘Introduction to a Forum on Religion, Popular Music, and Globalization’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2006), 475–9, p. 475. Fernback, J., ‘Internet Ritual. A Case Study of the Construction of ComputerMediated Neopagan Religious Meaning’ in Hoover, Stewart, M. and Schofield Clark, Lynn (eds), Practicing Religion in the Media Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) pp. 254–75, pp. 267ff.; Knauss, S., Transcendental Bodies. Überlegungen zur Bedeutung des Körpers für die filmische und religiöse Erfahrung (Regensburg: Pustet, 2008). Lynch, G., ‘The Role of Popular Music in the Construction of Alternative Spiritual Identities and Ideologies’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2006), 481–8, p. 486. Ascott, R., Telematic Embrace. Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003) p. 319. Ibid., p. 320. Miller, V., Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Society (London: Routledge, 2004) p. 13. Ibid. Ibid., p. 12. Ascott, R., Telematic Embrace. Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness pp. 277ff. Lynch, G., ‘The Role of Popular Music in the Construction of Alternative Spiritual Identities and Ideologies’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2006), 481–8, p. 482. Thomas, G., Medien – Ritual – Religion. Zur religiösen Funktion des Fernsehens (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1998) p. 21.

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10 Radical Orthodoxy Ten Years On: The Return of Metaphysics John Milbank and Graham Ward

Hoelzl: Almost ten years ago, in 1998, both of you, together with Catherine Pickstock, published a book called Radical Orthodoxy. It was a collection of essays, of which commentators said: ‘It is the strongest theological voice today, not only in England, but also in Europe and in the United States’. Its subtitle is ‘A New Theology’. Why was it necessary to write a new theology, and what is new about it? Ward: I’m interested in John’s recollection of it, because my recollection is that this first volume was going to be called Suspending the Material, and that was the . . . Milbank: . . . the suggested title, yes, yes . . . Ward: . . . working title for a long time, and I don’t remember this subtitle ‘The New Theology’ coming in until looking at the proofs for the title page of the book. Because, remember, we spent ages and ages going through various kinds of designs and colours for the front cover . . . Milbank: Right, my memory is that we had negotiations with the publishers and he suggested various names (Ward: Yes.). At the end, I think that he suggested that. Ward: That we call it ‘The New Theology’? Milbank: Yes. We talked about ‘The New Theology’ as the main title, which would have been a bad idea. I cannot totally remember who put it forward as a subtitle. It probably was me or Catherine who suggested it, but it was only one suggestion that the publisher . . . Ward: . . . went with . . . ? Milbank: Yes, exactly. Ward: I often wonder with Radical Orthodoxy, to what extent Routledge engineered quite a lot. To an extent it was a whole publicity kind of thing from Routledge’s end.

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Milbank: Well, I think we okayed it. I mean, clearly, when the book came out I had no idea that it would resonate in the way it appears to have done. So that, as far as I’m concerned, Radical Orthodoxy now exists as a loose movement because it occurred. It did resonate. So, if you like, I see it almost as a hypothesis that we threw out. We said, well, here is this new mood, and it seemed to prove to be the case. My recollection initially is that we had a sense of being slightly embattled at Cambridge. It would be true to say that we probably felt that we were very indebted to people like MacKinnon and Rowan and Nicolas Lash. Yet, at the same time, we were trying to stir in new elements: we had a greater interest in continental thought than the people who came up to that point. Ward: That was partly a reaction, again, to the Cambridge context in which analytical thought was so pervasive. You come through the late 1980s where there was a whole debate about whether Derrida should get a degree from the university. There was a reaction, almost a visceral reaction, against continental philosophy that those of us who found a resonance in continental philosophy just . . . Milbank: It should be said that the mode of analytic philosophy represented in Cambridge was often the very best kind, in the sense that we are not talking about a kind of Swinburne-style philosophy, which has a kind of positivistic approach to religion. Clearly, there was a very strong Wittgensteinian influence which obviously we imbibed. I suppose that there was some sense that simply dealing with linguistic, grammatical issues is not the whole story. I guess a sneaking suspicion that in the end Wittgenstein’s philosophy is a kind of Kantian transcendentalism that forbids metaphysical engagement. Although you could say also that with some of the main currents of continental thought that they are antimetaphysical, obviously in a sense Heidegger gives a kind of alternative ontology, in a more manifest way than Wittgenstein, and yet is concerned with some of the same linguistic issues, as well. I think that we felt a need to broaden out the debate, and maybe that coincided with a rather more Catholic perspective than that of, say, the Yale school in America. The Yale school, in a rather more simplistic sense, had this very Wittgensteinian approach that is text-focused, and, bracketed out all the speculative issues about doctrine and philosophy. Ward: The interesting thing is that the second generation of the Yale school . . . Milbank: . . . they’d got fed up with it as well . . . Ward: . . . they’d moved. People like Kathy Tanner come right out of this Wittgensteinian . . . Milbank: . . . That is why I think that while it is true that Radical Orthodoxy has been quite prominent, there are lots of parallels to this as well. People have recognized an affinity with us: people like Philip Rosemann, William Desmond and, Graham, you probably know other names here as well: Olivier Thomas Venard in France, who combines Thomism with an interest in post-structuralism and Rimbeau . . . Ward: I think that that touches upon one of the elements that was really interesting, at the time, when interdisciplinarity was actually coming on to the scene in a

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much more academic way. What we brought to theology was a whole array of disciplines, not just of philosophy, but those from culture studies. I mean, in that first volume we are talking about music, city, politics, etc. It wasn’t just . . . Milbank: . . . I strongly agree with Graham. I think that in a way what was distinctive about Radical Orthodoxy was that it was focused on culture, but it was not Protestant liberalism. It is neither Barthian nor Tillichian, if you like. Although we were very, very interested in doctrine, it was not concerned with keeping doctrine in a box. Ward: No, it was not. Milbank: It was trying to ask what difference doctrine made. Hoelzl: We were talking the other day about this methodology, this engagement with culture. But, let me come back to question, what is new about it? Even if it was not intended to write a new theology, it was received as a new theology? The reasons you gave would explain why it was successful in an Anglo-American context. What strikes me is that it was quite successful also in a German context and quite successful in a French context. Your book has been recently translated into French. I know people who wrote . . . Milbank: . . . Italy as well. Hoelzl: People have written their Habilitationsschriften on your work, already . . . Milbank: . . . Also in Eastern Europe . . . Hoelzl: Can you explain this strong reception? Ward: I don’t think that you can actually explain it. Certainly not in a way that you can forecast that this is going to happen . . . There are a number of books released every year. The fact that one of these resonates . . . you can’t predict that. I mean, what we sat down and talked about was a whole mode of doing theology. I think one of the other influences here were the number of graduate students who were working with us at the time. They were absolutely key and fundamental to the development of Radical Orthodoxy. There are a number of them whose first articles appear in that volume of Radical Orthodoxy, bringing with them a sense of other things that were being done elsewhere. Conor Cunningham did his first MA in critical theory before he came to Cambridge to work with us, for instance. So, these people brought their own kinds of experience, and I think there was a mood that was emerging that was wanting to do, to think theology rigorously; to think theology through beyond liberal lines. In other words, to think culture through theologically, rather than think theology through culturally. Milbank: I would almost sum it up as a desire to bring together the biblical tradition and what, in the long term, is a classical legacy. In a way, it is a new approach to a humane culture. You don’t have humane culture that, ultimately, goes back to the classics and the secular, on one hand, and, then, biblical culture that is dealt with, ultimately, by biblical criticism or by dogmatics. Instead, you are bringing these things together, and literary, philosophical and historical interests are all

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melded here. I think that that a much broader development than Radical Orthodoxy, but (Ward: Yes.) I think that, maybe, Radical Orthodoxy crystallizes that. Ward: I think it is this that attracts. So that then there would later be conferences on Radical Orthodoxy: the first one on Roman Catholicism, and then one at Calvin College on Calvinism and the Reform tradition, then, finally the one on Eastern Orthodoxy. Each of them saw certain kinds of elements [in Radical Orthodoxy]: for the Eastern Orthodox, there were a number of patristic sources being used; for Calvinism, because much Protestantism was being appealed to (Barth being appealed to or at least thought through); Roman Catholicism, because of the way Augustine or Aquinas is being used. It was a melding as such through these intermingled voices . . . Milbank: Yes, and I think that Graham is right to draw attention to this. I think the ecumenical dimension is very significant . . . Most theologies are confessionally rooted. Although, I think, [Radical Orthodoxy] is marked by its Anglo-Catholic origin, from the outset, it was not just Anglicans involved. There were some Catholics, and then, quite quickly, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterians, even Baptists. It has this Lambeth-Chicago quadrilateral element about it, but it is a bit broader even than that. I probably ought to mention, also, three other things. I think that not wanting tight boundaries between faith and reason, nature and grace, was important, from the outset. There was the presence of the de Lubac-Balthasar legacy. But, at the same time, I suppose, there is a desire to beef that up a bit philosophically. Again, I think there are some parallels here with what some of the French phenomenologists are doing. The difference being that I don’t think that we tend to buy into, in the end, the phenomenological assumptions. I think they tend to be, in the last analysis, too modernist and idealist – rooted ultimately in the Scotist esse objectivum. Ward: That continental philosophy influence came most clearly in rejecting those binarisms of the faith and reason that actually worked in nature and grace. Certainly, for me, to come across these binarisms, to see that there were other ways of thinking them through, deconstructing them, whatever . . . Milbank: Exactly, there is Graham’s own work on Barth here. Neo-orthodoxies have tended to emphasize revelation over against us, the objective word of God and this kind of thing. Where we were saying that the very idea of having a strong revelation/reason contrast is in fact too modern. Here, I am trying to put my finger on why Radical Orthodoxy seems disconcertingly new. And that’s also why it makes some people very angry. Because it’s not liberal and it’s not conservative in any obvious way. It is almost saying that a lot of liberal/conservative polarities take place inside a modern space. (Ward: Exactly.) So, often, that’s one of the questions I have been asked . . . Ward: . . . Yes. ‘Are you a correlationist or are you a conservative?’ Actually, what is difficult is working and creating a voice within a space that’s neither one nor the other.

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Milbank: Yes, and that is why a lot of people who do see this are young, very bright people. And this is why a lot of people who have been attracted to this movement have a notably large amount of ability. Ward: I wonder whether it is worth recalling, now that we can look back ten years later and say it has done very well, that when I remember the first few months, that it was the attacks that stood out. As John rightly pointed out, we had a lot of young, new voices coming through that have now proven themselves, absolutely. Milbank: And not always just academically, also as incredibly reliable citizens – sustaining academic departments. Ward: But, early on, it was not like that at all. There was a lot of difficulty . . . and a lot of anger, and a lot of misunderstanding as well of what it was we were trying to do. Milbank: Yes, and I think, to be honest, retrospectively, I can understand some of that. People were suspicious of some kind of ‘in-group’ or secret movement. I think, as time has gone on, it has become quite clear that we do not operate like that. In fact, unlike some other cases of theological movements, there is no organization, there are no plans . . . Ward: But, that has always been the fear behind it all, that this was a clique, a Cambridge clique to begin with, and then a kind of club. I remember, in the first couple of months, people e-mailing saying where could they find their local branch of Radical Orthodoxy. I was constantly having to say, John, Catherine and I very rarely sit down with each other; certainly not John, Catherine and I, though John and Catherine maybe more, don’t sit down together and talk theology, we just don’t. This is the first time that you and I have sat down together for a very long time. Hoelzl: Can I mention one accusation that is levelled at Radical Orthodoxy as a movement? You called it a movement. But what kind of movement do you mean? Having you both here, it is obvious that Radical Orthodoxy speaks, despite its polyphonic nature, with one voice. Or is it just an intellectual endeavour? Milbank: I think I am trying to suggest one way: that this has to do with faith and reason and Graham is stressing the association with continental philosophy. Both are correct. I do think, also, that we had a different take on postmodernism. For example, people in Eastern Europe say to me again and again: ‘I give your work to students who are simply drunk on Foucault, and don’t ask any questions about it’. You tended to have in theology up to that point, people who were simply dismissive of anything continental at all, or people swallowing it whole like Mark C. Taylor – pretending that nihilism is something other than nihilism. Whereas we were saying something like, yes, postmodernism, or a return to Nietzsche, raises hugely important critical questions. It shows where humanism goes, but that doesn’t mean that we have to embrace nihilism. On the contrary, what we are trying to say is that the kind of indeterminacy that it shows up can be read in a different way; can be read in a theological manner. I guess that’s where the whole metaphysics of participation came into the picture.

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Ward: It was that critical reception of postmodernism that was distinctive. I remember, quite early on, one of the books submitted was Dan Bell’s book, as a manuscript. Since then, it has become a very influential book within the Series and a very influential book on the nature of liberation theology. It begins with a Deleuzian deconstruction of liberation theology to date. We read the manuscript and we said: ‘Well, yes, but what about a kind of critical engagement with Deleuze, himself? We’ve got to have not just Deleuze talking to theology, but what does theology say back to Deleuze?’ That took the book then, for Dan, into a different league altogether. It wasn’t then just taking an ‘off-the-shelf ’ methodology, and then adding some theological discourses to see what would come out of it . . . Milbank: . . . and in fact, it is very notable within secular continental thought itself that there is a new feeling around that you can only get universal values back by alluding to theology in some way. It is clear with Badiou, Žižek, even Negri. In that sense, Radical Orthodoxy was earlier on the scene, with that move, and made this move also in a more authentic fashion, really. Ward: It actually drew attention to these people using the theological idiom, and asked them what are you doing with this? The claims that you are trying to make, like for example with Vattimo on the notion of kenosis, will only lead to nihilism; and this in fact empties whatever you are trying to say about kenosis itself. Milbank: I think that probably a final thing I’d like to mention is the genealogy that we tended to give; which was usually along the lines of saying secular thought is more of a theological construct than you might think. It has buried theological roots; it’s rooted in one kind of theological preference, which might be a dubious theological preference. Basically, we’re talking about a Scotist–Ockhamite voluntarist–nominalist sort of trajectory. Again, it’s important to say here that a lot of the time we’ve only been drawing on the work of established scholars: people like Honnefelder in Germany, Courtine in France. In a way, there’s been a massive vindication of the Gilsonian account of the history of philosophy. However, this may have been modified. For, in the end, modern thought has been built upon the scholastic thought, right up to Kant. Andre de Murat, for example, famously treats Kant as an Ockhamist. I mention this issue of genealogy because this is one of the things that makes people in England, and particularly in America, most angry. There’s something about their anger that’s incredibly inauthentic, because this genealogy is confirmed by the fact that even analytic philosophy has been rediscovering its late medieval roots. It’s not an accident that we have Marilyn McCord-Adams, who’s an Ockhamist, as professor of theology in Oxford. There’s a sense that the liberal take on politics and ethics, which is rooted in this voluntarism has resurfaced in a specifically theological guise. It’s gone back to its own roots. There’s a sense that for nobody now is Kant central any longer. We’ve all now seen that he’s a latecomer, that he is working in a late conceptual scholastic space, as was Descartes. And, if anything, Descartes is more alive today than Kant is, if you look at French thought. Some people, rather sadly, people we admire, couldn’t really understand this. Somebody like Nicolas Lash, for example, is very happy with a story that says that a kind of idolatrous take on God emerges in the seventeenth

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century, that people start thinking about God as a very big object, or very big person up there, or something, and, of course, that’s right. But, there is an incredible reluctance to trace this story back into the late Middle Ages, to see that it emerges from the complex mix of theological and metaphysical moods during that period. Other people, like David Burrell and David Ayers and now even David Tracey, seem to fully accept this story . . . However, if we emphasize that it all goes wrong somewhere around 1, 300, then, of course, we look like theological pre-Raphaelites. Ward: You’re right to emphasize that the argument was already being made: it is one of the central arguments of nouvelle theologie, for instance, and one of the central ideas of Yves Congar. Milbank: It’s already in Balthasar. In fact, people kept saying to me, after the Pope’s Regensburg speech: ‘Has he been reading radical orthodoxy?’ I said, probably not. He’s just drawing on the same kind of things, though the speech was fantastically like what we’re saying, including the implication that the West became dangerously ‘islamified’ in the late medieval period. Though, we’re if anything a bit more cautious . . . For example, the more mystical tradition in Islam often resonates with what is best in the Christian tradition. Ward: You asked the question, ‘Does [Radical Orthodoxy] speak with one voice?’ This is probably one of the areas where John, Catherine, Conor and Simon Oliver have done much more of that work, whereas others like Steve Long and Tracey Rowland have done quite different work. It’s not that there is an over-arching programme that we’ve all got to sign up to. I haven’t read nearly enough Duns Scotus to be able to do the work that John and Catherine have done. Nevertheless, there is a trajectory about the birth of modernity and the relationship between modernity and the liberations (but also limitations) of postmodernity being thought through theologically. Hoelzl: Can I ask you a question? Despite the differences, there is a kind of common sense, or an overlapping consensus, among the work, if I’m right, say a family resemblance, at least? Milbank: That’s right, but I also want to say that sometimes, where there are differences of opinion, that’s not even unfortunate, because there are certain things that there are bound to be tensions about. Nobody can fully sort it out. For example, I’m thinking in relation to some political issues and issues of sexuality, there’s definitely a spectrum of opinion. That, in a way, is a good thing. Ward: We’ve never tried to suppress that. (Milbank: Definitely not.) I remember when we were working through the Introduction to the very first volume of Radical Orthodoxy, there was no attempt to suppress differences between us. Some of the books that we’ve actually encouraged have been actually quite critical of what either I’ve said or you . . . but we’ve never allowed that to be a governing factor in accepting a book. Milbank: If anything, I’ve tried to broaden it out even further with the centre I have at Nottingham, of theology and philosophy. Obviously, it is inspired by Radical

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Orthodoxy, but it’s a deliberate broadening out. We have invited a huge number of different people interested in the kind of questions we are raising. But they often disagree. If anything, I’ve encouraged Radical Orthodoxy to flow into a broader current. Hoelzl: So, is this the liberal side of Radical Orthodoxy? Milbank: (laughs) Well, in the sense of generous, yes, liberal . . . . Hoelzl: So, can we summarize: Radical Orthodoxy is a movement, a political movement. But, let us please be more precise about that. Radical Orthodoxy is not an ideology in terms of a coherent set of ideas that demand to be put in practice? Milbank: It’s not as tight as that. Ward: The word I have used for the last five years was ‘sensibility’, rather than even ‘movement’. I think, for some people now, because of the publicity it’s got, it’s actually changed in their perception, in a way that neither John, Catherine or I could ever control. I do get people applying to work with me because they think that Radical Orthodoxy is a movement . . . But, in fact, I still think that what they’re actually saying is that we share your sensibility rather than we want to become part of some club. Milbank: Yes, I think so, and I don’t want people to do these premature studies of Radical Orthodoxy. I want them to try and take the project further, in terms of concrete work. Ward: Yes, and I think that’s really important. At the moment, there are four or five studies on Radical Orthodoxy and essays collections. But, I think, in fact, they create an ideology out of it. For me, the most important thing is actually developing a range of scholars who will take this theological thinking further. I remember John and I talking about how the most important thing is the work, and the future, and the fact that this inspires younger scholars . . . Milbank: . . . I think there’s also an interesting psychological question here. It often seems to me that quite a lot of people in theology, especially in England, in the recent past, people who have grown up Christian, tend to be often people of a conservative mindset. They attach themselves to Christianity: daddy was a vicar, and grandfather was a vicar and so on. They also have a cautiously critical mentality. It’s almost as if they become theologians as a way of gently retreating from what they’ve inherited. You find this still now, and it’s not an accident, that a long line of the young people criticizing us has double-barrelled names, and, often, indeed, come from lineages of vicars, and these are precisely the people who get very confused by Radical Orthodoxy. Whereas, I think, that the people attracted to Radical Orthodoxy have either been complete outsiders . . . Ward: . . . not Christians at all and without any education in the Christian Church . . . Milbank: . . . or else, and this probably applies to me, they’ve had an almost sectarian Christian upbringing. I came from a very strict Methodist background, so, from a young age, I was aware that there was a big, big difference between Christianity and the secular world. At the same time, I was not at all attracted by the sectarian path. So, I was faced with a decision here, and my brother in the same

