Political theology and religious pluralism: Rethinking liberalism in times of post-secular emancipation

Saul Newman

doi:10.1177/1368431020968673

Abstract

Recent debates in liberal political theory have sought to come to terms with the post-secular condition, characterised by deep religious pluralism, the resurgence of right-wing populism, as well as new social movements for economic, ecological and racial justice. These forces represent competing claims on the public space and create challenges for the liberal model of state neutrality. To better grasp this problem, I argue for a more comprehensive engagement between liberalism and political theology, by which I understand a mode of theorising that reveals the theological basis of modern secular political concepts. In considering two contrasting approaches to political or public theology – Carl Schmitt’s and Jürgen Moltmann’s – I argue that liberal political theory can and should open itself to a diversity of social movements and ecological struggles that pluralise the political space in ways that unsettle the boundary between the secular and religious.

Highlights

Recent debates in liberal political theory have sought to come to terms with the postsecular condition, characterised by deep religious pluralism, the resurgence of right-wing populism, as well as new social movements for economic, ecological and racial justice
It was no longer expected, in other words, that religious people should leave their beliefs at the door when they entered the public sphere. Atheists and those with deeply held non-religious convictions, they had a right to political participation and democratic deliberation, as long as they were able to translate their views in terms that all reasonable and rational people, believers and nonbelievers alike, might understand and agree to. This seemingly plausible solution to problem of religious pluralism threw up more questions than it answered, and subsequent debates in liberal political theory have wrestled with questions surrounding the meaning of state neutrality, the terms and limits of liberal tolerance, the extent to which religious differences and claims might be accommodated, and whether the state has the sovereign right to determine these matters in the first place
The question of whether we live in secular or post-secular societies is already answered by political theology: the post-secular is symptomatic of, and contingent upon, the secular and is immanent within it – just as, one could say, the secular condition itself is premised upon the theological world it incorporated and replaced

Summary

Is liberalism a political religion?

One of the questions that arises in any possible encounter between political theology and liberal political thought is whether liberalism is itself a religion, what we might call a political religion. In other words, does liberalism – as a political doctrine, a set of ideas, norms and institutional rationalities – take on the role of a secular or public religion in contemporary societies? Do its early origins in the Protestant Reformation, in the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century, or in the early modern ideas of religious toleration, which were themselves grounded in theology, give it a kind of theological determination today? And if so, should this matter? Does it undermine liberalism’s claims to neutrality and public reason, or its normative commitments to equality and individual rights? The suggestion here is not that the theological roots of modern liberalism mean that it remains somehow a distinctly Christian, even Protestant, doctrine blind to its own biases and structurally intolerant towards other religious viewpoints and discourses (see Asad, 2003; Mahmood, 2005). When the state seeks to mediate religious differences, to eliminate the threat of religious conflict, it can only do so by transcending society and establishing an absolute and decisive sovereignty over it Behind this image of secular state neutrality is a theologically charged political community, unified through a shared enmity towards the other, the outsider, as well as through absolute loyalty and obedience to the sovereign It is difficult to say why Schmitt’s authoritarian notion of the sovereign decision, or his politics of enmity, offers a more appealing or effective ground than public reason and deliberation This notwithstanding, my view here is that liberal political theory cannot shut itself off from the questions raised by political theology. My aim here is to not develop a distinct liberal political theology but to show how an alternative rendering of political theology can yield conceptual resources that are more compatible with liberal norms and principles, and contribute towards a new framework of political legitimacy in a post-secular age

Pluralising political theology

Conclusion

Author biography