Abstract
The disastrous events of 9/11 had an enormous influence on intellectual discourse, not the least on theology. In his habilitation thesis, Dr. Ulrich Schmiedel, who is now a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, has introduced the English-speaking theological debates on the relation between the Christian self and the (Muslim) Other. Methodologically based on a Foucauldian discourse analysis of “religion” in the post 9/11 intellectual scene (2001-2011), this work takes Carl Schmitt’s basic definition of politics as the friend-enemy distinction to read the theological debate resulting from that event, especially as it relates to the question of the relation between the Christian Western self and the Other.
To prepare us for an analysis of theology, Schmiedel dedicates the second chapter to a detailed introduction of Schmitt’s reading of political entities along the friend-enemy distinction. This is accompanied by an excursus into interrelated Schmittian themes, such as identity as “born from nothing,” secularization of theological concepts into political concepts, and the sovereign as the decision maker. It also includes a review of the literature around Schmitt and comments on the recent reception of Schmitt in the U.S., as well as his contemporary debates with Erik Peterson and others.
The introduction to Schmitt is only to prepare the reader for a discourse analysis of other thinkers in the “end of history” (which assumes the triumph of liberal capitalism), in order to show Samuel Huntington’s “conflict of cultures” as a response to Fukuyama’s liberalism and as replicating Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction in cultural terms. Similarly, Jean Bethke Elshtain’s social ethics, which is expounded in Chapter Four, justifies just war against terror by recourse to the division between believers and non-believers of religious freedom — a division which can be read in Schmittian terms. As a pacifist, Stanley Hauerwas does not accept any just war theory; yet, his Schmittian division, which is explained in Chapter Five, is that between the pacifist and war-mongering church.
Rowan Williams’ sophisticated criticism of violence (Chapter Six), which is centered on a trinitarian, apophatic recognition of the other, seems to evade the fault of the others in drawing a division between the self and the other. Yet, Williams’ theology can be read in light of Peterson’s trinitarian political theology. The problem with Williams’ framework is that it is supersessionist, and cannot be, therefore, sufficiently open to the non-Christian other. Chapter Seven is about William Cavanaugh’s study of violence as inherently religious, mythically opposed to irreligion as nonviolence. This mythos operates in both liberalism and absolutism. Seeing the liberal state as his opponent, Cavanaugh operates within a friend-enemy distinction, where, instead of Hauerwas’ church-culture opposition, the religion-state binary holds up his theory.
Finally, Chapter Eight is dedicated to Dorothee Sölle. Her reconciliation between political theology and liberal theology seems palatable to Schmiedel. Sölle takes up Schleiermacher’s distinction between the Erfahrungseindruck (the inner experience) and the Erfahrungsausdruck (outer expression of the experience) to open up a space for dialogue with the Jewish people, after the Auschwitz disaster. Sölle manages to avoid the friend-enemy distinction that operated in all of the above authors and brings out a powerful critique of both Schmitt’s political theology and the depoliticized liberal theology. The explanation of Sölle’s hermeneutics is accompanied by Schmiedel’s comparative excursis into the work of two renowned Muslim theologians: Fazlur Rahman and Farid Esack. Indeed, Schmiedel finds many similarities between these Muslim theologians and Sölle. Rahman’s theory of interpretation, which has been very influential among Muslim Americans in the last few decades, has managed to rescue the Qur’an from authoritarian interpretations, while being ethically and politically conscious about engaging with it. Rahman criticizes a literal understanding of the Qur’an, suggesting a dynamic understanding of the scripture. This dynamic understanding made the Qur’an relevant for different times and places. Esack’s hermeneutics is directed at praxis, just as Sölle’s work focus on Jesus’ praxis. Both use historical criticism in liberatory ways, making them theoreticians of liberal and political theology. Schmiedel’s brief, but innovative and profound comparison between Sölle, on the one side, and Rahmand and Esack, on the other, is what he suggests in the last chapter should be pursued further by scholars.
Chapter Nine includes Schmiedel’s summary of the previous chapters, as well as his own alternative suggestions. Schmiedel’s theology is grounded in the praxis of cooperation and conversation with the other. Only when the Christian is able to bracket the normative question of what religion is, can she cooperate with the Muslim Other and bring about a political theology that evades much of the criticism that could be directed at the above authors. Schmiedel’s example for such a cooperation is the Park 51 debate on building a mosque near the Ground Zero. This kind of political theology is apophatic: it rests more on seeing what a religion is not rather than what it is. It is a political comparative theology, where the Christian learns about Christianity through studying Islam.
Schmiedel’s extensive study is a well-versed review of the existing literature. More than being a survey, it is a critical analysis of the religious theory behind the debates on the relation between Islam and the “West.” The book is useful for scholars of religion and politics. Although at first glance, it seems to be of benefit only to German readers who might not be aware of the details of these intellectual debates in the English-speaking world, I suggest that it should be translated into English as well in order to reach wider academia and provide a full-length review of the debates, as well as an in-depth critical analysis. Schmiedel’s final alternative suggestions have yet to be pursued in other works of political theology.