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situation just became an agnostic. I was faced with the decision: do I go in that secular direction, or do I try to work out intellectually a way in which the Christian vision does make sense, in the modern world in some way. I think there are several people in a similar position in Radical Orthodoxy, besides those several others who have passed through postmodernism to nihilism and out the other side . . . Hoelzl: Let’s concentrate on the two labels, liberal and conservative. It seems to me that Radical Orthodoxy seems to be both liberal and conservative. It’s politically conservative, but, morally, it’s liberal – in terms of gay rights, gender equality, questions of sexuality and social behaviour and so on. Interestingly, the reception of Radical Orthodoxy shows that it is received by conservative Catholics, as well as conservative Calvinists. Does this suggest that only Radical Orthodoxy’s political conservativism has been acknowledged by these two groups? How do you explain this selective, one-sided reception of Radical Orthodoxy? Milbank: I wouldn’t set it up that way at all. Graham, you . . . Ward: I just want to know what you mean by conservative, politically. Hoelzl: Throughout the writings of Radical Orthodoxy, you can find a critique of liberalism akin to the conservative voices like de Maistre, Carl Schmitt and Robert Spaemann, if you like; so politically conservative, then, in the sense of being a critique of liberalism. Milbank: I attack de Maistre as being all too modern, in fact. Carl Schmitt is a very complicated figure, but I would say that, on the contrary, I’ve always been a Christian Socialist. This means that I think of myself as on the left, but the Christian bit does make a difference. I think as time has gone on, I see more and more the ways in which it does make a difference. There is a sense in which both the secular right and the secular left are wrong and trapped within the same paradigm. For example, neo-liberalism is a right-wing Enlightenment project. If you read the media, for example, they say they’re defending the Enlightenment legacy, but if you open the pages of David Hume, his views are very like those of Mrs. Thatcher. He thinks that you shouldn’t help the poor, because that’s unfair to the economy; that you should never overthrow a king, because that would undermine the totally formal basis of authority; and that you should promote luxury because, again, it’s good for the economy. I suspect that most people who see themselves as vaguely on the left have attitudes that are more like Gladstone, than David Hume, or indeed like those Thomas Aquinas in certain ways. Hoelzl: Could we say that Orthodoxy, or rather the word Orthodox, is an alternative beyond the dichotomy between liberal and conservative? Ward: Orthodoxy itself has almost a built-in resistance critically to thinking about itself. And that’s why Radical Orthodoxy was never the new Orthodoxy. We were trying to do something different . . . a radical engagement. Milbank: Yes. At the moment, I’m revising an article about Sophiology, and one of the things I’m really emphasizing, in that article, is that one meaning of Radical Orthodoxy is that the doctrine is not yet finished. It can develop further. This is

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not liberal or conservative, because it’ s stressing that doctrine is an on-going project. If we’re going to talk about political liberalism, then, I suppose the point is that that is the fundamental doctrine of modernity. I agree with Andre Du Murat’s analysis that all modern politics is based on the primacy of the will, on formalism, and that you can either have the idea that there’s one will dominating everything, or you can have the idea that you’re trying to distil order out of the many isolated wills. The left tends to favour a kind of naturalism, and the right a kind of artificialism imposed on individuals seen as incredibly greedy and egotistical. There’s a sense in which, as Christian Socialists, we’re interested in coming together, in justice and harmony, but we don’t think that this is rooted in many completely isolated, individual wills. We feel that there’s some objective sense of justice, and indeed a teleology, if you like. Ward: The whole kind of doctrine, and understanding of participation, which is so strong in Radical Orthodoxy, mitigates some of that rampant individualism. That’s why one of the central motifs has been the Eucharist, for example, and the notions of community. I think it’s against the kind of rampant voluntarism of the political liberalism terms of laissez-faire . . . Another difficult term though, here, is the word socialism, itself. I actually think that John and I are very close politically, but the way socialism has been understood can get in the way, because it’s assumed that you are, for example, anti-capitalist. For me, there are some much needed critiques of capitalism and economics as the governing discourse that commands the attention of every other discourse. I think there has got to be a critique of that, and Marx has been quite important to me, in giving me a vocabulary and way of actually discussing that. The most important thing is to put back some of the Christian and theological tradition into what we mean by socialism, and that’s the more difficult part. I think socialism, as it stands, may go through a little revival now and then, but it’s not going to hold up before this huge mass of neo-liberal capitalism. You need another voice, and the strength of a Christian socialism, and it has to be a rethought Christian socialism. It can only in part be the paternalism of F. D. Maurice. Milbank: Maurice was scarcely really a socialist, though he was when compared to J. H. Ludlow. Ward: Ludlow was the more interesting one. It’s a matter of rooting socialism and using theology as a critical tool for an advanced analysis of the material. That’s partly what Radical Orthodoxy has done with continental philosophy and the project of modernity: trying to open up discourses in philosophy, in economics, in art, to a critique that’s a theological critique. Milbank: Yes, I agree mostly with Graham here – though I am still emphatically anti-capitalist – and it’s become a big question now, whether or not we can really resist capitalism, because it is a secular movement, and, also, because it may again be rooted in one kind of theology. It’s very interesting that Robert Brenner, a Californian Marxist, has put forward the very controversial thesis which almost amounts to saying that, if Henry VIII hadn’t dissolved the monasteries, capitalism

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might not have happened. Brenner is saying that capitalism is a contingent upshot of the dispossession of the English peasantry, which is really increased by the dispossession of the Church lands, and the wage–labour relationship that began in the English countryside. This, in a way, is music to my soul, because it feeds into that Cobbett-Ruskin thing – the suspicion that it all begins with Enclosure. Thus has to do with the primary accumulation side of Marxism, which I think we now need to emphasize more. I think there are really concrete reasons for saying that capitalism is secularity or that capitalism is heresy, and then the question ‘when is capitalism not capitalism?’ is a very difficult one – which is maybe what Graham means. I think that post-capitalism would mean something like the point at which market determination of prices and wages and interest rate are thoroughly subordinated to what is conceived of as intrinsic human value, however you envisage that. It does raise the question of whether, in relation to Marx, one needs to be a heretic. Marx was very rude about Christian Socialism, but it may very well be that you need that theological dimension. And it’s interesting that, on the whole, Christian Socialism has not been statist. It’s given a role to the state, but insisted on co-operative bodies, middle-range associations and socially responsibly business relations. If you like: there is a blending of the economic with the political, which is heresy for democratic liberalism. And this is where I would say that Christian Socialism insists upon the role of the few, in between the one and the many, in the sense of mediating. It’s why perhaps Gillian Rose said the middle is broken. But, by the mediating few, I also mean the aristocratic role, the guidance by good practices, good ideas, virtues of the virtuous and so on. If my thought has shifted, I’d have said that it has shifted in this direction. While Christianity has a bias towards democracy and equality, I also think that antique thought is right, that politics is always a mix of the rights of the many and the few and the one. The idea that you’re going to completely abolish the rule of the few and the one is a delusion. If you think that you’ll get a dictator, or a cruel elite. People talk as if we’ve got rid of deference, today, but, in fact, we’re dominated by rich buggers who don’t give a damn and have lost the older sense of ruling class responsibility. I’m not idealizing the gentry in the past, but the ‘new class’, as the late Paul Piccone in Telos described them, do care less than the gentry in the past. To my mind now, the left has to think of how you have a good few, and a good one, even in a democracy. It’s like the way that democracy needs good education, if it’s not to be dominated by propaganda, which will actually completely subvert democracy. It seems to me that representative democracy no longer works. Hoelzl: Does this mean that you want to bring the notion of the just king back into democracy? Milbank: Only in a very symbolic way. Only in the sense that I don’t think we’ve ever abolished that sense of a sovereign centre: who is going to decide. If you like, that’s the Schmittian element. What I am saying is that you need virtue, and the sense of intrinsic justice, which isn’t just what people have voted on, isn’t just what people want. This is a kind of MacIntyrian thing, involving questions about how we should really be living. I think Christianity democratizes ethics and virtue, but

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it still remains with an ethics of virtue. You know, if what matters are faith, hope and charity, then everybody can do it, children can do it, slaves can do it. In that sense, Christianity does really have a democratizing thrust, because it redefines what virtue is. All can love. And one should still follow the leaders in love and hope and faith. Ward: Yes, Christianity also has a strong hierarchical dimension; it’s about obedience. This is the political upsetter. There is the democratic, on the one hand, and the language of equality. On the other, there’s also a lot of language about obedience and sovereignty in terms of Christ. Milbank: This is why, when you look at Paul, it’s an incredibly confusing mix of political discourse. Ward: And it’s why I get very suspect when you have this re-interest in the political Paul, as this kind of revolutionary. There is a lot of revolutionary stuff in there, but there’s also Blumenfeld’s idea that Paul is actually Eusebius before Eusebius. Milbank: It’s at once monarchic and democratic. This is what’s confusing. If you like, it’s the Church that’s the ideal society. It has an eschatological, self-abolishing hierarchy. In the end, there’s no prince, we’re all in heaven, but the point is to get there – and to get there one needs guidance. Hoelzl: Let’s talk about this combination of democracy and hierarchy, the sovereign as the one but also as the many. It seems to me the Catholic Church is a perfect mixture of that. Do you see the Catholic Church as a political role model, or model for the form of government you propose? Ward: No, this comes back to that word, eschatology. Because it is eschatological, there is a kind of pilgrim Church, or a pilgrim city, in an Augustinian sense. To actually take the model of any denomination, and to say that this is the type that we’re aiming for is to reduce what Metz called the eschatological reservation. It’s not just that we’re on the way, in terms of doctrine, because truth is that which we’re constantly pursuing. What is the shape of this polity that we are after? Well, it’s still eschatologically veiled. You can’t take one type and say that this is the way it should be. Hoelzl: So you’re not endorsing any specific form of government without an eschatological reservation? Ward: No, I want that eschatological reservation. Hoelzl: But a politician would say: ‘That doesn’t help me. I have to act. Is it then just a regulative idea?’ Ward: You have to ask, then, what is the role of theology, or the Church, within the wider secular world. What’s the relationship between the Church and the world? That goes back to the question of the Church being in the world and not of the world; that is, trying to solve the world’s problems? That’s not what the Church is actually there to do. Christ may solve the world’s problems, eventually, by redeeming them, but all the Church is trying to do is to listen and be obedient, it seems to

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me. Where that obedience comes in, which I’m trying to emphasize strongly in Cities of God, is not in having answers to all the world’s problems. It needs to bear witness to what it actually thinks it should be doing. Milbank: Yes, I think Graham is right here, and it squares with what Rowan Williams always emphasizes: the Church brings an eschatological reserve in the political sphere. It qualifies any tendency to sacralize secular authorities, and reduces them to a more human status. Also I think, interestingly, even within the Church, although communities are holy, they’re also humanly constituted things: monasteries, guilds and things, sorts of things. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit, but also a social miracle: the capacity of human beings to freely associate . . . Rowan recently gave this speech in Brussels where he said that Christianity had fermented constitutionalism, and I think that’s right. If you look at Islam, the lack of the Church is why Islam has this particularly troubled history; because there is nothing in Islam between authority and the individual believer. There isn’t the same genius for creating these middle associations; and the nearest thing to do is mystical bodies, like the Sufis brotherhoods – but, unfortunately, their influence has faded. But, there’s a sort of confusion here that I’d like to mention . . . Modern liberalism is predicated on the sovereignty of isolated, individual wills and is a result, in fact, of the breakdown of medieval corporatism and constitutionalism . . . I’m sympathetic to that sort of Catholic model – a corporate Europe, or even a corporate world, rather than a world of nation-states, a corporate world which, in the Middle Ages, the papacy encouraged. But, I want an ecclesio-political debate to take place between the Catholic Church, Orthodox Church and Anglican Church, because, while I think that the Catholic Church has this much greater internationalism, and a much greater sense of not sacralizing secular authority, I also think that you could argue that there has been a danger in the Catholic trajectory of leaving the lay order and the political order outside the Church altogether. Sometimes, what I like about Russian culture, for example, is that you never get this feeling that it’s so secular. You read something like Pavel Florensky today or Maximus the Confessor in the past. There’s a resonance there, if you like, with the founding high Anglicanism of Radical Orthodoxy; also the way in which the Byzantine state already introduced systematic welfare institutions because the Emperor thought of himself as a priest. I don’t know the answers here, but I rather think that it’s not obvious that absolutely all the virtues (even if most of them) are with the Latin Church, and Byzantium is totally wrong . . . I think there are ways in which you can see the Gregorian reforms, for example, as quite ambivalent in terms of equating Church power with clerical power. Also, I think that papal power has been conceived in too modern a way, as a claim of absolutism . . . founded upon a theological voluntarism. The true model is that of the Pope is in council, where there’s a balance, not out and out conciliarism . . . Maybe modern Catholicism is going more in that direction . . . I’m quite clear that Church unity has to happen round the Pope. Hoelzl: This is quite astonishing. What you’re saying is that Radical Orthodoxy, in political and ecclesial terms, advocates a combination of a hierarchical structure, an

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institutional form of religion, with the forum of the council. If we just bear in mind, that is, that the institutional and political differences that triggered the Reformation, does it mean that Radical Orthodoxy transcends, or is beyond, the problems that triggered the Reformation? So that, today, it’s possible to talk about the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church and Protestantism, equally, as Churches? Ward: I certainly think that part of the genealogical work that some, more than others, have done within Radical Orthodoxy, has been trying to get at some of these questions. What is the relationship between Protestantism and modernity, for instance? What is the relationship between the late medieval scholastics and people like Luther, and, later on, with people like Calvin. It’s trying to work out those questions. But I would go back again to that ecumenical vision which is at the heart of this. It’s not, then, as I perhaps too rashly said, actually a kind of dismissal of Protestantism. It’s actually to try and get beyond this state. Surely, that is what theologians down the centuries have tried to move towards: a notion of the Church that is actually a universal Church. We cannot be happy with the fact that we’ve got Orthodox, Anglicans and Catholics. Milbank: Definitely not. Ward: You can’t be happy with that and every true theologian is trying to get beyond that situation. Part of that means the detailed historical analysis of how we’ve got there, and where we are, at the moment. What are the new opportunities now, for a new Christian Church, a kind of universal Church to emerge? This is quite different from the debates in the World Council of Churches in the 1970s, which were all about getting your doctrines on the table, and then we’ll actually start to see which doctrines can be accepted by someone else. So you’ve got things like the BEM document on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, which was just thin and totally ludicrous. I do think ecumenicalism is one of the contributions from Radical Orthodoxy, though there are other voices as well. I don’t think that, until the postmodern turn, we had the tools to be able to analyse this situation. (Milbank: Yes, that’s right.) Now, we’ve got some of the ways in which we can reflect back on modernity, and start to construct that narrative. Milbank: I think that’s right, because, in a sense, we’re saying the CounterReformation didn’t get it right, and the Reformation didn’t have it altogether wrong. If the problem is identified as something going wrong with the late Middle Ages, and something that even has some roots back in the late twelfth century, then we’re also saying that even in terms of the earlier developments, both in Byzantium and with the Hildebrandine reforms, this was not ideal. Of course, one can understand the unease of the Reformers, but the feeling is that they continued a lot of the problems. A lot of the problems, in terms of the separation of theology and philosophy; a lot of Nominalist attitudes; a lot of dualities between Bible and tradition that were already in place, and the separation between those two and reason . . . . One is here also somewhat sympathetic with the Enlightenment. Sometimes it’s reacting against really terrible versions of Aristotelian scholasticism. So the enemy is not exactly the Enlightenment, nor exactly the Reformation. It’s something else; more a perversion of an authentically Catholic tradition whose

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recognition has hugely positive ecumenical implications. But, it seems to me that ecumenism hasn’t got very far. I think that Graham is right, and that setting up meetings at an official level is not the way to do it. I would like, in my Centre, to set up a think tank project called: ‘How would you really do ecumenism?’ And I want to have two or three people approaching this, in new ways. I think that Church disunity is catastrophic, and that that’s what allows a bad secularity to happen. Hoelzl: Let us return to the main theme of this book: the New Visibility of Religion. Your collection of essays (Radical Orthodoxy) appeared in 1998. Now, ten years on, there were the events of 9/11 and the inchoate discourse about the rise of religion in the public sphere. How do you interpret this phenomenon of the new awareness of religion over the last ten years? Ward: To me, there are various aspects of this phenomenon, and there are a lot of them that I wouldn’t want to endorse in any way. I think that there’s a whole complex strand to do with the way religion is used in advertising so that it has become chic to write about religion. I think that about philosophers like Žižek. I wonder what on earth he is trying to do with his religious references, other than making them part of a polemic. There is a lot of this ‘new visibility’, irrespective of fundamentalism, and irrespective of the way religion is being played out by the politicians in what is quite a manipulative way. There is a lot that is complex about this new visibility. I do think that one aspect of Radical Orthodoxy has been that if you see some of the people now writing about this major resurgence of religion, throughout the nineties, and into this century, there is something about the interdisciplinary way, the intellectual thinking, behind Radical Orthodoxy that has actually brought in a number of people. One of the things John has mentioned is the number of people who were attracted to Radical Orthodoxy, who had nothing to do with the Church. They were interested. This too is a part of a new visibility of religion, but I would want to distinguish what Radical Orthodoxy is trying to do from some of these other new types of visibility. Milbank: Yes, I agree with that. What I find quite peculiar about the present moment, and I’m not quite sure how to interpret it, is that it seems to me that we have, simultaneously, rampant secularism and anti-religiousness and a new presence of religion in the public sphere. I don’t think anybody anticipated this. Maybe the explanation, in part, is because of the death of secular ideology, the death of modernist optimism. That has meant that, although religion is in a minority, in a way it has much more intellectual depth and substance than any other tendency. That is why Pope Benedict (XVI) is right to talk about the power of creative minorities. I also think that secular intellectual life, once its ideologies have died, has only the ideology of secularism itself left. We have had an incredible resurgence of extraordinarily stupid scientists, who exist as if (Thomas) Kuhn and (Paul) Feyerabend have never lived and never exploded that sort of thing, once and for all. As if all the work, the careful empirical work, of historians of science had never occurred. We have this 1950s, schoolboy, idiotic enthusiasm about science. (Ward: Dawkins.) Well, it’s Dawkins, and other people, as well. I think it is something like that. If you’re secular, it’s the only ideology left. It is almost as if,

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weirdly, Dawkins intimated the return of religion, before it had even begun – and his work is essentially defensive. Ward: I agree. It is the only way you can account for the popularity of it. I think that when something changes within a culture, then how and what you believe in changes also. Secular ideology stood on certain anti-metaphysical suppositions. In fact, what we have today – and this is where Radical Orthodoxy has picked up something – is the re-emergence of metaphysics, in all sorts of different ways. Philosophically, we are seeing it; but we are also seeing it in the euphoria in sports. There are all sorts of metaphysical assumptions being articulated . . . (Milbank: Doctor Who.) Doctor Who is a huge remythologization of the real, and the kind of disenchantment with the kind of world that secularist ideology has demanded and perpetuated. It is no longer believable. Or people don’t want to believe it; they want fantasy, other possibilities, alternative worlds, such as The Lord of the Rings. Because of this, you have actually got a whole new realm, it seems to me. The internet, for instance, is suffused with metaphysics. Milbank: I would say that modern science itself is so strange, and is almost close to magic. G. G. Marquez saw this. That raises the question, again, about whether control is actually rather demonic. Once you have said that, the alternatives are religious, and I think this metaphysics thing is right. In a sense, naturalism and the return to religion are both modes of the return to metaphysics. If you like, you could say that analytic philosophy and phenomenology were glorious intellectual blips, now both deconstructed, and we are now much more in a situation like that of the nineteenth century again. We are battling out between very naturalistic visions and very religious visions. Hoelzl: Would that not mean, from a rational, positivistic standpoint, that people no longer want to know what is rational and scientifically proven, but are asking for a placebo: a placebo called metaphysics? And, curiously, at the same time, they know that it is a placebo, but they want to forget that? Ward: That would be Žižek’s double-bind: they know it is false, but they still want it, because it is the way in which you hide the true horror of the Real. I am not quite convinced by the argument that it is all just placebo. I think that there is a lot there that is about trying to find substitutions for what secularism could not give them. And that is why I would not just accept the new visibility of religion at face value. There is a lot of bad visible religiosity out there, and that is why those of us belonging to theological traditions have important things to say about bad religion, and are able to critique some of the perverse forms of it. Milbank: I think that there may be some truth in the idea that the current popular fideism is a kind of fallout from our total refusal of metaphysics. If reason has disclaimed any ultimate answers, then people need frameworks, they need worldly things for practical reasons, and so they go for these crude ones. Ward: What is ironic here is, again, Radical Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, the proceedings of our first conference in Oxford, 2001, were never published, though

