Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Bowen’s “Can Islam Be French?”

Princeton University Press has just published the paperback edition of Can Islam Be French?: Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State (first published in 2009) by John R. Bowen (Washington University St. Louis).  The publisher’s description follows. — MOD

Can Islam Be French? is an anthropological examination of how Muslims are responding to the conditions of life in France. Following up on his book Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves, John Bowen turns his attention away from the perspectives of French non-Muslims to focus on those of the country’s Muslims themselves. Bowen asks not the usual question–how well are Muslims integrating in France?–but, rather, how do French Muslims think about Islam? In particular, Bowen examines how French Muslims are fashioning new Islamic institutions and developing new ways of reasoning and teaching. He looks at some of the quite distinct ways in which mosques have connected with broader social and political forces, how Islamic educational entrepreneurs have fashioned niches for new forms of schooling, and how major Islamic public actors have set out a specifically French approach to religious norms. All of these efforts have provoked sharp responses in France and from overseas centers of Islamic scholarship, so Bowen also looks closely at debates over how–and how far–Muslims should adapt their religious traditions to these new social conditions. He argues that the particular ways in which Muslims have settled in France, and in which France governs religions, have created incentives for Muslims to develop new, pragmatic ways of thinking about religious issues in French society.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Perry’s “The Pretenses of Loyalty”

John Locke is perhaps the most influential thinker on the American founding generation, one whose ideas permeated the construction of the Constitution.  He is also widely regarded as a vitally important figure in liberal political theory.  In this excellent looking book, The Pretenses of Loyalty: Locke, Liberal Theory, and American Political Theology (OUP 2011), John Perry (Oxford) confronts the intractability of “theo-political conflict” today by considering the complicated intellectual path followed by Locke.  The publisher’s description follows.  — MOD

In the face of ongoing religious conflicts and unending culture wars, what are we to make of liberalism’s promise that it alone can arbitrate between church and state? In this wide-ranging study, John Perry examines the roots of our thinking on religion and politics, placing the early-modern founders of liberalism in conversation with today’s theologians and political philosophers.

From the story of Antigone to debates about homosexuality and bans on religious attire, it is clear that liberalism’s promise to solve all theo-political conflict is a false hope. The philosophy connecting John Locke to John Rawls seeks a world free of tragic dilemmas, where there can be no Antigones. Perry rejects this as an illusion. Disputes like the culture wars cannot be adequately comprehended as border encroachments presided over by an impartial judge. Instead, theo-political conflict must be considered a contest of loyalties within each citizen and believer. Drawing on critics of Rawls ranging from Michael Sandel to Stanley Hauerwas, Perry identifies what he calls a ‘turn to loyalty’ by those who recognize the inadequacy of our usual thinking on the public place of religion. The Pretenses of Loyalty offers groundbreaking analysis of the overlooked early work of Locke, where liberalism’s founder himself opposed toleration.

Perry discovers that Locke made a turn to loyalty analogous to that of today’s communitarian critics. Liberal toleration is thus more sophisticated, more theologically subtle, and ultimately more problematic than has been supposed. It demands not only governmental neutrality (as Rawls believed) but also a reworked political theology. Yet this must remain under suspicion for Christians because it places religion in the service of the state. Perry concludes by suggesting where we might turn next, looking beyond our usual boundaries to possibilities obscured by the liberalism we have inherited.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Calo on Headscarves, Pluralism, and Human Rights

Zachary Calo (Valparaiso) has posted a new piece, Islamic Headscarves, Religious Pluralism, and Secular Human Rights.  The  abstract follows. — MLM

This paper considers the Article 9 religious freedom jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. It opens by looking at recent decisions involving Islam that stand in tension with the Court’s endorsement of normative religious pluralism. It is argued that the inability of the Court to construct a satisfying account of the place of public Islam within a religiously pluralistic order reflects inherent limitations of the liberal tradition of religious freedom. In particular, the Court’s approach to these cases reveals ways in which the category of human rights has become tethered to a normative secularity that cannot ultimately support a vigorous promotion of religious pluralism. This being the case, the challenge confronting the European Court of Human Rights in its treatment of religious pluralism might be understood as not merely jurisprudential but moral, ontological, and finally, theological. That is, the problematic that must be identified and critiqued concerns the deep ways in which law has been formulated in relation to religion within the modern order. With this in mind, the paper turns in its final section to discussing conceptual jurisprudential alternatives. It is revealing that some of the most creative alternatives, particularly addressing the status of Islam, are being advanced by theologians positioned to think about certain elemental matters outside the sphere of normal jurisprudential considerations. As a point of entry into these conversations, the concluding section considers two of the most important recent reflections on this topic by Rowan Williams and John Milbank.

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Only One Way? Critical Perspectives on Christian Pluralism

SCM Press recently released Only One Way?: Three Christian Responses to the Uniqueness of Christ in a Religiously Pluralistic World.  The book presents three theologians’ perspectives on religious pluralism in critical dialogue.  These theologians’ past expressions suggest Only One Way’s content:

Gavin D’Costa, Roman Catholic theologian, has rejected absolute religious pluralism (see Gavin D’Costa, The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions, 32 Rel. Stud. 223 (1996)) as fundamentally flawed.  That view could not, for example, evaluate the truth claims of the Deutsche Christen (“German Christians”), who equated Nazism and gospel and were known to preach in SA uniforms; and the Bekennende Kirche (“Confessing Church”), who refused to embrace Nazified, Christo-Aryanism (see Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power 223–28 (2005)).  In an absolute-pluralist view, how could one distinguish between Reichsbischof (“Reich Bishop”) Müller, who preached Hitler, the national redeemer, and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who defied National Socialism and was hanged for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler?  (See D’Costa at 226; Evans at 228).  For an account of Bonhoeffer’s defiance of Nazism, pastoral rebellion (he founded an illegal seminary), and eventual execution on April 9, 1945, eleven days before Berlin’s fall, watch Bonhoeffer (Journey Films 2003).

By analogy, from D’Costa’s examples, absolute pluralism would also prevent us, say, from distinguishing between the Islam that gave rise to the 9/11 attacks and the ancient, peaceful, and culturally profound Islam that abhors the violence that occurred on 9/11.

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