Does God Speak Greek?: Pope Benedict XVI’s Euro-Supremacist Supersessionism and the Heterosexuality of Reason

Abstract

Contemporary critics of Christian supersessionism rightly despise its connection to Christianity’s historical persecution of the Jewish people. But theologians and other scholars have not paid enough attention to the political work Christian supersessionism continues to do today. To this end, I examine the work of Pope Benedict XVI, arguing that what I term “Euro-supremacist supersessionism” pervades and helps to shape his theology. Benedict’s supersessionism serves to describe Europe and Christianity as inextricably linked: just as Europe is an essentially Christian continent so is Christianity an essentially European religion. Because it perceives this cultural formation as uniquely universal, Benedict’s supersessionism also advocates a type of European supremacy. But despite its roots in and resonances with German philosophical anti-Judaism, Benedict’s Eurocentric supersessionism does not advance an anti-Jewish politics. His Eurocentric supersessionism instead leads him to take political aim at three initially surprising targets: one, the growing presence of Islam within Europe; two, Europe’s intensifying embrace of lesbian and gay rights; and three, certain strands of liberation theology that originate outside of Europe. Why? I argue that, for Benedict, each of these movements both endangers the marriage he has established between Europe and Christianity—a union he deems necessary to each entity’s survival—and undermines his claim that Christianized Europe possesses a unique universality, which I argue supplies the main source of his implicit belief in its supremacy over all other cultural systems.