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the volume was actually going to be focusing on the metaphysics of light. The way in which light is being used, not just in terms of cinematography, in terms of photography and the internet, but the way in which light has become a new kind of medium for giving expression to this new metaphysics. When I look and talk about this society that is suffused with the metaphysical, it is because light, electricity, energy, whatever, is all part of what this new culture is about. Just look at the popular level: who is the major promoter or promulgator of this new metaphysics, bringing us out of the disenchantment? It is science; it is technology. This is promoting a re-mythologized landscape. Hoelzl: Let us go into the political dimension of this re-mythologization. The experience of the twentieth century has taught us that the rise of totalitarian systems and regimes went hand in hand with re-mythologization and the return of metaphysics, in a certain sense. That is why the Nazi regime, the Spanish Falangist regime, the Italian fascist regime, were all called political religions. For today are you concerned with the possibilities that this return to metaphysics could give rise to new forms of political religions and totalitarian systems? Ward: I am not worried about that, because culture today is too polyphonic, too plural. There is not one mythology out there. There is a competing plethora of mythologies. There’s not one metaphysics out there. There are all sorts of things being appealed to from Gaia goddesses, on the one hand, to universalism in the philosophy of Badiou, on the other. It’s not as if anybody is going to be able to fashion this into one ideology. I think there are dangers about totalitarianism and fascism, but I don’t think that it’s about this new metaphysics. I think the shadows of totalitarianism will emerge from migration and immigration problems and from the problems we will increasingly encounter, in the Western hemisphere, as global warming closes down sections of the world and creates a massive number of new refugees. And those fleeing people will cause lots of xenophobia. So, the call will go up for a strong regime to keep the enemy out. But I don’t think that this new metaphysics is going to impact in that way. Milbank: I tend to agree, because I tend to see, at the moment, this return to metaphysics as resisting a duality between positivistic reason and pure fideism. If anything creates the danger of totalitarianism, at the moment, it’s this alliance of the modernist right, which is basically nihilistic, with forms of very modern, fundamentalist, pro-capitalist, almost futuristic religions. In America, you have fundamentalism and neo-liberalism producing this neo-conservative hybrid. There’s also the strange alliance of Bush and Blair with Saudi Arabian Wahhabi fundamentalists and Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Foundations. And one should mention here that way too many British theologians are seduced – ideologically and materially – by the diabolic alliance of Wahhabism and Western liberalism, for example someone like Tariq Ramadan, who is in reality part of a project to islamify Europe. Maybe we need to listen to Chesterton’s old warning in The Flying Inn that Islam might prove all too convenient a faith for modernity. The question is: how long can such an alliance between liberalism and

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freedom go on, and has it all come unstuck in Iraq? Before he goes, will Bush make some move in relation to Iran (a Shi’ite culture, let’s remember, and Shi’ism is by far preferable to Sunnism for Catholic Christians), which makes it really hard to reverse where he’s taking us? That’s what I think is to come in the next twelve months. (Ward: The invasion of Iran?) Well, something. What have they got to lose, either Bush or now even perhaps Brown!? Hoelzl: This brings me to my last question. May I ask you both, individually, what is the greatest danger in the future, and how will theology address it? Ward: Again, it comes back to something I said earlier: I don’t think theology’s there to solve the world’s problems. I think there are major problems on the agenda. There are two major problems, and probably the Iran issue is relevant here: a competition among the superpowers for limited resources, particularly oil. Who is going to get charge of the Middle Eastern oil fields, or that whole area? We know that China’s trying to buy in there; Russia actually wants to expand there. Part of the reason America is in Iraq, and wants to hold onto Iraq, is because of the purchase it will have in that region. Secondly there’s the whole climate change issue. This, over the next ten to fifteen years, is going to radically change the kind of societies we live in, and, therefore, the kind of cultures. You know, we talked, right at the beginning, before we put the tape on, about how British culture will change once it’s become more Mediterranean, in terms of its climate. Cultures will change, societies will change and then theology, which is contextualized by these things, will have to rethink itself. For me, the trajectory still would be towards this ecumenical return within Christianity. How do we stop fighting with each other – the internal fighting, for example, within Anglicanism, at the moment – and actually start to see that there are huge problems on the agenda, to which we have got to, as a larger community, respond. It is responding, rather than finding the actual answers, at the end of the day. Hoelzl: So, you see the function of theology, not in terms of solving a concrete problem, but, rather, by analysing it? Giving a language to the problem? Ward: It’s not going to solve the problem of climate change, theology. It can’t possibly. There are very limited resources within theology to give an answer to global climate change. Similarly, there is a theological critique that can be made of scarce resources and superpowers going after those resources, particularly, the action of those superpowers. I don’t think that it can resolve any of these things. These things are going to radically change the nature of our society and our culture, and, as theologians, we should be (just like we were trying to do ten years ago) getting the sensors out, discerning what is going on, and asking how do we move forward? Milbank: I think I don’t know what the greatest danger is in the future. What I would suspect might be the greatest danger is that we have an exponential increase in our ability to control nature, which ability is itself out of our control. This may be, in fact, increased by the need to respond to climate change, and that

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will include the increasing ability to change human nature. We will probably at the same time also do all this for the sake of doing it, or because some people will gain huge power over others by doing it. Or we will persuade many people that, thereby, they’re fulfilling their desires and getting what they want. I think the danger of moving towards a more and more manipulated world, or a world where you just have a competition between the manipulators of nature, is evident. So, I think that the big challenge to theologians is how you defend something of the teleological view, something of the view that nature is not simply infinitely improvable ad libitum . . . How do you do that, and, at the same time, deal with the fact that we can change the world? How do we then discriminate? How do we transform nature in such a way, that we fulfil nature? How do we transform human nature in such a way that this fulfils human nature? For theologians are in the peculiar position of thinking that human beings are created towards a certain final end. Ward: I think that another thing that theology has is a prophetic vocation, and that the eschatological remainder is the basis for this refusal to be where we are. In fact, it constantly holds out a vision of other possibilities. Even some of the genealogical work being done shows that there were other alternatives, other possibilities that were not taken. Keeping that vision open keeps the possibility of hope alive, however difficult. That is: I will not go down the doom and gloom kind of line. Theologians are not here to do that either. We are actually standing for a vision of something that is more than this, and always more than this. Hoelzl: In your opinion, will we experience, in the next ten years, a further increase in theology such as we have experienced over the last ten years. Or is the new visibility of religion just a blip in the history of secularism? Ward: My own view is that secularism is the blip. As we can see among certain sociologists today, empirical data can be gathered to say that the secularization thesis still holds. But I think increasingly it’s not holding. It’s secularism that will prove to be the blip. Milbank: I agree, because I think that we’ve got two phenomena at the moment. In Europe, we’ve got this return of interest in religion and theology among educated elites and especially youthful elites. In fact, it’s happening in Europe still more than in the United States . . . So, you’ve got this intellectual resurgence of religion in Europe, but, then, in the whole of the globe the extension of Christianity is much more a popular phenomenon, particularly in Asia. It seems to me that already these two things are coming together . . . If these two things continue to do so, then I don’t think that the new visibility of religion is going to go away in a hurry. Hoelzl: Thank you very much.

11 Politics and the New Visibility of Theology Peter Manley Scott

[T]he criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics. —Karl Marx1

I. Beginning with theology In the consideration of ‘politics’, Christianity takes its orientation from the life of biblical Israel. The dominant imagery in the Bible is given by the relationships of a community, including relationships between that community and others. As Isaiah Berlin avers, ‘Such fundamental relationships – in terms of which nature and life are to be explained – as the love of children for their father, the brotherhood of man, forgiveness, commands issued by a superior to an inferior, the sense of duty, transgression, sin and therefore the need to atone for it . . .’ assume an explanatory significance.2 Moreover, such an explanation operates at more than one level. Right through into the New Testament we see by means of the witness of many prophets that questions of justice, integrity, faithfulness, inclusion and hospitality are being posed. Israel is aware of the moral questions regarding its relationships with its neighbours, and with those in Israel who are not Jews. In addition, the discussion of the requirement for, and necessity of, a king, and the question of Israel’s relationship with the Roman Empire, press the question of the ultimate basis of government and the right relationship to political authority for a polity that understands itself as monotheistic. The term political theology may not have been in use to describe these matters. You will not find the term in a biblical concordance. Nonetheless, biblical Israel was intensely concerned with the interaction between salvation and power that is at the heart of political theology.3 If there can be no exercise of political power without authority, for any religious community a question must be posed: according to what norms or principles is such authority to be exercised? The temptation here is to move swiftly to the issue of power. Yet an alternative is available: to begin

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from salvation. Or, at least, to note that in moving from religion to politics, from salvation to power, we shall have to be alert to the deployment of theological meanings and concepts. Although theological meanings are not reducible to political meanings, we are invited to note the political force of theological meanings and concepts: normative reference to salvation always establishes a political ordering and recruits a concept of God in support of that ordering. To get some sense of the relationship between salvation and political ordering we need only reflect on Israel’s construal of its formation through an Exodus journey. As Robert Jenson notes: Gods whose identity lie in the persistence of a beginning are cultivated because in them we are secure against the threatening future. The gods of the nations are guarantors of continuity and return, against the daily threat to fragile established order; indeed, they are Continuity and Return. The Lord’s meaning for Israel is the opposite: the archetypically established order of Egypt was the very damnation from which the Lord released her into being, and what she thereby entered was the insecurity of the desert. Her God is not salvific because he defends against the future but because he poses it.4

In this posing of a future we encounter the biblical-theological beginning of an account of salvation that will issue centuries later in a distinction between Church and State. Why should this be so? We can appreciate that Israel’s self-understanding relates negatively both to the privatization of salvation and to theocracy. The first restricts the salvific challenge of the future to the domestic whereas the second stresses established order rather than the adventus of salvation. A distinction between Church and State at least tries to accommodate the eschatological thrust of salvation by stressing the latter’s embodied yet elusive quality. As the previous paragraphs indicate, we are dealing here with both politics and the political. That is, Israel was concerned with matters of practical-political deliberation (‘politics’) and also concerned with a consideration of the very structures by which political authority is exercised (‘the political’). Our situation in Europe today is not so very different: in the light of chaotic climate change, for example, we are asking what political steps must be taken to reduce the human contribution to that chaos and whether the present structures of governance that we have inherited, and which are based on the territoriality of nation States, are appropriate to respond politically to such a global change. In making this connection between ancient Israel and present-day Europe, I do not intend some hurried hermeneutical sleight-of-hand. I am not arguing that this affirmation of continuity offers an adequate account of the popularity of the term political theology today. The reason for the new visibility of political theology lies elsewhere. Indeed, one of the points I wish to make in this essay is that the meaning of political theology has changed – in part because of a change in context. Nonetheless, in traditioned usage, the term political theology has as its rationale a theological recommendation and criticism of the social ordering of human relations within a polis. In my judgement, it is the theological – and so unruly – meanings of salvation that are most interesting in the development of a political theology. Through this

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essay, I shall be using the term traditioned political theology to express this judgement. Methodologically, traditioned political theology grants hermeneutical priority to meanings of salvation. However, this is not all of what is meant today by political theology. In what follows, I explore the new visibility of political theology by arguing (1) that the term political theology is being used to explore the publicness of religious politics. On other occasions, what is under discussion is the transcending of our current politics and, in that sense, the non-foundational foundations of our politics. Next, I argue (2) that most energy in political theology is directed to exploring the politics in theology, so to speak. There are a number of ways of conducting this enquiry, and I identify an important fault line in the style of today’s political theology. The work of Carl Schmitt is important here, as are the writings of Moltmann, Metz, Hauerwas, O’Donovan, Gutiérrez and Ruether. And (3) I make a plea that the theological dimensions of political theology should be given rather fuller attention. I ground this plea by noting that Schmitt’s reference to the political understanding of the concept of miracle issues in a very different sort of politics if the miracle under consideration is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the interaction between the theological and the political, salvation and power, detailed attention needs to be paid to meanings of salvation if full comment is to be offered on the ways in which political theology might contribute to the ‘humanizing’ of present polities by way of the renewal of the ethical substance of the liberal State.

II. The politics of political theology Public–private. In the present context of the resurgence of religions, one use of the term ‘political theology’ serves to describe the political outworking or expression of religion. In Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-secular World, published in 2006, essays discuss the political impact of the religions in various contexts and from a range of perspectives. Eschewing the term ‘descriptive’, I shall call this approach ‘interpretative’: efforts are made to explore the relation of politics to religion and to offer explanations for the continuing persistence of religion. Clearly, the enduring – if residual – status of religion in Western democracies raises difficult questions for sociology. If sociology has been since its inception sociology of religion, and if – as Carl Schmitt argues – sociology ‘has assumed functions . . . to utter demands for justice and to enunciate philosophical-historical constructions or ideals’,5 the resurgence of religion raises difficult questions for sociology. Why do the religions persist despite processes of secularization, and what are the consequences of this persistence for sociology as an explanatory discipline? This discussion bears some relationship to the designation of religions as public. In other words, the resurgence of religions, which José Casanova has called their ‘deprivatization’,6 has public effects. Precisely how this is to be understood is less clear. According to media reports, one of the two participants in the failed attempt to drive an SUV containing propane gas explosive into a terminal building at Glasgow airport in June 2007 leapt from the car, crying out ‘Allah! Allah!’ This is, I suppose, a sort of publicness. Yet this ‘publicness’ has the shape of a drama that

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portrays a Manichean conflict between good and evil in which the resolution is cast in terms of a totalizing victory over evil (= the West). As de Vries puts the matter, do we have here the ‘acting out [of] what they [jihadists, 1970s ultra-left groups] perceived to be universal – a global and near-cosmic – conflict, to which their response was one of theatrical or almost ritual behaviour (acting out or ‘performance violence’)?7 In that this position is founded on pessimism and withdrawal, it is not clear that it is well described as public. Public more often has the sense of a public sphere in which there is deliberate, reasoned political debate. This is the sort of public reconstructed by Jürgen Habermas in his celebrated The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.8 Before we ask what sort of contribution religions might make to deliberation in the public sphere, we should ask whether or not this public sphere exists now. An important question here is whether there is a deliberative forum for the articulation and refinement of a moral consensus. At least, theologian Francis Fiorenza raised this matter 30 years ago in the form of an assertion: ‘The pure public realm of liberalism has become non-existent in our contemporary society’.9 Certainly, if by ‘public’ we mean a republican model where citizenship is exercised in a ‘space’ different from both the market and the State,10 the intervening three decades have not been kind to the claim that there exists a public realm. The increasing mediatization of Western cultural life, especially through the ubiquity of television, has precisely worked against democratic participation. Indeed, as philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg argues, the centralized power of television renders it suitable for propagandistic purposes. For Feenberg, among contemporary media, the internet holds greater promise than television for a decentralized, open, and participatory politics.11 And yet the theological use of the term ‘public’ commends Christianity as the resource for a public theology ‘capable of underwriting the moral consensus necessary to sustain the health and vitality of Western liberal society’: ‘Christianity’s value-system or vision is necessary for the enduring viability of modern liberal social orders’.12 The forum for ensuring this viability – this is Fiorenza’s concern – is no longer well founded. Yet to fail to attend to the publicness of both Christianity and Islam is to require them to inhabit that ‘space’ judged not to be public, that is, they should be restricted to the ‘private’ sphere. In Casanova’s judgement, such a restriction is especially difficult for Islam. This is the case not because it aims at theocracy but because at its founding Islam emerged as a ‘community of salvation’ and a ‘political community’. This tension, so Casanova argues, remains within Islam throughout its history. Such a political religion can accept the separation of religious communities from the State. What, however, it cannot accept is the privatization of religion. (Indeed, neither can Christian Churches accept such privatization.) What is required is the redesignation of civil society, as the sphere of action of religions, as not-private, and thereby as a place from which religions (and others) may contribute to political debate. Nor is this matter contested only by the religions. As Seyla Benhabib has noted, ‘Any theory of the public, public sphere, and publicity presupposes a distinction between the public and the private. . . . [H]owever . . . traditional modes of drawing this distinction have been part of a

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discourse of domination that legitimizes women’s oppression and exploitation in the private realm’.13 Indeed, there is some evidence of a convergence between radical Muslim political agendas and other movements of emancipation. De Vries reports that in the United Kingdom, a Muslim candidate standing for the Respect party in elections in 2006 was criticized because he shared a platform with homosexuals at a political meeting. His response to criticism connected justice for Muslims with justice for homosexuals: ‘We want equality for Muslims and we would seem insincere if we didn’t stand together with other minorities who face discrimination’.14 Of course, this turn to civil society is still an ambiguous position, as Casanova has acknowledged in his recent work: are the religions to be restricted to the public ‘end’ of a renewed civil society or is there an intermediate space – Casanova calls this ‘political society’ – between civil society and the State? And might the establishment of religions contribute to the refounding and renewal of this political society? ‘[S]everal countries, such as England or Lutheran Scandinavian countries,’ Casanova writes, ‘have a relatively commendable record of democratic freedoms and of the protection of the rights of minorities, including religious ones’.15 So far in this section, I have argued that one meaning of political theology is to indicate the continuing power or force of the religions in the negotiation of public and private. Should we understand this as the renewal of religion or as a shift in the State’s perception of religious communities or as a change in religious communities’ sense of their relationship with the State? In the context of this essay, I am making no adjudication on this. Transcendence. Within the consideration of the politics of political theology, there is a second tendency to which I now turn. This tendency seeks to explore the theological traces in political theory. Semi-canonical in this context is Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theological-Political Fragment’ (dating contested: 1920–21 or 1937– 38?), which contains this well-known section: The relation of this [secular] order to the messianic is one of the essential teachings of the philosophy of history. It is the precondition of a mystical conception of history, encompassing a problem that can be presented figuratively. If one arrow points to the goal toward which the secular dynamic acts, and another marks the direction of messianic intensity, then certainly the quest of free humanity for happiness runs counter to the messianic direction. But just as a force, by virtue of the path it is moving along, can augment another force on the opposite path, so the secular order – because of its nature as secular – promotes the coming of the Messianic Kingdom. The secular, therefore, though not itself a category of this kingdom, is a decisive category of its most unobtrusive approach.16

In a sustained refusal to understand the Kingdom of God as the goal of history, Benjamin’s perspective licenses efforts to discern the theological in the political but – although Schmitt and Benjamin corresponded in 193017 – not by using causal or analogical methods. De Vries captures this emphasis in his comment that ‘The political … has often been seen as inherently theological, premised upon a ‘mystical foundation’, that is to say, on some reference to an ‘empty signifier,’ whose historical and systematic connection to the tradition of religion, in particular, to

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the divine names, seems evident’.18 As the reference to ‘empty signifier’ suggests, what is attended to here is the political ‘function’ of religion but with little reference either to the narratives of a particular religion or the metaphysics implied by or developed from these narratives. John Caputo’s essay, ‘Without Sovereignty, Without Being: Unconditionality, the Coming God, and Derrida’s Democracy to Come’ offers a fine example of this approach.19 Presenting Derrida’s argument from his late work, Rogues,20 Caputo argues that despite the revolutionary overthrowing of the polities of anciennes regimes, a certain sort of sovereignty endures: the sovereignty of the autonomous, liberal self, now augmented to be understood as demos. The question Derrida recommends that we consider, according to Caputo, is whether we should refuse the notion of sovereignty altogether, thereby raising the issue of the democracy to come and its accompaniment, ‘a new God to come’. Derrida here makes reference to Carl Schmitt: political concepts are secularized theological concepts. Yet, Derrida insists that the direction of the relationship is undecidable: which comes first, the theological or the political? How could we possibly know? What epistemic position would we need to occupy to be able to answer this question? No matter, for Derrida is, according to Caputo, writing of ‘something unconditional, something for which the current conditions of being are no match, something that belongs to another order, that of the call or the promise’.21 Despite the employment of theological terminology such as ‘call’ and ‘promise’, Derrida is here not interested in exploring theological aspects. For example, there is no discussion of the genealogical claim made by some that democracy emerges out of Christian commitments that all human selves, qua being human, bear the image of God. As Caputo glosses, ‘Derrida’s is a faith without religion or religious institutions, without theocracy and without a Church, a faith in the unconditional and the incalculable’.22 We do not need to follow Caputo’s reading of Derrida any further; indeed, in the next sentence Caputo claims that for Derrida faith and reason are the same, so now we have a clearer sense of this Derridean invitation. We are left with reason’s reference to the incalculable as an attempt to identify the God to come. What is remarkable in this presentation is the sustained refusal of traditioned theology. Derrida writes of a powerless God and of promise but appears to be uninterested in notions of a suffering God who, provoking a crisis in God, is also promise. (I am thinking here of Jürgen Moltmann’s classic texts Theology of Hope and The Crucified God.23) Perhaps then the best way to understand such a position theologically is to interpret it as philosophy of religion. More precisely: a political philosophy of religion in which philosophical problems in the relationship between religion and politics are presented. Derrida is here exploring and exposing the collusion between religion and politics, and investing in the exploration of notions of transcendence. Whether we encounter theological reality here is of course in dispute. Theology has its own rich resources, not least for the discussion of transcendence: recall, for example, the resources of the simplicity of God and God’s creative action ex nihilo.24 A critical political philosophy of religion would wish to consider these also in their impact on practice. Moreover, given that we are considering these matters in the

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context of the new visibility of religions, such a political philosophy of religion might also attend to the relationship between religion and politics as this emerges between religions. (A theological meaning of ‘public’, as evidenced by the work of David Tracy, might be relevant here: theological method does not require any claim to epistemic privilege.25) The theological reality of communication and friendship between members of different religions who are attempting to witness justly to holiness needs to be augmented by exploring political issues in continuity and discontinuity between religious traditions. One site for the hosting of such a conversation would be critical political philosophy of religion(s). In this section, I have explored a direction from politics to theology that appears in some discussions under the rubric of political theology. Apart from being united by this direction, little else joins these two – internally diverse – positions. The first explores the persistence in and through decline of religious traditions and reflects on the interaction between politics and theology. For theology proper, perhaps the most significant issue is the questions that are raised here about the nature of social scientific enquiry: can the externality required by social scientific methods – which also puts down the epistemological marker that declares social theory to be the true arbiter of theological meanings – any longer be treated as comprehensively persuasive? The second is accurately described as a political philosophy of religion in which philosophical issues in the interaction between religion and politics are considered. Moreover, the context seems to be a pointed agnosticism that calls into question the tendency for theology to operate with its own ‘positivism of revelation’ in the understanding of the politics of God and the political animal.26 Although I admire this agnosticism, if it is to be other than epistemological hesitation reference might be made to resources within theology proper for affirming agnosticism against the eclipse of God in unholy politics: a critical political philosophy of religion.

