French Laïcité and the Recent Reception of the German Secularization Debate into France
In France, the thematic of ‘the modern secularization of Christianity’ is certainly less known and less well received than in Germany where its appearance is commonplace. Yet beginning in the 1980s some leading French intellectuals turned their attention towards the German debate over secularization...
| Published in: | Politics, religion & ideology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
2011
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| In: |
Politics, religion & ideology
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In France, the thematic of ‘the modern secularization of Christianity’ is certainly less known and less well received than in Germany where its appearance is commonplace. Yet beginning in the 1980s some leading French intellectuals turned their attention towards the German debate over secularization that Carl Schmitt initiated with his work Political Theology in the early 1920s. In fact, all the major works on the German secularization debate, as typically associated with such figures as Erik Peterson, Karl Löwith, Hans Blumenberg, Jacob Taubes, and Erik Voegelin, have recently received French translation and an emerging secondary literature has also arisen in their wake. The question is why? This article attempts to provide an answer by locating the initial French interest in Carl Schmitt's work that began in the late 1980s. The Left's curiosity with Schmitt must be seen in the light of its concerns with the Nouvelle Droit who relied on Schmitt's thought in attempting to articulate their vision of a pan-European political order. Forced into reading Schmitt, the Left discovered in the process his opponents on the question of secularization, such as Hans Blumenberg and Erik Peterson. Coincidentally, the incipient discovery of the German secularization debate occurred at the same time the initial discussions of Islam and the ‘politics of the veil’ began to receive attention in France around the late 1980s. It would not take long for French scholars attempting to either buttress European identity by appealing to its Catholic origins or to emphasize its novel political form by stressing its break with the past to utilize the conceptual riches of the German debate on secularization. The second part of this article demonstrates this very thing by linking the current French interest in the German secularization debate to disputes over the place of religion and the public sphere. As such, it has attracted the interest of French scholars who wish to reconceptualize the historical origins and developments of French laïcité in light of questions involving Islam, French identity, and the idea of Europe. |
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| ISSN: | 2156-7697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Politics, religion & ideology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2011.624413 |