What's in a Handshake? Multi-Faith Practice as a Starting Point for Christian Migration Ethics

This article assesses the tension between cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches to the ethics of migration by analysing how the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) has responded to the current so-called migration crisis in Europe. I argue that the statements of the EKD frame people on the move ei...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in Christian ethics
Main Author: Schmiedel, Ulrich 1985- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2022
In: Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 35, Issue: 3, Pages: 561-583
RelBib Classification:BJ Islam
CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
KBB German language area
KDD Protestant Church
NCD Political ethics
Further subjects:B Cosmopolitanism
B Communitarianism
B Islam
B Refugee crisis
B Migration
B Islamophobia
B Touch
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:This article assesses the tension between cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches to the ethics of migration by analysing how the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) has responded to the current so-called migration crisis in Europe. I argue that the statements of the EKD frame people on the move either as migrants or as Muslims. These frames come with competing ethical consequences. Whereas migrants are presented as passive victims in need of some form of support by Christians, Muslims are presented as active victimisers in need of some form of suppression by Christians. However, when the then chairman of the EKD shook hands with people on the move who were arriving at Munich station in the summer of 2015, the surplus of meaning communicated in this encounter demonstrated that these people cannot be reduced to their respective framing, thus resisting the construction of both the cosmopolitan migrant frame and the communitarian Muslim frame. Accordingly, I advocate for a re-conceptualisation of the theological ethics of migration which takes multi-faith practices, such as these handshakes, as a point of departure.
ISSN:0953-9468
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/09539468221090401