III. From theology to politics In this section, I turn to what is the dominant collection of meanings in discussions of political theology. The turn to theology in recent social and political theory has been noticed beyond theology. In a recent review of social theory, Gøran Therborn has noted ‘Europe’s theological turn’. However, Therborn’s explanation for the turn is biographical: ‘A classical European education, a maturation in a non-secular milieu, and a middle age at a safe distance from any demands of faith, make Christianity a natural historical experience to look at’.27 In the second edition of Theology and Social Theory, John Milbank makes an intellectual case for the necessity of the turn to theology: he argues that Schmitt is among the most incisive critics of modernity and yet Nietzsche, the ‘father’ of these right-wing critics, was opposed to both Christianity and to socialism. The desire among progressive thinkers to re-develop socialism will require coming to terms with the insights of modernity’s critics but also require the overcoming of Nietzsche. Why not then turn to theology, in which socialism is grounded (according to Nietzsche) and which predates modernity?28

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If Milbank’s analysis is convincing, the typological identification by Hent de Vries of three approaches in political theology is, I think, unconvincing. There are greater continuities between traditioned political theology and Schmitt’s political theology than de Vries acknowledges – continuities of sufficient strength as to make the traditioned political theologian uncomfortable perhaps. Let us first challenge de Vries’s account at its weakest point: its identification of traditioned political theology. De Vries’s account goes like this: after identifying two approaches in political theology (I discuss these below), de Vries separates out for consideration what he calls ‘appellative’ or ‘confessional’ political theology. What are these confessional political theologies? De Vries identifies three groupings: a European variant, associated with Metz Moltmann, and Sölle; a liberation strand, associated with Gutiérrez, Boff and others but ranging more widely than Latin America; and the British theological movement, Radical Orthodoxy (Milbank, Ward et al.). What unites these groupings? De Vries comments: ‘These normative investments . . . are but the latest expression of a longer and richer tradition of articulating the connection between religion and the socio-juridical, public realm in ways that, even if they do not challenge the strict legal separation of Church and State, question the latter’s ideological neutrality and supposed liberality, just as they caution the Church to give up its illusory and deceptive apolitical stance’.29 To be sure, we may agree with de Vries that these groupings are part of a wider tradition, although there is some discussion in traditioned political theology whether these groupings continue this tradition with integrity.30 And these groupings certainly call into question any apolitical self-understanding of the Church and the neutrality of the State. Yet what unites these movements is also a sense of trying to come to terms with the legacy of the Enlightenment that we sometimes call modernity, and to explore how God might be bound up (or not) in the developments of modernity. All are concerned not only with church-state relations but also with whether any credibility can be bestowed on the claim that the State in its ethical substance extends and defends the salvation which the Church is witness to and embodies. Surely, a theological theory of the political is at stake. Yet there is considerable disagreement on the character and detail of that theory, and whether (and how) traditioned political theology should refuse the political administrations of the State. De Vries’s account is too ‘institutional’: it suggests that the Church and State are given entities and the dispute over their nature is an issue of appearance/reality. It is certainly true that there is no agreement between these groupings on church-state relations; there are different investments in the progressive State, civil society and an ecclesial anarchism. Nonetheless, what is the subject of sustained theological investigation is the nature of the State and of the Church, and the relation of God to these. To put the matter as I did earlier: what is in theological dispute the ethical content of the contemporary polis. A consequence of de Vries’s identification of traditioned political theology as ‘confessional’ or ‘appellative’ is that traditioned political theology is separated from the concerns of the two other approaches he identifies in political theology. What are these two other approaches? In establishing these two approaches, de Vries takes his cue from the work of Carl Schmitt. There are two meanings of political

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theology in Schmitt, de Vries argues: the normative-constructive (genealogical) approach; and the descriptive-reconstructive (analogical) approach. Schmitt begins with the first, stronger claim, according to de Vries: political concepts have their origins in theological concepts: the omnipotent lawgiver becomes the allpowerful sovereign, the singular, interruptive miracle becomes the decision that establishes the State of exception. Schmitt’s later view, according to de Vries, may properly be called analogical in which Schmitt sees only a ‘descriptive value of the systematic and formal resemblance between the domain of the theological and the political’.31 In this approach, we have the transcribing of theological concepts into the political. Although de Vries separates the confessional/appellative from the two approaches he identifies in Schmitt, we may appreciate that these approaches are not far apart, and thereby we begin to understand why traditioned political theology may find Schmitt’s approach attractive and, moreover, we begin to understand why political theology has become attractive to those beyond theology. What precisely is congenial for traditioned political theology in Schmitt? I begin by repeating a question put earlier: what is the relationship between society and political authority? Commonly, traditioned political theology is post-Hobbesian in its stress on politics as concerned with the headship of society and in turn this yields the traditional encounter between Church and State. As a kind of shorthand, we may summarize that Church and State, Pope and Emperor face each other in a dispute over such right ordering. It is this variant of political theology that has enjoyed a revival over the last three decades. Perhaps the theologian who has stressed this point most is Oliver O’Donovan who has long asserted that a society is politically shaped and that in turn an ‘acephalous idea of society’ must be refused. Indeed, he has pressed Latin American liberation theology to demonstrate that it understands that a society is always politically governed. O’Donovan writes, ‘Yet the societies we actually inhabit are politically formed. They depend upon the art of government; they are interested in the very questions from which the study of society abstracts. … The epithet ‘social’, however, forecloses the agenda against such questions, often narrowing it to economic matters which are only a fraction of what a living society cares about’.32 In this emphasis he is joined from the perspective of ecclesiology by Stanley Hauerwas. This post-Hobbesian version of political theology competes with a vigorous alternative, called here the post-Marxist. In one powerful formulation, Johann Baptist Metz has stressed that ‘Human society is seen primarily as an essential medium for the discovery of theological truth and for Christian preaching in general’.33 What takes hermeneutical priority are ‘the conditions of present-day society’ in and for which the Christian eschatological message must be reconstructed. In this more recent usage, which is to be found in post-Christendom or postChristian contexts of the North Atlantic basin, the rationale of political theology has subtly changed: Church – and – State no longer face each other, bound together in a single dispensation.34 Instead, relations between religious communities and the State are now seen as more diverse, flexible and troubled. In this new circumstance – which began when? – political theology has stressed critique. The

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substantive matter remains the right ordering of political relations but there is less agreement on what should inform this right ordering – should that be love, hope, justice or even socialism? (Theologies by Reinhold Niebuhr, Moltmann, Gutiérrez and Segundo correspond precisely.) In this post-Christendom circumstance, political theology’s main difficulty is intensified. This difficulty is to give a persuasive – to whom? – account of the coordination of theological concepts and political concepts. What is the relationship between these two and which has priority? Are they interdependent or does one recruit the other? Always, traditioned political theology is a normative enquiry that explores the right ordering of human relations in a polis and the very constitution of that polis. Faced with the political history of Western Europe and the United States with their fusion of the theological and the political (i.e., fascism and racism), theologians having understandably resisted fusion. Fusion of the theological and the political leads to ecclesiastical confusion, we might say. In refusing fusion, and with good reason, traditioned political theology missed a consequence of this refusal. This consequence can best be presented by ErnstWolfgang Böckenförde’s question: ‘Is the liberal secular State nourished by normative preconditions that it cannot itself guarantee?’35 That is, the liberal State lives from an ‘ethical substance’ that it neither provides nor renews. This question has been posed with increasing vigour in a period that has both celebrated and bemoaned the end of history and the narrowing of human agency. The possibilities of political action are constrained by a sense of the narrowing of political opportunities under globalized conditions. In turn, the transcendence secured by political action is called into question, and called for. And yet the ethical substance is diminishing, and the ratio of the State is seen as increasingly managerial and technocratic. Traditioned political theology suddenly finds itself with an uncomfortable choice: should it defend the liberal State against authoritarian sovereignty (Moltmann) or ethical substance in mythos against ‘democratic’ culture (Milbank)? A dilemma now emerges: to defend the liberal State is to oppose or exclude Christianity as a tradition; to defend a mythos is to bring political theology closer to Schmitt’s defence of a Restorationist ethical substance. The first choice is selfdefeating; the second choice involves a political contortion. In that the second option does not involve defeat, important movements in political theology today choose the second. Now persistent reference is made to the Church as the limit of the State and as offering a mythos and ethical content independent of the State: we are presented with the traditional picture of church-state relations yet now in a post-liberal thought. I have already indicated the dilemma by which traditioned political theology is confronted at present. If the liberal polity lives from ethical resources that it neither creates nor renews, should traditioned political theology refuse the liberal polity? There are costs in doing this: the alternatives to the liberal polity – as parts of the history of the twentieth century testify – are grim. These alternatives are not much interested in respecting freedoms, including the freedom of religion. (And Casanova argues that ‘religious freedom, in the sense of freedom of conscience, is

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chronologically ‘the first freedom’ as well as the precondition of all modern freedoms’.36) However, support of the liberal polity seems to condemn political theology to a sort of defeat in that the programmatic secularism of the liberal polity excludes the religions. (See the distinction that Rowan Williams draws in this volume between programmatic and procedural secularism.) At this point, some traditioned political theologies interrogate the liberal polity and the consequence is usually the affirmation of a sort of Christian anarchism in which the Church and wider ecclesiastical networks of support and inclusion are championed (Cavanaugh). This option protects the moral substance of Christianity by way of a drastic critique of modernity (Milbank) and through the reaffirmation of the difference between Church and State (Hauerwas).

IV. Schmitt – nein! Throughout this essay, I am arguing for a theology of the political: that the normative meaning of political theology recommends an ideal – that is, transformative – account of the intersection of the divine and the political human, of Godly action and political agency. Political life is founded in divine action, and if such politics is properly grounded, it corresponds in anticipatory and dialectical ways to divine action. What is the nature of this founding? This is the vital question for traditioned political theology and for Schmittian political theology. There is no single, authoritative answer to this question from traditioned political theology. Nor, as we have seen, is there a single authoritative answer from Schmitt. Yet both styles of political theology – the traditioned and the Schmittian – are posing this question. Given the formal parallels what are the differences between these two styles? My concern with Schmitt’s political theology is that Schmitt fails to give proper weight to theological concepts and yet uses secularized theological concepts to give substance to his political argumentation. Consider the power of the sovereign to decide on a State of exception and Schmitt’s argument that the prequel to this capacity for decision resides in the concept of miracle: ‘The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology’.37 For present purposes it matters not whether Schmitt’s approach is here genealogical or analogical. Whether genealogical or analogical, I argue that miracle cannot be recruited in the fashion that Schmitt’s argument requires. Further, in that miracle cannot be recruited in the manner required, the notion of ethical substance on which Schmitt’s reactionary politics is founded is also not warranted. My argument is moving too fast, I readily concede, so now it is time to spell out in four steps why traditioned political theology finds Schmitt’s political theology to be problematic. First, traditioned political theology will wish to be cautious about Schmitt’s methodological approach. Without wishing at this point to explore in detail the interrelationships between theological concepts, doctrines and dogmas, traditioned political theology does not often build its theological politics from a bare concept. Furthermore – and still working within methodological considerations – the concept of miracle within traditioned political theology is not freestanding. More precisely, the notion of miracle is given concrete content

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and redefined by reference to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.38 That is, the interpretation of resurrection is here particular: given a definite shape by a historical singularity, the attested return of this carpenter’s son from death. What resurrection means is what miracle means. I shall return to the matter of resurrection shortly. Secondly, Schmitt associates his concept of decision with the notion of miracle. As I have begun to indicate in the previous paragraph, the association is not straightforward. Nonetheless, a comparison can be made: a miracle has the sense of being exceptional, an event and yet in some sense final; natural laws are here broken. Lazarus’ return from death is a rare type of event even for the Messiah, and is final in the sense that Lazarus does not on emergence from his tomb lapse back into death – he resumes his life, the reader assumes. In comparison, the decision for the State of exception the legality of the decision is indeed in question and the law surpassed; to establish a State of exception is a rare event and while not irreversible the State of exception must achieve a level of security before the decision can be reversed and the exception is undone. However, we may immediately appreciate that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a miracle in this sense. For this divine act is not simply an intervention in an existing ordering but is rather the recapitulation of that ordering. The closer analogy with resurrection is not some suspension of natural-scientific or political laws but that of creatio ex nihilo that inaugurates time and space; this creative act precedes, and is the basis of, all law. Creatio ex nihilo is not an event in time and space but rather their origin and cause. Moreover – and this is the third step – neither creatio ex nihilo nor resurrection are concepts that are easily secularized: one of the ‘functions’ of ex nihilo is to identify the difference between the Creator and the creatures.39 Refusing all emanationism, ex nihilo marks the difference between God and God’s creatures and, by functioning as a protocol of difference, encourages circumspection in speaking of God. As such a protocol, creatio ex nihilo resists transcription. Nor is the concept of resurrection easily secularized for the ‘status’ of Jesus’ spiritual or post-resurrection body is eschatological: we have here the proleptic presentation and anticipation of the destiny of all creaturely flesh under God’s judgement. If God rescued Christ from death ‘That was the new beginning that followed the end as a miracle from on high – not, like spring, according to a fixed law, but out of the incomparable freedom and power of God, which shatters death’.40 Once more, continuity is denied and thereby transcription from the theological to the political is rendered difficult. And yet – and now we come to the fourth step – there are important political implications to be drawn from creatio ex nihilo. Yet these implications are the precise opposite of the friend/enemy distinction on which Schmitt constructs his political theory.41 According to the theo-logic of creatio ex nihilo, this order cannot be based in competition or enmity but is rather founded on solidarity and sharing. Ethical substance based upon a friend/enemy distinction that requires that the State be founded on a homogeneous ethos in the form of sovereignty is ruled out. That is, the ethnic identification of a nation State receives no priority in this schema. Indeed, adherence to ex nihilo requires that such ethnicity be interrogated and interrupted.

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The resurrection of Jesus Christ reprises and represents these ex nihilo commitments by reference to the vindication of creation. (O’Donovan speaks of the ‘recovery of creation order’, but I am not convinced the emphasis on an unqualified sense of returning is correct.42) There is no agreement in traditioned political theology as to how this vindication of creation should be understood – a dialectical anticipation of the Kingdom given by promise; God’s reign as the vindication of the poor and oppressed and liberation into a new humanity; salvation as practical liberation from levels of sin; an affirmation of revolutionary ‘depth’ – yet there is agreement that the miracle of resurrection requires traditioned political theology to develop the ethical content of the polity by reference to this vindication.43 In raising these questions I am making a concession to Schmitt’s position. To put this in terms proposed by Jürgen Habermas, I am conceding a ‘nonlegal ethical substance ‘of the State’ or ‘of the political’’. Habermas argues that I need make no such concession. In short, I should refuse all reference to ‘preconstitutional sovereignty’, whether provided by the prince or by the ‘popular sovereignty’ based in ‘the ethos of a more or less homogeneous people’.44 Such prelegal ethical content is not required, Habermas argues, to establish the sovereignty of the liberal State. This may be true. My point, however, is a little different: I am arguing that formal similarities between traditioned political theology and Schmitt’s political theology should be handled with some caution. And, with regard to substance, from the perspective of traditioned political theology we must regard with some scepticism a political theology in which theological concepts (e.g., miracle) idle or free wheel and thereby do little work.

V. Ending with theology In this essay, I have attempted an evaluation of the different meanings of political theology today. I began by suggesting that political theology stands for a discussion of politics in the context of the resurgence of religion. What is meant by ‘public’ is an important consideration in this discussion. A second important strain of political theology identifies an excess or supplement as the theological moment: ‘the implicit theology of the political’. This option shows little interest in and awareness of the difficulties facing traditioned political theology or of its resources. Paradoxically, those working within liberal versions of traditioned political theology can maintain this position. Here the stress is more on the matter of transcendence: is political agency thinkable and actable through which present circumstances may be surpassed? (The common theme that Rowan Williams identifies across the varied essays presented in Theology and the Political is human action.45) A presentation of the third important strain of political theology comprises the bulk of this essay. This third style explores ‘the implicit politology, sociology, or anthropology of theological or, more generally, religious discourses’.46 I identified two tendencies within this approach that I dubbed the post-Hobbesian and the post-Marxist. I noted a dilemma posed by present circumstance for this

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traditioned political theology and tried to show why this theology might find some aspects of Schmitt’s political theology attractive. I also set out why I consider that Schmitt’s approach needs to be treated with some caution. What is the difference between the second and third strains identified here? Both are concerned with transcendence, yet differently. The theology-implicitin-politics approach is concerned with the overcoming of premature endings, and the re-founding of a political ratio that is not coincident with a terminus. The politics-implicit-in-theology approach is also concerned with transcendence but in the sense that the political forms and strategies that it recommends may be seen as honouring, facing and being resourced by the holy Otherness of God. The weakness of the first approach is that transcendence operates only as a receding point of critique, an intimation of otherness, mere alterity, pure agnosticism. The weakness of the second approach is that the politics may overrun the theology thereby granting divine sanction to an unholy politics or that the theology operates at too great at a distance from the politics such that its politics appears not only confessional but also esoteric and obscurantist. Yet, by working with the term ‘traditioned political theology’, I have also been developing an agenda. For the traditioned interpretation of political theology, it is significant that reference to politics is adjectival; properly, the weight falls on the word theology. That is, the dynamic of political theology is receptive rather than originary: a recommendation of theological politics follows from an interpretation of God’s activity and character. What God does corresponds to who God is. (Strictly, God’s action subsists in God’s character.) There is no agreement in traditioned political theology in what manner God’s activity is to be interpreted. Some traditioned political theologies begin from doctrines such as creation, eschatology, incarnation or Church. From such a body of thought, political conclusions are drawn. Other political theologies stress frameworks or Christian virtues or context, and seek to explore the participation of the excluded in the liberating life of God in the world. Through these differences, what unites such political theologies is an affirmation that a theological politics must be developed and articulated because God is God. It is time – and past time – for theology to reclaim this meaning of the term political theology. Like some prodigal, it is time for political theology to come home.

Notes 1

2 3

4

Marx, K., Early Writings, ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’. ‘Introduction’ [written 1843–44] (Harmandsworth: Penguin, 1975) pp. 243–57 (here pp. 244–5). Berlin, I., The Roots of Romanticism (London: Pimlico, 2000) p. 3. De Vries, H., ‘Introduction’ in de Vries, H. and Sullivan, L. E. (eds), Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), pp. 1–88 (here p. 25). Jenson, R., Systematic Theology, Volume 1: The Triune God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) p. 67.

184 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

14 15

16

17

18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25

Peter Manley Scott Schmitt, C., Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) p. 38. Casanova, J., Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994). De Vries, ‘Introduction’ p. 12. Habermas, J., The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). Schüssler Fiorenza, F., ‘Political Theology as Foundational Theology’, CTSA Proceedings, Vol. 32 (1977), pp. 142–77 (here p. 145). See Casanova, J., ‘ Public Religions in the Modern World ’ p. 41. Feenberg, A., Critical Theory of Technology. Bell, D. M., ‘State and Civil Society’ in Scott, P. and Cavanaugh, W. T. (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 423–38 (here pp. 431, 433). Benhabib, S., ‘Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas’ in Calhoun, C. (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1992), pp. 73–98 (here p. 93). Cited in de Vries, H., ‘Introduction’, p. 13. The original report is to be found in The Economist (24 June 2006). Casanova, J., ‘Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective’, The Hedgehog Review, Vol. 8, Nos 1 and 2 (Spring and Summer 2006), pp. 7–22 (here p. 21). Benjamin, W., Selected Writings: Volume 3 (1935–38) (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002) pp. 305–6 (here p. 305). See Wilde, M., ‘Violence in the State of Exception: Reflections on TheologicoPolitical Motifs in Benjamin and Schmitt’ in de Vries, H. and Sullivan, L. E. (eds), Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-secular World (New York: Fordham), pp. 189–200 (here p. 190). De Vries, H., ‘Introduction’, p. 75. Caputo, J. D., ‘Without Sovereignty, Without Being: Unconditionality, the Coming God, and Derrida’s Democracy to Come’ in Crockett, C. (ed.), Religion and Violence in a Secular World: Toward a New Political Theology (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2006), pp. 137–56. Derrida, J., Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). Caputo, J. D., ‘Without Sovereignty, without Being’, p. 142. Ibid., pp. 146–7. Moltmann, J., Theology of Hope (London: SCM Press, 1967); The Crucified God (London: SCM Press, 1974). See Scott, P., Theology, Ideology and Liberation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See Tracy, D., Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975); The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981). For an excellent introduction,

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31

32 33 34

35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

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see Martinez, G., Confronting the Mystery of God: Political, Liberation and Public Theologies (London & New York: Continuum, 2001). For ‘positivism of revelation’, see Bonhoeffer, D., Letters and Papers from Prison (London: SCM Press, 1971) p. 280. Therborn, G., ‘After Dialectics: Radical Social Theory in a Post-Communist World’, New Left Review, Vol. 43 (January/February 2007), pp. 63–114 (p. 82). Milbank, J., Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, second edition 2006) pp. xiii–xiv. De Vries, H., ‘Introduction’ p. 48. See Oliver O’Donovan’s sharp questions to liberation theology in O’Donovan, O., ‘Political Theology, Tradition and Modernity’, in Rowland, C. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 235–47. De Vries, H., ‘Introduction’, p. 47. In his reading of Schmitt, Marc Wilde also makes this distinction: see Wilde, M., ‘Violence in the State of Exception’ p. 195. O’Donovan, ‘The Desire of the Nations’ p. 16. Metz, J. B., ‘Political Theology’, in Rahner, K., Darlap, A. (eds), Sacramentum Mundi, volume V (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), pp. 34–8 (p. 35). Metz, J. B., ‘The Church’s Social Function in the Light of a ‘Political Theology’’, in Downey, J. K. (ed.), Love’s Strategy: The Political Theology of Johann Baptist Metz (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), pp. 26–38. This formulation is by Jürgen Habermas: see Habermas, J., ‘On the Relations between the Secular Liberal State and Religion’ in de Vries, H. and Sullivan, L. E. (eds.), Political Theologies, (New York: Fordham), pp. 251–60 (here p. 251). Casanova, J., Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) p. 40. Schmitt, C., Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985) p. 36. To all this, with reference to particularity in the theologies of Barth and Rahner, see Marshall, B., Christology and Conflict (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). To all this, see Scott, P., Theology, Ideology and Liberation. Bonhoeffer, D., Conspiracy and Imprisonment (1940–45), ‘Reflection on Easter: Resurrection’ (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), pp. 473–6 (here p. 473). See Schmitt, C., The Concept of the Political (Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1996) esp. p. 26f. See O’Donovan, O., The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p. 181. On these different understandings, see Moltmann, J., Theology of Hope; Ruether, R. R., Sexism and God Talk (London: SCM Press, 1984); Gutierrez, G., A Theology of Liberation (London: SCM Press, 1974); Scott, P., Theology, Ideology and Liberation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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Peter Manley Scott Habermas, J., ‘On the Relations between the Secular Liberal State and Religion’, p. 251. Williams, R., ‘Introducing the Debate’ in Davis, C., Milbank, J., Žižek, S. (eds), Theology and the Political: The New Debate (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 1–3 (here p. 1). De Vries, H., ‘Introduction’, p. 28.

12 Religion after Detraditionalization: Christian Faith in a Postsecular Europe Lieven Boeve

In Europe, God is neither as dead nor as alive as some now maintain.1

I. Introduction In this contribution, I will deal with two questions that touch upon the issue of the so-called ‘new visibility of religion in Europe’.2 The first concerns an analysis of the current religious situation of Europe, in dialogue with some observations by sociologists of religion on the European Values Study.3 When we assert that the current context is postsecular, what do we mean then in relation to this situation? I will suggest that the category of detraditionalization, in combination with the category of pluralization, offers a conceptual framework to think anew the ‘transformation of religion in Europe’, and the challenges it poses to Christian Churches and Christian theological reflection.4 In the second part, I will take up this challenge for theology and investigate how and under what conditions theology can relate to this so-called postsecular context, marked by detraditionalization and pluralization. In this regard, my principal research question is not about what religion could offer to contemporary democratic societies, but what alternatively the impact is of the transformation of religion in Europe on Christian faith, and what the appropriate theological response may be. My approach here is cultural-theological, with an explicit theologicalepistemological interest. Reflecting on how theology can serve Christian faith in the current context will lead us to the question of what kind of theology can perform this service. To answer this latter question, I will sketch the main lines of what I would frame as a ‘theology of interruption’, understood as both ‘interrupted theology’ as well as ‘interrupting theology’.

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II. Analysing the religious situation of Europe I will start this first part with some methodological comments on the notion of the ‘postsecular’. Afterwards, with an eye to what sociologists of religion might contribute to our discussion, I will suggest analysing the current context in terms of detraditionalization and pluralization. I will conclude this part with some observations that point to the challenges the transformation of religion poses to theology.

A postsecular Europe? Defining the current European religious situation as ‘postsecular’ in one way or another relates this situation to the secularization process. As far as Europe is concerned, the so-called secularization thesis would explain the gradually diminishing impact, both individually and socially, of the Christian tradition. On the basis of the presumption of the so-called zero-sum-theory, this theory holds that modernization consists of a process that excludes religion from modern society and culture. In short, the sum of modernization and religion is always zero: the more religion, the less modernization, and especially the reverse: the more modernization, the less religion. Once the secularization process is completed, a secular Europe will be realized, a Europe in which religion no longer plays a role in the construction and legitimation of individual and social identities. In this regard, using the category ‘postsecular’ could imply at least two meanings. It could, from a chronological perspective, be an attempt to describe how the evolution from a pre-modern overall Christian context to a present-day modern secular society is continued in the evolution from a secular to a postmodern, postsecular society. However, the term ‘postsecular’ can also hint at a methodological issue with regard to the secularization thesis itself, and thus refer to the way in which the religious transformations in Europe have been analysed and explained. In other words, using the term ‘postsecular’ has to do with the discussion of whether the term refers to a historical description of the process from pre-modern to postmodern, which changed religion in Europe (the facts), or it rather pertains to the way in which we analyse these changes (i.e. the history of our ways to describe this process – our view of the facts – at least to those among us for which this distinction still holds). On the basis of a changed methodological perspective, we could reflect on the way in which religion in contemporary Europe contributes, or could contribute, to the identity construction and legitimation patterns of individuals and societies. We could think of regenerating old ways or constructing new ways to do so; we could reflect on the necessary conditions concerning religious identity in view of religious plurality, interreligious communication and so on. However, especially from the point of view of the theologian, an adequate analysis of the current religious situation as ‘postsecular’ is also of major importance to the way in which Christian thinkers perceive their faith and its relation to the contemporary context, both in terms of the individual believer and the believing communities, that is, the churches. Implied here is not only its impact on a reflection in terms of a Christian strategy ad extra, but also the pressure of the current religious situation

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on their own traditions, practices and institutions, and on the way in which this pressure is dealt with in contemporary theological reflection.

The detraditionalization of Europe ‘Desecularization’ and the religious transformation of Europe The secularization thesis, including the ‘zero-sum-theory’, has today been placed under serious doubt, for example by Peter Berger and Harvey Cox, two of its former protagonists. Religion did survive modernization. For Cox, secularization is even the myth of the twentieth century, prophesying ‘the final disappearance of religion, ignorance and superstition’.5 Religion is alive and well in a hyper-modernized Japan; there is the enormous growth of Pentecostals and the rapid spread of Islam due to an Islamic resurgence. However, it would seem that Europe is the exception to the ‘desecularization thesis’.6 There can be no doubt that a significant number of Europeans have left and are still leaving the Christian churches, first in the Northern Protestant countries of Western Europe and, in more recent years, in the Catholic South as well. Berger refers here to the emergence of a ‘massively secular Euro-culture’. Nevertheless, together with European sociologists of religion, he wonders whether ‘secularization’ is an appropriate term to analyse and define the European situation: ‘a body of data indicates strong survivals of religion, most of it generally Christian in nature, despite the widespread alienation from the organized churches. A shift in the institutional location of religion, then, rather than secularization, would be a more accurate description of the European situation’.7 Cox arrives at an analogous question, also with an explicit reference to Christianity: ‘Could Christianity in Europe be moving away from an institutionally positioned model and towards a cultural diffused pattern, more like the religions in many Asian countries, and therefore more difficult to measure by such standard means as church attendance and baptism statistics?’8 Modernization in Europe has caused a transformation of religion, not its disappearance. Yves Lambert, Director of Research at the ‘Groupe de Sociologie des Religions et de la Laicité’, also doubts whether Europe is the exception to the ‘desecularization thesis’, and he too assesses a religious mutation in Europe.9 In a recently published article, he claims that, whereas the 1981 and 1990 results of the European Values Study surveys could be interpreted as supportive of the secularization thesis, thus underlining the ‘European exception’,10 the 1999 survey reveals three significant new tendencies, especially among the young. The process of ‘un-churching’ is still continuing, with progressively lower church attendance rates, less confidence in the church, etc., and by now already a number of young people have grown up without ever belonging to a religion. However, among young Christians a religious renewal is noticeable, while for the whole of the younger generation (18–29 yearolds), there is an increase in ‘believing without belonging’. On the basis of the first two surveys, it could be affirmed that, in general, age was an important factor with regard to being religious in opinions, belief and behaviour: ‘the younger the person, the more likely they are to be irreligious’.11 On the basis of the 1999 survey, Lambert maintains, there is evidence to seriously

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reconsider this affirmation.12 First of all, ‘in all countries, young people who declare themselves as Christian, appear more religious in 1999 than in 1990 and 1981 [. . .], regardless of whether the indicators are of personal religiosity (i.e. being a religious person, getting comfort and strength from religion, beliefs especially in a personal God and life after death), or of institutional religiosity (i.e. attachment to ceremonies, appreciation of the spiritual and moral contributions of churches)’.13 This growing religiosity, however, does not result in a more active Christian engagement, for example, in local faith communities or doing voluntary work. Moreover, regular church attendance also declines among young Catholics. But the religiosity of young Protestants is ‘noticeably inferior’. Second, the phenomenon of ‘believing without belonging’, as coined by Grace Davie, is becoming a permanent feature in the more secular countries of Europe. Lambert here defines it as the development of an ‘autonomous, diffused, “off-piste” religiosity [that] is illustrated mainly through variables which are less typically Christian’14: the importance of meditation and contemplation; belief in a higher power, spirit or force, rather than a personal God; belief in life after death (including reincarnation); an interest in different religious traditions rather than in one particular tradition. In general, this group claims to be in search of spirituality (rather than ‘religion’). Third, according to the data, the young who have never belonged to any religion seem to be a new category. A vast majority (62 per cent) of those who state they do not presently belong to a religion have, in addition, never belonged to one. Lambert thus concludes that there has indeed been a religious mutation in Europe, which would make Europe a little bit less of an exception (but only slightly less so). When asked for his interpretation, Lambert ventures ‘a kind of return in the swing of the pendulum following the phase of the great religious breakdown, the permissive thrust, and the ideological radicalization of the 1960s and 1970s’.15 The younger generation would seem to attach new importance to more traditional values as faithfulness, social order and so on. The exceptions here are the ethical items which affect the private self-determination, as for example, the use of soft drugs, abortion and euthanasia, homosexuality, suicide and so on. There are indications for a selective re-activation of traditions and a new openness to religion. In this regard, some remarks of Lambert are important, as they seem to point to what is at the basis of the resurgent religiosity in Europe. (1) As regards the stronger belief in life after death, Lambert suggests that this may have been influenced by the ‘over-valuation of self-realization which might have made death even more unacceptable’. (2) Second, the openness to religion holds true ‘to the extent to which its role is from now on non-authoritarian [. . .] It can find new credibility as a source of meaning, ethics, sociability, identity, faith, or as an autonomous quest’. (3) ‘On the other hand, religion is relativized, passed through the filter of individual subjectivity, confronted by indifference or the autonomous spiritual quest’. And he continues: ‘This is what I call “pluralistic secularisation”, which, in Western Europe, tends to slightly de-secularize the most laicist countries (e.g. France) and, on the other hand, to further secularize the most confessional ones (e.g. Sweden)’.16 He thus concludes his article: ‘In Europe, God is neither as dead nor as alive as some now maintain’.17

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From ‘secularization’ to ‘detraditionalization’ and ‘individualization’ The language used to deal with the religious situation in Europe requires further reflection, especially as regards the use of the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘believing without belonging’. ‘Religion’ in the first place seems to refer to classical, traditional religion (most often even Christianity) and institutional religion (Christian Churches), but also to a kind of general religious attitude, maybe better referred to as ‘religiosity’, often more general than, or even to be distinguished from, Christian religion. In relation to the latter, ‘believing without belonging’ is probably too strong a definition. Indeed, there is or has been something like a ‘Christian believing without belonging’: Christians having distanced themselves from the churches, dissatisfied with their conservative ethical stands, inflexible doctrinal positions, hierarchical community structures and outdated liturgical language. As a general category, however, one can legitimately ask whether ‘believing without belonging’ really has to do with ‘believing’. As a result of what Lambert coins as ‘pluralistic secularization’, one may therefore suggest that terms such as ‘longing without belonging’18 or ‘religiosity without tradition’ serve to better describe the individualized ‘off-piste’ search for spirituality through which individuals strive to construct answers to questions of ultimate meaning and religious wonder. Another term to describe this group is the category ‘post-Christian’. Here attention is given to the fact that although still a great deal of them are baptized and received religious education in school, most often they are only partially initiated and possess merely a fragmentary involvement with faith and faith communities. On the basis of these cultural-sociological considerations, it would seem that the question of whether we are living in a postsecular Europe can be answered in the affirmative, if we understand ‘secular’ in terms of the secularization thesis. But neither can we deny secularization understood as the process of ‘de-institutionalization’ and ‘individualization/subjectivization’ of religion resulting in the transformation of religion in Europe. As a matter of fact, one could even suggest that the current situation may well be the realization of this process. The ‘pluralistic secularization’ (Lambert) of Europe results in a multi-faceted religious panorama in which traditional religions along with new religious movements both seem to find their place. This too is the face of postsecular Europe. The term ‘postsecular’ describes the current European society along with the term ‘detraditionalization’ instead of ‘secularization’ (which in one way or another continues to refer to the secularization hypothesis), as a tool to refer to this process. Detraditionalization as a term hints at the socio-cultural interruption of traditions (religious as well as class, gender, . . . traditions), which are no longer able to hand themselves on from one generation to the next. The latter definitely applies to the Christian tradition in which the transmission process has been seriously hampered. Christianity no longer is the given and unquestioned horizon for individual and social identity. Identity formation is no longer the growing into pregiven ideological patterns, which condition one’s perspectives on meaning and social life. On the contrary, because of the absence of such unquestioned and quasi-automatic transmission of tradition, identity is no longer given but has to be constructed.

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It must be clear by now that detraditionalization is understood as a descriptive category, indicating the socio-cultural developments that have influenced Europe in modern times. In this regard, detraditionalization is not only a feature of postChristians, but affects all religious and ideological affiliations. All of them in one way or another have to deal with this changed socio-cultural reality. In this regard, detraditionalization is the flip side of individualization.19 On the structural level, every individual is charged with the task of constructing his or her personal identity. Traditions no longer automatically steer this construction process, but are only possibilities together with other choices from which an individual must choose. In other words, personal identity has become more and more (structurally) reflexive. For each choice made, there are alternatives in relation to which it can either be questioned or argued for. Even the relation to tradition has changed and has become more reflexive due to the fact that those who choose traditional religions are all too aware of the fact that they do not have to choose this. Of course, other (cultural) instances and processes besides the classical tradition make attempts to steer the identity construction both individually and socially; for example, two of the most important influences are the media and the economization of the lifeworld.20

The pluralization of religion in Europe However, our focus on the interpretation of the EVS-data might make us forget another important feature, that is, the pluralization of ‘religion’, which goes much further than Lambert’s ‘pluralistic secularization’. The religious plurality of our days exceeds the plurality resulting from the ‘pluralistic secularization’, however widespread and important that phenomenon may be. Indeed, one of the important shortcomings of the European Values Study is its under-representation of other (world) religions, even Islam.21 Furthermore, the data in question are the EVSsurvey about other religions, which focuses mainly on the way in which Christians and ‘post-Christians’ perceive other religions.22 The religious reality, however, is far more complex. In a contribution, ‘Serving God in Brussels’ (1995), Johan Leman, an anthropologist in Leuven, Belgium, portrays the different forms of religious affiliation in metropolitan Brussels.23 He first mentions the diversity of Christian churches and communities (autochthon and other): Catholic, Protestant of different denominations, Anglican, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and the many Christian sects (e.g. Jehovah’s witnesses), which can often be distinguished further on a social and regional basis. As far as the autochthones are concerned, Jews too are a recognizable group, and a lot of middle-class people show a craving for forms of far-east spiritualities. Allochthones most often are of Buddhist and especially Muslim descent, and differ according to regional origin. Their residence often leads to an accommodation of their religious views and practices towards the Belgian contexts, although a reaction against such accommodation is also manifested, resulting in diverse fundamentalisms. Indeed, geographic as well as mental mobility have brought the plural world of religions onto our doorstep. Migration, tourism and the communication media

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have confronted those developing a ‘religiosity without belonging’ as well as those committed to a classic religious tradition with religious diversity. For the former, religious plurality presents the manifold ways in which human beings can construct their religious identities. Often the many religious traditions are conceived of as reservoirs of narratives, rituals, practices, world-views, etc. from which one can choose in order to construct one’s religious identity. For the latter, the tangible confrontation with religious otherness leads many of them to a reflection on their own religious identity and truth claims, which often seems to result in a theologicalpluralist position of theological truth.24 Therefore, in addition to detraditionalization, pluralization may also be used as a tool to analyse the current context. The following considerations would support this suggestion: (a) First, the consciousness of the reality of religious plurality has an impact on the detraditionalization process that is occurring in European societies. Three elements are worth mentioning in this regard. First, it further relativizes the (until recently) unquestioned monopoly position of Christianity in answering questions of meaning and value. Secondly, the consciousness of religious plurality feeds the intuition of a general religiosity, constitutive for being a human person as such (the idea of the homo religiosus, human beings being incurably religious), of which particular traditions are then particular examples or manifestations. Finally, religious plurality is both the outcome and the engine of Lambert’s ‘pluralistic secularization’. To construct their religious identities, individuals use (fragments from) old and new religious traditions, which have been loosened from their original traditional connection. In this regard, one could speak of a religious market situation in which established churches and religions, as well as new religious movements and trends, are caught up in the game of supply and demand. In so doing, the idea of ‘tradition’ itself, as a given into which people initiate themselves in order to receive their identity rather than constructing it, becomes lost. (b) In combination with detraditionalization, the category of pluralization of religion also refers to the fact that the outcome of modernization is not a secular society without religion, a kind of ‘euro-secularism’,25 but a dynamic multireligious society, full of complexity and ambiguity, in which many new religious movements and stances are present. As a consequence, this also implies that the rather classic analysis of the religious situation in European societies in terms of a continuum between ‘churched Christians’ and ‘professing atheist humanists’ is far too simplistic a reflection of the current state, even if one would substitute the ‘post-Christian’, or ‘pluralistic secularist’ position, for the atheist stance (see Figure below). Aside from this, one may remark that a lot of sociological research still conceives of its instruments within such continuum-thinking, as well as a lot of pastoral-theological strategies.

Churched Christians

Moderately churched Christians

Marginally churched Christians

Unchurched Christians

Agnostics

Atheists

Atheist humanists

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More adequate is an analysis in terms of a plural field of interacting religious positions, among which the diversity of individual religious constructs, the more vague religiosity, but also nihilism and religious indifference, are distinct positions, to be distinguished in their own right, next to the variety of classical religious traditions. Christianity has not been replaced by a secular culture, but a plurality of life views and religions have moved in to occupy the vacant space it left behind as a result of its diminishing impact (see Figure below).

Christians

Indifferents

Wicca

Hindus

Buddhists PostChristians

Muslims

Atheists

Conclusions and theological questions One can indeed legitimately qualify the current European religious situation as postsecular. Secularization in this regard did not lead to a secular culture, but to a transformation of religion in Europe through which the classical Christian tradition has lost its overall and pre-given unquestioned position. Because of detraditionalization, the impact of the Christian tradition on meaning and social life has faded away and, together with the growing consciousness of religious plurality and migration, this has led to a complex and ambiguous situation of religious diversity. In addition to groups belonging in varying degrees to more classic religious traditions, a significant amount of people can be qualified as post-Christians, religious individualists, for whom religion no longer has a link to being initiated in a religious tradition anterior to one’s identity, but is the way one deals with a kind of basic religiosity, attached to contingency experiences, etc. Religion then can turn either into a vague religiosity – a kind of ‘something-ism’: ‘there is something more’ – or a vivid and profuse ‘off-piste’ religious imagination, which gives rise to new religious movements borrowing from Eastern religions, the renaissance of ancient Celtic religion, different kinds of syncretisms, etc. At least two kinds of questions are here important for me: (a) No doubt, this new religious situation in Europe necessitates a new broad cultural reflection on the role of religion in Europe, first as regards the formation of both individual and social identities, and secondly, as concerns the discussion on the future of Europe. In this respect, the so-called Böckenförde-paradox, that European democracies consume their ideological (re)sources without being able to substantially renew them, can be an interesting point of departure.26 Does religion possess a critical consciousness that is able to refuel European civil

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society? And if so, what kind of religion (if the classical religions, under what form)? Or does ‘religiosity without tradition’, one of the products of the process of detraditionalization, qualify as well? (b) The detraditionalization and pluralization of religion in Europe bears important consequences for the institutional religions of Europe, and for Christianity in particular. These two processes not only inverted the privileged status of Christianity in Europe, but also affected contemporary Christian believers and communities, those (still) belonging to the churches, albeit in varying degrees. Detraditionalization also changes the way in which Christians relate to the Christian tradition. Since, on the cultural level, there is no longer a necessity in being a Christian, contemporary Christians – structurally speaking – choose to be a Christian, whether or not they live their faith option as being chosen, or being called. As with all identity formation, Christian identity has also become potentially reflexive, and the option to be a Christian has been individualized. The pluralization of religion only reinforces this reflexive potential. On the one hand, this structural change leads some to seriously relativize their bonds to the Christian tradition (especially its claim to anteriority), leading them to marginally Christian and even post-Christian positions. On the other hand, some feel extremely uncomfortable with this reflexivity, and turn to more traditionalist and fundamentalist positions, stringently reinforcing the bond between social and individual identity and the tradition transmitted from the past. Their appeal to a ‘pure’ tradition, a construction from the past which never historically existed, however, also jeopardizes the very concept of tradition, both in its active and passive meaning. When confronted with these two opposing reactions to the same process, an obvious question occurs: are there ways to productively engage this structural reflexivity in theological reflections on what it is to be a Christian today, in a religiously transformed society? Or does this structural reflexivity indeed automatically lead towards ‘religiosity without belonging’ and its counterpart in traditionalism and fundamentalism? From a Christian-theological perspective, one cannot respond to the first question without formulating an answer to the second, whereas the answer to the second implicitly conditions the response to the first. Indeed, both detraditionalization and pluralization put forward urgent challenges for a contemporary theological reflection.

III. Christian faith in a postsecular Europe In this second part, focusing on what I called the challenge of post-Christian religiosity for Christian theology, I will first develop in what way for some theologians the transformation of religion has an immediate and far-reaching impact on Christian faith and theology. In this regard, I will refer to what some have coined as ‘something-ism’ and to a theological positive appreciation thereof. I will suggest that a lot of post-Christian religiosity has to do with uneasiness with Christian faith, as regards to both the elements of ‘Christian particularity’ and ‘faith as a response to God who interrupts history’. Therefore, I will not side with those who

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affirm that the transformation of religion invites Christianity to adapt to this situation, engaging in an evacuation of Christian particularity and reconceptualizing the structure and dynamics of faith, fostering religious attitudes to an unknown God, an ineffable power, all too immanently holistic for some, or all too transcendently distant for others.27 I will also not align myself with those who would argue for a theological remedy for the whole of postsecular Europe, distinguishing strongly between perspectiveless modern secularism and postmodern nihilism on one side, and the resources of theological rationalities on the other. On the basis of a radical-hermeneutical theological account, I hope to show that recontextualizing theology in a postsecular context neither leads to adaptation nor to mere opposition, but offers opportunities to profile Christian faith anew, both for contemporary believers (ad intra), as well as on the public forum (ad extra). In order to make my point, I will introduce the category of interruption, to both think the relation between Christian faith and the contemporary context, as well as to think God’s engagement in our histories.

The transformation of religion = the transformation of Christianity? The processes of detraditionalization and pluralization seem to foster the development of a vague religiosity which does away with some particular beliefs of Christian faith and is open to other ways of being expressed. A good example of this is the belief in a personal God: only one-fifth to one-third of the Western European population still holds to this belief, in almost all cases outnumbered by those believing in God as a spirit or life force. The least one can say is that the word ‘God’ has become polysemic in character, and that a univocal horizon of signification is no longer a given. Another belief under pressure is the belief in life after death: although roughly half of the Western European population still holds to it, in the way in which this belief is thought of, resurrection faces serious competition with reincarnation.28 Such an evacuation of specific Christian beliefs, but also of the specific meaning of Christian rituals and practices, is not only visible among those who have taken leave of Christianity, but manifests itself within the Christian churches as well; and this to such a degree that one can speak of a kind of cultural apophatical attitude or tendency. In a cultural review, sponsored by the Flemish Jesuits, Streven, S. W. Couwenberg, pleads for an appreciation of what he calls ‘something-ism’ (ietsisme), the rather vague religious consciousness which would be a relic of the grand religious narratives of the past. ‘For the unfathomable of our existence is often currently referred to as something which exceeds our comprehension but which nevertheless is there, or should be there, if the life in which we share for a short time is not destined to collapse into meaninglessness’.29 Couwenberg also mentions that it is especially atheists who have problems with this ‘poor’, ‘abstract’, ‘fashionable’, but also ‘irritating’ (because ‘superficial’ and ‘inauthentic’) phenomenon. They ask why ‘something-ists’, when distancing themselves from traditional religious orthodoxies, do not turn into ‘nothing-ists’, cured of religion, something which one,

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according to them, in all fairness would expect.30 Couwenberg would concede that this religiosity can indeed be qualified in many instances as superficial, but does not accept that it would be inauthentic. This religiosity is not an infantile waste product of contemporary secular culture, Couwenberg affirms, but a new shape of humanity’s religious consciousness, indeed the result of a religious transformation (which, with respect to the criticisms of atheists, indeed implies a disenchantment with secular rationality and utopias). Confronted with the contingency and meaninglessness of their existence, people develop a new type of religiosity, with special attention to personal experiences and responsibility, while being averse to traditional orthodox religions. It is the expression of a religious longing, adequate to the contemporary context, of the hope that there is more to life than what scientific world-views maintain. For some Christian theologians, Erik Borgman for instance, a disciple of Edward Schillebeeckx31 and radicalizer of his master’s theological approach,32 this new situation (i.e. the transformation of religion in Europe) should be theologically interpreted as the transformation or metamorphosis of God33 (the ‘transfiguration’ of God34), namely, the new way in which God relates to history and society. He perceives the current situation as ‘a fresh religious situation, in which the holy is revealed in a new manner. Precisely this is what the changed forms of religion and religiosity, which once again arouse a lot of interest, make visible’.35 This sets a new theological agenda for theologians, since Borgman thinks ‘that it is theologically possible to affirm that in the metamorphosis of religion God transforms Godself, and invites us, in our turn, to transform ourselves’.36 ‘A new image of God emerges’; and our situation, as a religious situation, ‘throws a [new] light on the Christian tradition, in the same way as it has occurred in the past’.37 In this regard, he pleads for a theology which strives at laying bare the traces of God, of ‘divine Presence’, in the multifaceted religiosity of our times, which also, according to Borgman, lives from the paradox that human beings are all too aware that they are themselves responsible for their identity and life, but at the same time, that this responsibility overtakes them, and that meaning and happiness are given rather than constructed.38 The current confusion about religion should therefore be considered the birthplace of new insights. For Borgman, Victor Turner’s concept of liminality offers perspectives to refocus the critical potential of this religiosity in terms of what questions and suspends established order and structures so as to enable the coming into existence of new life and community. However, ‘to meet God, not where God indisputably is, but is still to be expected, where God’s coming is kept open: it presupposes a narrative with the message that God as the salvation of the world is irrevocably related to the world and is still coming’.39 It is at this point that a religious narrative can again become important, because much of contemporary religiosity often seems to reflect the problematic sides of modernity it bears witness to. However, adds Borgman, the return to religious traditions and narratives often deteriorates into neo-traditionalism, that is, finding comfort in nostalgia for a past which never existed. It would seem to me that Borgman’s resolutely positive (cultural and theological) appreciation of the transformation of religion in postsecular Europe is not

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unproblematic, especially when one looks at the last part of his text. There he himself points (very shortly and only in passing) to the very ambiguous character of the new religiosity, mirroring the crisis of the modern self to which it is a reaction.40 He indicates the importance of a ‘substantial (Dutch: inhoudelijk 41) religious narrative’, in the context of which he sees new possibilities for the Christian narrative, for basic Christian convictions, to become relevant once again. I do not oppose this last suggestion, especially not when this basic Christian stance is defined as the conviction ‘that God is near to us, not where he is indisputably present, but where he in all vulnerability is expected, and in fear and trembling is hoped for’. The question for me, however, is how such a Christian narrative can be profiled today in the midst of the ‘religious confusion’. What are the traces of God, and how are they to be found, on what grounds, if not by people who precisely do not fall prey to this kind of religiosity? What is under-reflected here, I would argue, is the question of faith. Borgman, along with others, too easily assumes that a lot of this new religiosity is ‘believing without belonging’ which, when properly understood, can then be considered as the way in which God would relate to contemporary people. However, in what way does the substantial Christian narrative asked for resurge from today’s cultural (post-Christian) religiosity? What is the theologicalepistemological method being used to perceive the link between contemporary context and Christian narrative (defined then as the Christian tradition as it can be relevant for today)? Is it so obvious to see post-Christian religiosity in too much continuity with Christian faith? Is it not better, as some others would do, to stress the discontinuity between the two? What I fear – perhaps contrary to Borgman’s own intuitions – is that the attempt to link too rapidly a positive appreciation of post-Christian religiosity with the way in which Christian faith again can become plausible today, leads to the evacuation of Christian particularity and diffuses what faith is about. In this regard, it would seem that Borgman’s theology is still subject to a modern correlationist approach, stressing the continuity between context and Christian tradition, in order to co-relate God to the world. As I have developed elsewhere,42 such a method only plausibly and relevantly works when there is still a substantial factual overlap between (secularizing) culture and Christianity, constituting the horizon in which Christian faith is correlated with modern, secular culture. Moreover, correlation was worked out following the epistemological standards of the context (although in most cases, these standards were criticized when they became exclusive of religion altogether – for instance, in terming a position ‘secularist’ instead of ‘secular’). The major result of this dialogue with modernity was that the theological construction of meaning could be claimed as founded in the issue of the subject’s individual and social existence, to which theology had access precisely through philosophy and the sciences. This fundamental presumption of continuity, however, can be criticized from two perspectives. First of all (and this has become obvious from the first part of this contribution), due to detraditionalization, this factual overlap does not exist anymore, and what is more, because of pluralization one can even question whether theology’s dialogue with the context is still to be conceived of as between two

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partners needing to be correlated. Rather, theology is immersed in a complex, dynamic, irreducible, and often conflicting plurality of religions, world and life views. Second, and at the same time, the modern epistemological standards (universality, transparency and communicability) have been critiqued by much postmodern thinking. Since the 1980s postmodern sensibilities have questioned some basic presumptions of modern secular culture, calling for more attention to heterogeneity and radical historicity. Having learned from the lessons of twentieth-century history, they have become suspicious of totalizing frameworks and call attention to the limits, contextuality, particularity and contingency of any construction of meaning. They give rise to thinking patterns that start from a sensitivity to otherness and difference, and remain aware of the ever-persisting danger of the hegemonic closing of our ways to deal with them. It is from such a perspective that in contemporary philosophy and the human sciences reflections are developed that criticize easy ways of presuming an underlying or expected consensus and harmony, since such frameworks often imply implicit mechanisms of inclusion or exclusion. In this regard, I suggest viewing the relation between Christian tradition and context in a way that does not presume this continuity too easily. For, in such a line of thinking, the continuum to which I referred to in the first part (i.e. the continuum between active churched Christians and atheist humanists on which all religious positions are to be situated) still functions, and invites theologians to speak to all and, what is worse, for all. Instead of atheist or agnostic partners as the exponents of a secular culture, nowadays post-Christian religiosity would then be the partner by whom Christianity is challenged to testify to its own legitimacy, in showing its fundamental respect for this religiosity on the one hand, and most often its surplus-value on the other. In my opinion, this is too straightforward an approach that only takes into account the analysis of the current context in terms of detraditionalization. Moreover, in relation to the second step, it is often hardly more than a christianizing of this religiosity, which the latter can perfectly do without. It is, then, no surprise that Christian narrativity is perceived of as a narrative doubling of what can be said with at least as much or perhaps even more success in other vocabularies. Therefore, it would seem that correlationist theologies currently promote rather a relativizing of Christian faith than sketch new ways to adequately cope with it. As already mentioned, I do not plea for a theology which starts from a complete discontinuity between Christian faith and context. Against those who would do this, I would affirm that it is to modern theology’s credit that it made clear that there is indeed an intrinsic bond between Christian tradition and context, that the context is constitutive for tradition and tradition development, and that Christian faith is both culturally as well as theologically engaged in ongoing processes of recontextualization. As I hope to have shown elsewhere,43 and will now show in the remainder of my contribution, this is all the more true for a theology in a postmodern context. What I am arguing for is that this relation can no longer be thought of as a one-to-one relation against a background of continuity. On the conaccount, together with the renewed cultural sensibilities for particularity,

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contextuality, historicity and contingency as well as otherness and difference, a recontextualization of Christian tradition may lead to a self-conscious and profiled Christian faith, open to dialogue and challenged by otherness.

Towards a radical hermeneutical theology of Christian particularity Our culture, marked as it is by detraditionalization and pluralization, thus seems to foster a kind of general religious attitude which evacuates elements of Christian vocabulary, practices and concepts because of their alienating and authoritarian, or dividing and conflicting, impulses. Everything that keeps people away from what really fulfils and constitutes identity, or what brings division and conflict instead of harmony and reconciliation, has to be cleaned out. In this regard, I would suggest that a serious uneasiness about an extremely particular ‘Christian’ faith is vividly present: unease with a Christianity that is too literal, too narrative, too concrete, too historical − and therefore too determined, limiting, and seemingly therefore exclusivist, oppressive and alienating. Second, and related to this first point, this uneasiness also pertains to Christian ‘faith’, answering the appeal of the Other, revealed in this concrete history, contingency and particularity: the appeal of a God who both comes into history, and escapes it; moreover, it concerns a God who becomes all too particularly visible in one human being, a God of whom one can only speak in reference to concrete historical events, which from a theological perspective are then held to be definitive, unrepeatable, unique. At the same time, this post-Christian resurgence of religion/religiosity in Europe bears witness to the postmodern uneasiness with secularism, modern rationality and emancipation. It reflects the decentering of the self-subsistent and autonomous subject, the consciousness of the limits of its knowing and mastery, and its longing for wholeness, harmony and reconciliation. To reassess the position of Christian faith vis-à-vis the current European context I will also include ‘pluralization’ in my approach. As is the case with the reflexivity enabled by detraditionalization, the case of pluralization leads also to post-Christian religiosity. Religious plurality does indeed seem to lead many of our contemporaries into a kind of religious relativism, but at the same time it provokes strong reactions from religious individuals and communities accentuating their religious identities. Interreligious communication might also lead to a reconfirmation of religious identities, or at least to the urgent request to be taken seriously in one’s identity. The fact that it is not a secular context, but a context of detraditionalization and plurality in which Christian faith is situated today, places in question the identity of Christians and influences the way in which they enter into dialogue with the current culture and society, at the same time themselves a part of this culture and society. It calls for an adjustment in analysis, reflection and strategic approach. Therefore it is opportune to make a methodological distinction between an outside and an inside perspective with regard to the theologian’s engagement, dialogue or communication with the current context.44 On the one hand, there is

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the discovery ad extra of one’s own Christian narrative particularity and, on the other hand, there is the examination ad intra of what the challenge of the new plural context in confrontation with other particularities means for the development of one’s own particular narrativity.

An outside perspective – the ‘ad extra dimension’ of our communication with the context There is first of all the relation with the detraditionalized and pluralized culture and society itself, both interpersonally (i.e. with persons and groups outside Christianity) and intrapersonally (i.e. in terms of our ‘fragmented’ selves). We can term this the ad extra dimension. The problem here is that Christians find communicating on the public forum what they stand for more difficult because the common presuppositions and language in order to do this are diminishing increasingly. More technically, the question posed here is that of the communicability of the particularity of the Christian narrative. The Christian experience of reality can only be adequately communicated to those who have a minimal familiarity with the Christian narrative or are at least prepared to become acquainted with it. This has to do with a problem of language – language that is here under the influence of the ‘linguistic turn’, which very generally is understood as standingin-the-world-linguistically. An example can serve to illustrate this: there is no experience of God without any concept or narrative about God, and further, there is no idea of what an experience of God could mean.45 Religious experience cannot simply therefore be identified with experience of God (certainly if religious is understood etymologically, deriving from religare).46 Paying greater attention to the irreducible particularity of the Christian narrative is one of the lessons gleaned from the encounter with the plurality of religions and fundamental life options. For the Christian narrative forms its own (to be sure, dynamic) symbolic space, its own hermeneutical horizon or circle. Becoming acquainted with Christianity is thus something like learning a language, a complex event that presumes grammar, vocabulary, formation of habits and competence as much as it does empathy. But, some might wonder, can this communication not be facilitated (or even assumed) by the frequent structural analogies, sometimes even kinship relations, between the Christian faith and other fundamental life options? After all, they each maintain some kind of spirituality (which often includes an experience of and relation to something transcendent), advocate an ethics, hold ideas on the meaning of personal and social life, express their convictions in narratives and rituals, etc. What is more, some would call this a general or universal human substratum upon which the diversity of religions then build and furnish with their respective interpretations. It is certainly the case that such indications of parallel structures can contribute to an understanding of that for which a specific religious position stands. But it can never replace that position’s narrative ‘thickness’. For, we are dealing with re-flexive speech on a structural level, a thinking that recognizes the a posteriori

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structures in our narratives. However, human beings do not live from reflexive structures, but from narratives. Moreover, theories on what is universally human are often as contextual and particular as that which they investigate. To be sure, every theoretical reflection entails the taking of a distance, but this always proceeds from within an already being involved. An inside perspective – the ‘ad intra dimension’ of our communication with culture and society In contradistinction to the ad extra dimension, we can also consider the relation with context from an inside perspective. The Christian narrative tradition is after all thoroughly contextual and recontextualizes itself through its linking with contemporary life and current contextual experiences. Already from the past, shifts in culture and society have driven the Christian tradition towards recontextualization. Repeatedly this tradition has been placed under pressure by contextual newness and was challenged to a critical-creative recontextualization, sometimes even to such an extent that it thereby thoroughly changed. It is on this level that renewal of tradition takes shape. A current example of this is the renewal in Christian narrative communities of faith language as an expression of a contemporary Christian experience of God, in which the relationship with God is no longer interpreted and thought in purely patriarchal terms. For here too the confrontation with contextual newness can be considered a language problem: the old language is no longer able to adequately evoke the new experiences of faith. With recontextualization, the Christian narrative’s own language game (or, as stated above, its own symbolic space, hermeneutical horizon or circle) begins to shift. Problems with this methodological distinction One of the problems of the current pastoral, but also quite often theological, analysis is that both methodologically distinct dimensions are conflated. This mistake arises from the fact, first, that this methodological distinction cannot always be made as sharply in practice,47 and second, that in both cases, as indicated, problems of language are detected. (1) The problem of searching for a new language ad intra owing to the altered experience of faith is often wrongly seen as the solution for the dimension ad extra. The fact that the Christian faith can no longer make itself understood on the public forum is then in the first instance to be attributed to the deficiency of contemporary contextually rooted faith language. For instance, this is especially the case today with regard to communicating the special place of Jesus Christ for the interpretation of the Christian relationship with God. The same difficulty occurs when clarifying what hope means for Christians. Another example is explaining the credibility and relevance of the Christian sacramental praxis. The presumption behind this position is that the Christian faith has alienated itself from the culture – frequently because of its traditionalistic and institutional

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rigidity – and must (and thus also can) make a return move on its own. Underlying this is apparently also the idea that herein lies the reason for the massive exodus from the Church in recent decades. Another presumption is that each person is at least open towards a Christian interpretation of life and coexistence if only this were presented well enough – a sort of unproblematic inclusivism. Now, it is certainly true that tradition, which refuses to recontextualize itself, radically problematizes its survival, even mortgages it. It is however a misconception to think that recontextualization would solve the whole communication problem let alone that it should (once more) convince non/ex-Christians (or notyet Christians) of the validity of the Christian narrative. (2) The reverse instance of looking to the ad extra dimension when faced with ad intra problems is not uncommon either. Questions pressing for recontextualization, for instance, access to the priesthood, or family ethics (but also with respect to the examples given earlier: the uniqueness of Christ, the Christian hope, the sacramental praxis) are not infrequently replied to by referring to the specificity of the language of the tradition. The argument runs that only those who have truly mastered this language can really comprehend and also accept that matters are as they are, and thus not to be changed. The often difficult but necessary recontextualizing move is thereby prematurely short-circuited. The particularity is absolutized and played off against the contextuality, more specifically against contextually new experiences of being Christian.

The recontextualization of theology through the category of interruption Analysing the current context in terms of detraditionalization and plurality (and the perception of this context) qualifies the way in which the theological discourse, as the reflexive discourse of the Christian faith, relates itself to – and enters into dialogue with – the discourses of others, all of whom are embedded in this context, both constituting and being constituted by it. I presently devote much attention towards developing the theological category of ‘interruption’ as a conceptual tool to reflect upon the relation between faith/theology and context. In what follows, I will shortly sketch this enterprise. What I would like to stress here is not only that the category of interruption structures the mediation between tradition and context in an adequate contextual manner, but also that it does so in a theologically legitimate manner. Where anti-correlationist (anti-modern) theologies strongly relativize or deny the intrinsic involvement of Christian faith and theology with context and thus stress the discontinuity between tradition and context in particular, the category of interruption holds continuity and discontinuity together in a tensive relationship. Interruption is after all not identical with rupture, but implies that what is interrupted does not simply continue as though nothing had happened.48 I will briefly present the two ways, both contextual and theological, in which this concept can assist us in our reflection on the relation between Christian faith and postsecular context.

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(a) The category of interruption can demonstrate its first use as exponent of what can be termed our contemporary contextual critical consciousness. The confrontation with religious otherness alerts the Christian narrative very specifically to the particularity of its own truth claim and interrupts any such pretence towards absoluteness. The postmodern contextual critical consciousness, gained from the confrontation with plurality and difference, here informs the Christian narrative of its borders and criticizes the tendency, inherent in every narrative – thus also in the Christian one – to shut itself in its own self-secured identity. The modern manoeuvre to link the Christian narrative, and thus its truth claim, in a qualified manner with a secular meta-discourse, has not only become unreliable but also proved counter-productive. Postsecular forms of Christian neo-traditionalism and fundamentalism also do not take into account the interruption of otherness caused by the confrontation with irreducible religious plurality. Due to the latter, however, the Christian narrative is thrown back upon its own narrativity and particularity. It becomes critically challenged to conceive of its truth claims on two fronts: first, with respect to this irreducible narrativity and particularity, and second, as regards to the truth claims of others. This is obviously what is at stake in the case of inter-religious communication. Any attempt to denote religious plurality by way of a meta-discourse and to transcend the conflict of truth claims by way of a universal epistemological frame does not take the radicality of these truth claims seriously. This is why, from a structural point of view, classical inclusivist and pluralist solutions in fact run parallel to each other. They both demarcate one frame – which in principle is also not any less particular than another – as a meta-discourse from which all other narratives are perceived. Such taking possession of the epistemological observation post is totalizing. The confrontation with the other, with difference, is ultimately done away with. This is the case with exclusivism, but here otherness is not relativized, but excluded as illegitimate. The same criticism holds for fundamentalist or traditionalist tendencies, to be found as much in our own as in other narratives. On the other hand, the rediscovery of one’s own particularity is also the manner in which the Christian narrative can be interruptive in the current context. Such interruption not only critically engages with other narratives that shut themselves off or harden themselves in a fundamentalist way. It also warns us of the erosion of the particularity and alterity in many current discourses which seemingly take a sympathetic view towards religion and fundamental life options – as in the case of, say, ‘something-ism’ – but often imply a post-Christian functionalization of religiosity. The same also applies mutatis mutandis to other religions and fundamental life options that take their own particularity seriously. They too cannot accept that they are not acknowledged and respected for their identity and difference. In this regard, fundamental life options can, stemming from the awareness of their own particularity, criticize and counter the creeping uniformizing tendencies that make themselves master of our society. Most of these tendencies can be summed up in the processes of economic globalization. Plurality and otherness are recuperated in terms of market perspectives. The market renders diversity marketable,

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consumable and exchangeable. As in the case of the modern grand narratives, they too, being postmodern grand narratives, make victims. (b) In line with contextual critical consciousness, the confrontation with the other interrupts the Christian narrative at the point where it tends to close itself off hegemonically. When it does so, it makes victims. Engaged in ongoing processes of recontextualization, today’s theologies can hardly avoid dealing with this interruption. However, recontextualization can never be legitimate on merely contextual grounds, but always asks for a theological legitimization as well. Only when interruption is also a theological category can the Christian narrative allow itself to be interrupted and become a narrative of interruption. As a theological category, interruption structures the way in which we reflect upon the relationship in which God is engaged with God’s creation. And there are good grounds for developing such theological thinking patterns. For, after all, in the concreteness of particular histories, the God professed by Christians repeatedly breaks open the narratives of human beings and communities, including the ones about this God. To begin with, this is a reading key that allows us to understand the God whom we encounter in the Bible. For Christians, professing Christ is then also the interruption par excellence of history. It is this God and this interruption that the Christian narrative bears witness to, a witness that never attempts to apprehend or comprehend this God or this interruption. Moreover, whenever this narrative tends to close itself, it is once again broken into – broken open – precisely by this God who prevents the Christian narrative from closing itself and who, when this nonetheless occurs, becomes its first victim. But even when God is eliminated, interruption occurs. The belief in the Resurrection is the sharpest expression of this. When narratives are forced shut, even unto death, God nevertheless still breaks them open. Hence, it follows that a fully accepted particularity of the Christian discourse is not a refutation of the truth, but rather the very condition of possibility for it. It is only through the incarnation that God becomes fully revealed. This implies at the same time that each Christian narrative stands under God’s judgement and can only bear witness to God in a radical-hermeneutical manner. The Christian truth claim is held precisely in this tension (which is actually the same tension present in the prohibition of idolatry and in the Chalcedonian dogma of the incarnation).49 From a theological-epistemological point of view, the encounter with the other is in fact the place where God’s interruption can be revealed and where the borders of one’s own Christian narrative in naming this God can become visible. That is why today inter-religious communication, for instance, is not only a contextual necessity, but also a theological one. As a participant in the inter-religious conversation, the Christian learns at the same time to take her or his own particular Christian narrative seriously as the way towards God and nonetheless place this narrative in a radical relation towards this God. The ‘peculiarity’ of the Christian truth claim, therefore, is that Christians cannot claim the truth, and yet they are always already living in relation to it in a radical-hermeneutical tension that concerns God and is interrupted by God. It is this claim which is problematic for

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contemporary post-Christian religiosity, for it is a claim of faith in a God who interrupts our longings for comfort, wholeness, security. Besides these epistemological-theological considerations, it is also the case that wherever narratives are closed, victims are made, and whenever a narrative becomes a meta-discourse, other narratives are either suppressed or expelled. The God of the interrupted Christian narrative therefore requires placing such a metadiscourse under critique and to break open the narrative(s) of those who have been silenced. A radical theological hermeneutic of contingency thus implies an equally radical theological hermeneutic of suspicion. Certainly, wherever diversity and otherness are being stealthily reduced to the multiplicity of market goods or diabolized by an inviolable hegemonic truth claim, Christians need to interrupt on behalf of God the ‘Interrupter’. In the ad extra legitimization of the Christian narrative, a theology of interruption will therefore draw less attention to the similarities and overlaps between the Christian narrative and other narratives. The other is not in the first place an ally or familiar partner, but rather one who challenges our narratives in his or her irreducible otherness. It is precisely the encounter or confrontation with the other as other that compels the Christian narrative towards self and world critique, towards recontextualizing, a move which then makes of the other an ally, a real partner in the end on the field of dynamic yet often ambiguous religious plurality.

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Lambert, Y., ‘A Turning Point in Religious Evolution in Europe’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2004), pp. 29–45, here p. 44. This is the issue that is at stake in the Research Network: ‘The New Visibility of Religion in European Democratic Culture’, convened by G. Ward and M. Hoelzl (University of Manchester) and sponsored by the British Academy. This text is an elaborated version of a contribution I made to its first meeting (Manchester, 18–20 March 2004). This is an empirical research programme which, since the beginning of the eighties, investigates the religious, cultural, social and individual values of the diverse European populations every 10 years – cf. infra. A slightly different version of this contribution has been published in Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. 70 (2005), pp. 99–122. It is reprinted here with the approval of the editors. The theme of this contribution has been further elaborated in Boeve, L., God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval (New York: Continuum, 2007). Cox, H., ‘The Myth of the Twentieth Century. The Rise and Fall of ‘ “Secularisation”’ in Baum, G. (ed.), The Twentieth Century. A Theological Overview (New York: Orbis, 1999), pp. 135–43, here p. 135. Cf. Berger, P., ‘The Desecularisation of the World: A Global Overview’, in id., (ed.), The Desecularisation of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 1–18, here pp. 10–11; Cox, H., The Myth, pp. 136–9.

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Berger, P., The Desecularisation, p. 10. Cox, H., The Myth, p. 139. Lambert, Y., ‘A Turning Point in Religious Evolution in Europe’, pp. 29–45. For the ‘European exception’, see Davie, G., ‘Europe: The Exception That Proves the Rule?’ in Berger, P. (ed.), The Desecularisation of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) pp. 65–83. Stoelzel, J., Les valeurs du temps present: une enquête européenne (Paris: PUF, 1983) pp. 231–2, as quoted in Lambert, Y., Turning Point, p. 35. The comparison is made for nine countries of which the data for all three surveys are available: Ireland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark. Lambert, Y., Turning Point, pp. 37–8. Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 43. Ibid., p. 44. Cf. Hellemans, S., ‘From “Catholicism against Modernity” to the Problematic “Modernity of Catholicism”’, Ethical Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2001), pp. 117–27, here p. 124. Individualisation as a cultural trend, and thus as a descriptive category, ought to be strictly distinguished from individualism as an ideology, from egoism as a moral qualification and so forth. In addition, individualization should not be indiscriminately identified with ‘becoming more of an individual’, that is, the acquisition of a personal identity (individualization as a psychological mechanism). For this paragraph, see my Interrupting Tradition. An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context (Leuven: Peeters/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) chapters 3 and 4. Cf. Lambert, Y., Turning Point, 30. ‘At least 15 million people in Western Europe adhere to the Muslim faith or have close cultural ties or affiliations with the Islamic world. In the course of a few decades, Islam has emerged as Europe’s second religion after Christianity’; see also Hunter, S. T. Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape. Those who consider themselves Christians, Lambert comments, show ‘a kind of positive relativism towards religion and at least an open-minded attitude’ (Turning Point, p. 41). See Leman, J., ‘God dienen te Brussel. Een onderhuids tapijt van los aaneenhangende knopen’, Kultuurleven, Vol. 62, No. 7 (1995), pp. 32–9. Theological pluralism, in general, tends to relativize the particularity of the different religions in function of a unitary view on a more original or universal religious experience, attitude or conception, which is (at least implicitly) common to all human beings, and of which particular religions are exemplars or interpretations. In line with what Berger called ‘a massively secular Euro-culture’ (see The Desecularization, p. 10).

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46

Lieven Boeve Cf. Böckenförde, E. W., Recht, Staat, Freiheit: Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie, Staatstheorie und Verfassungsgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991) p. 112; see also, for example, Metz, J. B., Zum Begriff der neuen Politischen Theologie: 1967–97 (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1997) pp. 138, 180–1. See Boeve, L. God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval, chapter 7. Halman, L., The European Values Study: A Third Wave. Source book of the 1999/2000 European Values Study Surveys (EVS/WORC/Tilburg University, 2001) resp. pp. 94, 87 and 92. Couwenberg, S. W., ‘Onttovering van het geloof en het “ietsisme” als eigentijdse uiting van religieus verlangen’, Streven (January 2004) pp. 10–20, here p. 11 (translation mine). Reference is made to Dutch atheist publicists and scientists such as R. Bodelier, P. Cliteur, H. den Boef, R. Kousbroek and R. Plaskerk. See, for example, Borgman, E., Edward Schillebeckx: A Theologian in His History, vol. 1: A Catholic Theology of Culture (1914–1965) (trans. by Bowden J., London/New York: Continuum, 2003). See Boeve, L., God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval, chapter 2. Cf. Borgman, E., ‘Gods gedaanteverandering. De metamorfosen van de religie en hun theologische betekenis’, Tijdschrift voor theologie, Vol. 44 (2004), pp. 45–66. With reference to Matt. 17:2, Mark 9:2. Borgman, E., ‘Gods gedaanteverandering’, 51 (translation mine). Ibid., p. 52 (translation mine). Ibid., p. 58 (translation mine). Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 64 (translation mine). Ibid., p. 63. English translation: ‘as regards content’, ‘with a specific content’. See Boeve, L., God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval (chapter 2) and my ‘Beyond Correlation Strategies. Teaching Religion in a De-traditionalised and Pluralised Context: A Playground for Socio-cultural and Theological Renewal’ in Pollefeyt, D. and Lombaerts, H. (eds), Hermeneutics and Religious Education (Leuven: Peeters Press, 2004), pp. 233–54. See my Interrupting Tradition, chapter 1: ‘Tradition and its Development’. For these paragraphs, see also Boeve, L., ‘La pertinence de la foi chrétienne dans la société contemporaine: Entre sécularité et pluralité’, ETL, Vol. 77 (2001), pp. 441–55. Cf. Vergote, A., Het huis is nooit af. Gedachten over mens en religie (Kapellen: De Nederlandsche boekhandel, 1974) p. 63; Religie, geloof en ongeloof. Psychologische studie (Antwerpen: Uitgeverij De Nederlandsche boekhandel, 1984) p. 113. This is precisely the reason why the pluralistic theologian John Hick speaks no longer of God when he names the transcendent referent of the religions

Religion after Detraditionalization

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but uses ‘the Real’. For more background information and comments, see Merrigan, T., ‘Religious Knowledge in the Pluralist Theology of Religions’, Theological Studies, Vol. 58 (1997), pp. 686–707, esp. 695–6. An encounter with someone of another religion or world-view can at the same time result in a heightened consciousness of the limits of the communicability ad extra because of one’s own narrative particularity, and press for an ad intra recontextualization of this particular narrativity (which in its turn will become again the basis for the communication ad extra). More technically speaking, interruption signifies an intrusion that does not destroy the narrative but problematizes the advance thereof. It disturbs the anticipated sequence of the one sentence risking itself upon the other, and disarms the security devices, which protect against disruption. Interruption refers to that ‘moment’, that ‘instance’, which cannot occur without the narrative, and yet cannot be captured by the narrative. See my ‘Christus Postmodernus: An Attempt at Apophatic Christology’ in Merrigan, T., Haers, J. (eds), The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology (Leuven: Peeters Press, 2000), pp. 577–93.

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Index of Names

Adamson, Andrew 136 Adorno, Theodor W. 95, 99–103, 105–16 Agamben, Giorgio 91, 120 Aquinas, Thomas Saint 6–7, 34–6, 41–4, 154 Aron, Raymond 61, 66, 85 Assmann, Jan 74, 81, 84, 144 Audi, Robert 31, 43 Auerbach, Erich 96 Augustine, Saint 6–7, 32–5, 41, 43, 50, 52, 116, 154 Ayers, David 157 Badiou, Alain 4, 91, 156, 167 Balthasar, Hans-Urs von 9, 99–101, 103–8, 113–15, 154, 157 Barthes, Roland 90 Bauman, Zygmunt 95 Beaudoin, Tom 23, 28 Beckett, Samuel 94 Bell, Daniel (sociologist) 1 Bell, Daniel (theologian) 28, 156, 184 Benhabib, Seyla 43, 173, 184 Benjamin, Walter 82, 92, 95–6, 112, 138, 145, 174, 184 Berger, Peter 17–19, 27, 189, 206–7 Berlin, Isaiah 45–7, 170, 183 Besson, Jean-Luc 5 Bhaskar, Roy 47 Blair, Tony 4, 167 Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang 179, 194, 208 Boff, Leonardo 177

Bolter David J. 139–41, 143, 146 Borgman, Erik 197–8, 208 Boyle, Nicholas 51 Bruce, Steve 16, 18–19, 26–7 Burrell, David 157 Bush, George W. 4, 77, 167–8 Calvin, John 89, 121, 154, 159, 164 Canetti, Elias 7, 63–4, 66–8, 74–7, 82, 84–5 Caputo, John D. 7, 11, 175, 184 Casanova, José 15–17, 25–6, 44, 145, 172–4, 179, 184–5 Cavanaugh, William T. 3, 11, 29, 180, 184 Chesterton, Gilbert K. 167 Clark, Timothy James 118 Clausewitz, Carl von 61, 66 Comte, Auguste 60 Congar, Yves 157 Courtine, Jean-Françoise 156 Couwenberg, S.Wim 196–7, 208 Cox, Harvey 189, 206–7 Cuarón, Alfonso 129, 144 Dalberg, Carl Theodor von 51, 53 Davie, Grace 16, 26, 29, 190, 207 Dawkins, Richard 29, 81, 165–6 Deleuze, Gilles 156 Derrida, Jacques 4, 90, 152, 175, 184 Descartes, René 156 Desmond, William 152 Diana, Princess 4 Dostoevsky, Fyodor M. 68, 72, 81, 83

212

Index of Names

Eagleton, Terry 6–10, 88–96 Emperor Frederick II 34–6, 41 Feenberg, Andrew 173, 184 Feyerabend, Paul 165 Figgis, John Neville 52 Fiorenza, Francis 173, 184 Flanagan, Kieran 25, 29 Florensky, Pavel 163 Forte, Bruno 132, 145 Frazer, James George 77 Freud, Sigmund 77, 90–1, 119 Gaenswein, Georg 132 Gibson, Mel 5, 129 Giddens, Anthony 16, 26 Gilbert and George 5 Girard, René 6–8, 59–8, 71, 78–9, 81–3, 85–8 Goebbels, Joseph 108 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 51, 102 Gogh, Theo van 76 Gopin, Marc 80, 86 Graham, Billy 1 Greeley, Anthony 16 Grenier, Catherine 118, 128 Grusin, Richard 139–41, 143, 146 Gutiérrez, Gustavo 10, 172, 177, 179, 185 Habermas, Jürgen 4, 40, 113, 173, 182, 184–6 Handke, Peter 118, 128 Hardwicke, Catherine 129 Hauerwas, Stanley 10, 172, 178, 180 Heelas, Paul 18–19, 24, 27 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 60, 91, 117, 119, 183 Heidegger, Martin 152 Herr, Friedrich 85 Hervieu-Léger, Danièle 16, 20, 25, 27 Hill, Roland 52 Hirst, Damien 5, 96, 122 Hitler, Adolf 73, 76, 85, 115, 118 Homer 70, 74, 82 Honnefelder, Ludger 156 Honohan, Patrick 32, 43 Hoover, Stewart 130, 137, 144–5, 147 Howard, Ron 136

Hume, David 60, 66, 69–70, 79, 82, 85, 159 Husain, 63, 76–7 Hussein, Saddam 73 Iannacone, Laurence 17, 27 Ignatieff, Michael, 46–7, 55 Inglehart, Ronald 19, 24, 27 Janku, Marcel 119 Jenson, Robert 171, 183 Joan of Arc 73 Jones, Jim 4 Kant, Immanuel 72–3, 83, 100, 117, 152, 156 Khomeini, Ayatollah 1, 76 Kiefer, Anselm 96 Kieslowski, Krysztof 5 King Charles I 50 King Henry VIII 160 King Louis IX of France 34–6 Klein, Calvin 5 Kuhn, Thomas 165 Lacan, Jacques 8, 89–92, 94 Laden, Osama bin 73, 76, 84 Lambert, Yves 189–93, 206–7 Lash, Nicolas 152, 156 Latour, Bruno 11, 120, 128 Laud, William Archbishop 50 Lee, Ang 5 Leman, Johan 192, 207 Lenin, Ivan Illych 47, 73 Long, Stephen 157 Lord Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton 51–2 Ludlow, John H. 160 Luther, Martin 50, 84, 164, 174 Lynch, Gordon 143, 145, 147 Machiavelli, Niccolò 6 MacIntyre, Alasdair 34–6, 43–4 MacKinnon, Donald 152 Maestre, Joseph de 159 Mak, Geert 76 Malevich, Vladimir 117 Malik, Maleiha 53 Malraux, François 66

Index of Names Man, Paul de 107–8 Marion, Jean-Luc 111, 116 Marquart, Odo 118 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia 166 Martin, David 15–17, 21, 23–4, 26, 28–9 Mathew, David 51 Maximus the Confessor 163 Mayakovsky, Vladimir Illytsch 96 McCabe, Herbert 91 McCord-Adams, Marilyn 156 Metz, Johann-Baptist 10, 162, 172, 177, 178, 185, 208 Milbank, John 6, 9–10, 28, 111, 116, 151–69, 176–7, 179–80, 185 Miller, Vincent 130, 139, 142, 144, 147 Milosevic, Slobodan 73 Mohammed 65, 76 Moltmann, Jürgen 10, 172, 175, 177, 179, 184–5 Mondrian, Piet 117 Muccino, Gabriele 135 Mühlmann, Wilhelm 69 Murat, Andre de 156

Rorty, Richard 47, 100 Rose, Gillian 161 Rosemann, Philip 152 Rothko, Mark 118 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 6, 30 Rowland, Tracey 157 Rushdie, Salman 1

Negri, Antonio 4, 156 Niebuhr, Reinhold 179 Nietzsche Friedrich 8, 64, 72, 77,79, 83, 86, 89, 91,100, 118, 155, 176 Norris, Pippa 19, 24, 27

Tacitus 69, 82 Tanner, Kathy 152 Tarkovsky, Andrej 132, 145 Taylor, Charles 53, 83–6, 96 Taylor, Mark C. 155 Thatcher, Margaret 159 Therborn, Gǿran 176, 185 Thomas, Günther 143, 147 Tocqueville, Alexander de 53 Tracey, David 1, 157, 176, 184 Trier, Lars van 5 Tsara, Tristan 119 Turner, Victor 197

O’Donovan, Oliver 172, 178, 182, 185 Ockham, Willliam of 22, 156 Oliver, Simon 157 Pascal, Blaise 127 Paul, Saint 49–50, 64, 104, 120, 131, 162 Paxton, Robert 76, 85 Peter, Saint 64 Piccone, Paul 161 Pickstock, Catherine 151 Pope Benedict XVI 48, 101, 113, 132, 165 Pope John Paul II 1, 101, 135 Ramadan, Tariq 53, 167 Rawls John 6–7, 25, 38–42, 44 Reuther, Rosemary Radford 10, 172, 185 Rheims, Bettina 4–5 Richter, Gerhard 124

Schleiermacher, Friedrich 127 Schmitt, Carl 10, 73–4, 83–4, 159, 161, 172, 174–85 Schuller, Robert H. 134 Schwaiger, Raymund 59, 61, 66, 83, 86 Segundo, Juan Luis 179 Shay, Jonathan 73–4, 84 Shinrikyo, Aum 76 Simpson, Richard 51 Sölle, Dorothe 177 Spaemann, Robert 159 Stark, Rodney 17, 27 Steiner, George 95 Swinburne, Richard 152

Vattimo, Gianni 4, 156 Venard, Olivier Thomas 152 Versace, Donatella 132, 145 Viola, Bill 5, 125–6 Volkan, Vanik 76–7, 84–5 Vries, Hent de 173–4, 177–8, 183–6 Wachowski, Andy 132 Wachowski, Larry 132 Wagner, Richard 109, 118,

213

214

Index of Names

Warhol, Andy 122, 124 Weber, Max 27, 77–80, 85–6, 95, 115, 117 Weibel, Peter 6, 9–10, 112, 117–28 Weil, Simone 70, 72–3, 79, 82–4, 86 Welsch,Wolfgang 8, 99–100, 113 Wenders, Wim 5 Wilde, Oscar 93

Williams, Rowan 7, 39, 42, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 101, 113, 163, 180, 182, 186 Woodhead, Linda 18–19, 24, 27 Zhdanov, Andrei 108 Žižek, Slavoj 4, 8, 92, 94, 119–20, 130, 144, 156, 165–6, 186

Index of Subjects

absolute 127, 204 abuse 8, 114, 133 administration 50, 52, 177 aestheticization 8–9, 99–101, 106–8, 110–11, 137 aesthetics 6, 8, 11, 95–7, 101, 103, 105–7, 109, 112–15 Africa 24, 52, 69 agnosticism 27, 176, 183 anglicanism 163, 168 apocalyptic 4, 20, 61, 73, 84, 129, 144 arts 99, 107, 112, 117, 123–4, 131–2, 139 association 4, 6, 37, 52, 155, 161, 163, 181 atheism 21, 27 authority 8, 10, 24, 35–6, 42, 45, 48, 50, 53, 100, 107–8, 112, 133–6, 141, 159, 163, 170–1, 178 autonomy 6, 25, 30, 41–2, 101, 103, 108–9 belief 2–5, 10, 16–22, 24–5, 27, 32, 49–50, 69, 93, 121, 127, 137, 141, 189, 190, 196, 205 belonging 3–4, 16, 29, 37, 137, 166, 189–91, 193–5, 198 Bible 63, 65–6, 71, 73, 77–9, 81–3, 137, 164, 170, 205 Buddhism 7, 75, 132 capitalism 16, 27, 91, 101, 160–1 Catholicism 8, 24, 154, 163, 207 Christianity 2, 7, 10, 32, 53, 59–60, 63–6, 74–7, 79, 81, 83–4, 86, 88–91, 96, 132, 137, 158, 161–3, 168–9, 173, 176, 179–80, 189, 191, 193–6, 198–201, 207

church 1–2, 4, 10, 17, 20, 25–7, 29, 32–3, 35–8, 40–1, 49–52, 54, 105, 122, 124, 131, 133, 135, 138, 158, 161–5, 171, 173, 175, 178–80, 183, 185, 187, 189–93, 195–6, 199, 203 citizen 18, 26, 30–1, 35–42, 50–3, 133, 155, citizenship 50, 53–4, 173 city 29, 32–3, 43, 50, 153, 162 civil religion 30, 33 civil society 6, 16, 36–42, 44, 53, 174, 177, 184 class 22, 37, 71, 161, 191–2 Cold War 1, 119 commodification 9, 108–9, 130, 136–8, 140–3 commodity 9, 95, 115, 142 communication 4, 9, 39, 55, 92, 127, 130–3, 135, 138, 140, 142–4, 176, 188, 192, 200–5, 209 community 4, 17–18, 33, 35–6, 40, 43, 50, 53, 62, 118, 131, 135, 137, 160, 168, 170, 173, 191, 197 conflict 33, 37–8, 51–2, 54, 60, 68–71, 80, 141, 173, 185, 199–200, 204 consensus 7, 17, 25, 38–40, 42, 157, 173, 199 consumer 7, 46–7, 55, 96, 100, 105, 107, 122, 130–1, 133, 136–8, 141, 144, 146–7 control 20, 23, 28, 32, 41, 47, 69, 95, 101, 103, 105, 118, 120, 141, 158, 166, 168 cooperation 40, 131 creator 50–1, 55, 181 crisis 9–10, 46, 68, 77, 79, 92–3, 112, 118–19, 131, 175, 198

216

Index of Subjects

critique 6, 8, 32, 45, 47, 53, 74, 79, 89, 93, 111–12, 115, 119, 159–60, 166, 168, 178, 180, 183, 199, 206 culture 6, 9, 11, 18–20, 22–5, 28–9, 37–42, 52, 55–6, 60, 68, 72, 77, 81, 90–1, 93–6, 101, 119, 121–2, 125, 130–3, 136–8, 140–1, 143–4, 146, 153, 163, 166–8, 179, 188–9, 194, 197–9, 200–2, 206–8 death 63, 70, 74–5, 80, 88–91, 95, 108–9, 118, 123–4, 132, 153, 165, 181, 190, 196, 205 dehumanization 73–4 democracy 18, 49, 92, 161–2, 175, 184 detraditionalization 27, 130, 187–9, 191–201, 203, 205, 207, 209 dialogue 25, 40–1, 43, 54, 66, 82, 85, 187, 198, 200 disenchantment 9, 117–18, 166, 167, 197 doctrine 6, 25–7, 36–40, 42, 86, 152–3, 159–60, 162, 164, 180, 183 domination 7, 32–3, 174 economics 3, 160 education 26, 34–5, 37, 40, 46, 52–3, 115, 158, 161, 176, 191, 208 emancipation 8, 45, 47, 100, 119, 174, 200 enchantment 5, 9, 95–6, 99, 112, 117–19, 120–3, 125, 127, 166–7, 197 enemy 17, 70–5, 80–1, 93, 164, 167, 181 enmity 60, 70–3, 80, 181 Enlightenment 6, 8, 25, 45, 51, 55, 60, 93–4, 113, 117, 119, 127, 159, 164, 177 environment 23, 46, 69, 139, 140, 142 equality 40, 45, 159, 161–2, 174 eschatology 84, 162, 183 ethics 8, 43, 83, 88–90, 94, 115, 120, 146, 156, 161–2, 190, 201, 203 Eucharist 91, 160, 164 Europe 2–3, 5–7, 10–11, 17, 24, 27–9, 37, 45, 48, 61, 63, 111–12, 118–19, 130, 133–8, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 163, 167, 169, 171, 176–7, 179, 187–97, 200, 206–8 evil 8, 34, 52–3, 68, 70, 72, 75, 80–1, 83, 88–90, 94, 173 exchange 35, 47–8, 99, 121, 130, 132–3, 139, 205 explanation 18–21, 23, 28, 47, 60, 62, 120, 165, 170, 172, 176

faith 2–4, 6, 10, 23–4, 26–9, 37–9, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51–3, 55, 74, 79, 89–90, 94–5, 104, 110–11, 144, 146–7, 154–5, 162, 167, 170, 175–6, 187–8, 190–1, 195–6, 198–203, 206–7 fascism 76, 85, 96, 118, 167, 179 force 20, 24, 35, 41, 47, 78, 80–4, 100, 123, 137, 171, 174, 190, 195–6, 205 forgiveness 72, 81, 83, 88, 139, 170 freedom 7, 31, 40, 45–7, 49, 51–3, 55, 127, 138, 168, 174, 179–81 freedom of speech 23, 133 fundamentalism 4, 7, 93, 165, 167, 192, 195, 204 gender 22, 29, 43, 159, 191 genealogy 23, 83, 100,156 gift 49–50 globalization 36, 52, 107, 115, 130, 147, 204 gnosticism 27, 89, 176, 183 God 8, 22, 25–6, 32–4, 36, 43, 48–50, 59–63, 65, 69–71, 73–4, 77–81, 83–4, 86, 89, 91, 93–5, 104, 106, 116, 118–21, 123, 125–6, 137, 139, 146, 154, 156, 163, 167, 171, 174–7, 180–5, 187, 190, 192, 195–8, 200–2, 205–8 governance 36, 171 government 2, 36–7, 45–7, 50, 53–4, 162, 170, 178 grace 120, 137, 139, 154 guilt 64–5, 69–70, 74, 77, 112, 139 hatred 72–3, 78 hierarchy 46, 162 history 23–4, 26, 32–3, 43, 46, 50, 52, 54, 60–2, 66, 72, 76, 81–2, 85, 91, 93, 95, 109, 120, 125–6, 131–2, 156, 163, 169, 173–4, 179, 188, 195, 197, 199–200, 205–6, 208 hope 96, 129, 162, 169, 175, 179, 184–5, 202–3 humanity 38, 47–8, 51, 60, 64, 91, 129, 132, 135, 142, 174, 182, 197 icon 111, 120–2, 125, 128, 141–3 identity 16, 26, 49–50, 54, 100–1, 103, 105, 108–11, 132, 142–3, 188, 190–5, 197, 200, 204, 207

Index of Subjects ideology 11, 29–30, 46, 55, 107, 115, 158, 165–7, 184–5, 207 idolatry 79, 205 image 5, 20, 29, 39, 49, 62, 75, 79–80, 95, 100, 104–7, 111, 113, 115, 119–25, 128, 131, 135, 137, 139, 143, 146, 170, 175, 197 imagination 1, 21, 47, 93, 107–8, 114–15, 141, 164, 184, 194 independence 24, 41, 135 individualism 18, 46, 160, 207 industrialization 18, 117 institutionalization 2, 19, 191 interruption 10, 139, 187, 191, 196, 203–6, 209 Islam 1, 4, 6–7, 11, 23–4, 42, 53–4, 64–6, 73–6, 80–1, 83–6, 157, 163, 173, 189, 192, 207 Israel 76, 79, 82, 84, 170–1 Judaism 66, 80–1, 83–6, 96 jurisprudence 54, 180 justice 6, 32–4, 36–7, 39–40, 90, 95, 160–1, 170, 172, 174, 179 kenosis 106, 109–10, 112, 114, 156 kingdom 2, 19, 33, 35–6, 48, 50, 63, 89, 129, 145, 174, 182 lament 7–8, 28, 63–4, 68, 71–2, 74–81 law 18, 22–3, 28, 31, 33–6, 39, 41, 43–4, 48–54, 83–4, 89–90, 103, 108–9, 170, 178, 181 legitimization 21, 205–6 liberalism 38–9, 44, 47–8, 52, 55, 153, 159–60, 163, 167, 173 liberty 7, 45–7, 51–2, 55, 70 Marxism 8, 93, 161 memory 16, 20–1, 27, 81, 96, 120, 141, 151 metaphor 20, 27, 37, 62, 101, 103–6 metaphysics 5, 9, 43, 83, 118, 151, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163, 165–7, 169, 175 migration 5, 11, 16, 192, 194 mimesis 96, 109–11, 115 miracle 125, 163, 172, 178, 180–2 mission 25, 34, 38, 45, 77, 80, 108, 135, 191 modernism 9, 96, 117–19

217

modernity 3, 9–10, 15–22, 24–9, 92–4, 103, 105, 113–14, 118–19, 127, 157, 160, 164, 167, 176–7, 180, 185, 197–8, 207 monotheism 5, 7–8, 59–61, 68–9, 74, 77, 79, 81, 86, 88–9, 91, 93, 95 myth 4–5, 62, 71, 77–8, 82, 124, 132, 166–7, 179, 189, 206–7 narrative 23, 25, 67, 85, 125, 129 132, 135, 137, 141, 146, 164, 175, 193, 196–206, 209 nationalism 3, 52, 66, 163 natural law 36, 43–4, 181 neo-liberalism 167 neutrality 16, 48, 177 New Testament 8, 49, 63, 79–80, 90, 170 nihilism 90, 155–6, 159, 194, 196 norms 10, 18, 23, 32–3, 41, 170 nostalgia 2, 92, 96, 197 Old Testament 63, 70–1, 73–4, 79–80 oppression 31–2, 96, 174 order 6, 20, 33–7, 39, 48, 50, 52–4, 69–70, 82, 92, 102–3, 111, 133, 160, 163, 171, 173–5, 178–9, 181–2, 184, 190, 193, 197, 204 orthodoxy 24, 154, 159 paradigm 9–10, 15, 22–3, 26, 88, 100, 111, 146, 159 peace 6, 4, 36–7, 59–60, 62–4, 69, 71–3, 75, 80–1, 84, 86, 136 Pentecostalism 2, 24, 29 persecution 70–1, 75, 78, 81 pessimism 9, 173 phenomenology 15, 166 philosophy 6, 8, 26, 31–2, 34, 43, 46–7, 60, 65, 67, 85, 100, 115, 119, 152–7, 160, 164, 167, 174–6, 183, 198–99 pluralism 17–18, 43, 207 pluralization 10, 17, 27, 187–8, 192–3, 195–6, 198, 200 policy 2, 21, 25, 31, 40, 46, 49, 133 political theology 10, 28–9, 74, 170–2, 174, 176–80, 182–5 polity 31, 36, 38–9, 54, 162, 170, 179–80, 182 post-Enlightenment 8, 35 postmodernism 43, 95–6, 155–6, 159

218

Index of Subjects

postsecularity 10, 26, 142, 187–8, 191, 194–7, 203–4 power 1, 7, 17, 24–7, 31–2, 35, 45, 47, 50, 53, 61, 63–4, 67, 71, 78–9, 81, 89, 100, 106–9, 112, 115, 119, 121–5, 127, 130, 134, 137–8, 140–3, 147, 163, 165, 168–75, 178, 180–1, 190, 196 private 1, 3, 6, 23, 28, 31–3, 38, 40, 46–8, 51–3, 122, 130, 134, 137, 172–4, 190 privatization 2, 171–3 privilege 30, 32, 45, 48, 53, 176, 195 prophet 65, 77, 79–80, 784, 100–1, 169–70 Protestantism 24, 29, 154, 164 psalm 61–3, 71–2, 77–9, 85 psychoanalysis 91–3, 95 public policy 2, 25, 31 public reason 25, 38–42, 44–5, 48 public sphere 9, 31, 45–8, 51, 55, 130, 142–3, 165, 175, 184 public square 23, 26, 31, 48 Radical Orthodoxy 8–10, 29, 151–60, 163–6, 177 radicalism 8, 83 rationality 8, 25, 49, 93, 197, 200 reciprocity 39, 54, 106 reformation 19, 50, 164 representation 29, 115, 119, 121, 123, 139, 141–3, 192 resentment 8, 64, 68, 72, 76, 78–80 resurgence 16, 18, 20–1, 26, 165, 169, 172, 182, 189, 200 revelation 8, 32, 45, 60–4, 71–2, 74, 78–9, 81, 154,176, 185 revenge 8, 63–4, 70, 75, 78–80, 120 revolution 1, 8, 19, 27, 51, 66, 71, 73, 76, 88, 91–2, 96, 162, 175, 182 rights 32, 39, 50–2, 55, 68, 73, 159, 161, 174 ritual 3, 66, 71, 83, 92, 141, 143, 147, 193, 196, 201 Romanticism 2, 9, 93, 117–19, 127, 183 rule 21–2, 28, 35–6, 39, 41, 45, 54, 63, 73, 141, 161, 181, 207 sacred 1, 3, 8, 11, 16, 18–19, 21, 23, 27, 50, 55, 60, 70–2, 78–9, 81, 94–6, 131, 141, 146 sacrifice 7–8, 60, 64, 69–70, 88, 94, 109, 112

salvation 10, 28, 36, 63, 86, 89, 125, 135–7, 170–3, 177, 182, 197 scapegoat 59–66, 68–73, 79, 81–3, 87 scepticism 25, 139, 182 scripture 17, 35, 79, 139 secular 1, 3, 7, 11, 17, 19–20, 23, 26–9, 31, 33, 37, 39–41, 43, 45, 49, 53, 55, 76, 91–2, 116, 118, 123, 133, 136, 143, 145–6, 154, 156, 159–60, 163, 165–6, 172, 174, 176, 183–6, 188, 190–1, 193–4, 197–200, 204, 207 secularism 7, 26, 28, 39, 45, 47–9, 51–3, 55, 165–6, 169, 180, 193, 196, 200 secularization 1–2, 5–6, 10–11, 15–19, 21–30, 75, 116, 119–21, 130, 138, 140, 144–5, 169, 172, 184, 188–9, 191–4 security 19–20, 24, 31, 47, 50, 73, 83, 114, 181, 206, 209 simulation 120, 131 sin 33–4, 60, 91–2, 140, 170, 182 social capital 36–8 social sciences 23, 37, 56 socialism 47, 76, 160–1, 167 socialization 29, 40 sociologists 2, 6, 21, 30, 92, 95, 169, 187–8 sociology of religion 3, 6, 16, 21, 21–30, 85, 172 sovereignty 1, 52, 54, 162–3, 175, 179, 182, 184–5 spirituality 18–9, 117, 125, 137, 190–1, 201 state 3, 6, 21, 25–6, 29, 32–9, 46–7, 50–4, 73, 103, 107–8, 111, 124, 132, 135, 145, 161, 165, 167, 171–4, 177, 179–82, 184, 190 subjectivity 9–10, 115–16, 118–20 subordination 7, 24 suffering 49, 55, 71–2, 74–7, 80, 175 supernatural 17–18, 22, 27, 134, 137–8 symbol 23, 132, 136, 142–3, 145 technology 9, 95, 100, 121–6, 131, 143–4, 147, 167, 184 temporal 32–4, 36 terrorism 7–8, 23, 64–6, 69, 71, 73, 76–7, 84, 95 theocracy 6, 30, 45, 171, 173, 175 tolerance 40, 54, 133 totalitarianism 53, 107, 167

Index of Subjects tradition 17, 20, 25, 29, 38, 50, 54, 63, 73–4, 76–9, 93, 96, 117, 119, 121, 140, 153–4, 157, 160, 164, 174, 177, 179, 184–5, 188, 190–5, 197–200, 202–3, 207–8 tragedy 94–5 transcendence 11, 131–2, 174–5, 179, 182–3 trust 9, 50, 61, 123, 127, 135 truth 6, 20–4, 39, 63, 74, 100, 116, 119–20, 162, 166, 178, 193, 204–6 values 6, 19, 23, 25, 40, 93, 95, 113, 131–2, 137–8, 141, 156, 187, 189–90, 192, 206, 208

219

victim 59, 61–5, 67–9, 71–7, 79, 83, 85, 111, 122, 205 violence 3, 5, 7–8, 11, 59–69, 71–2, 74–86, 88, 90–1, 93–4, 96, 108–10, 115, 173, 184–5 virtue 51, 70, 112, 161–2, 174 vision 17, 20, 25, 32–3, 43, 47, 92, 124, 159, 164, 169, 173 weapons 61, 69, 81 wisdom 19, 23, 25 worship 32, 62, 69, 71, 121, 123, 137