POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND THE CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY

Abstract

This paper analyzes three distinct modern articulations of the concept of political theology: the French restoration, Carl Schmitt, and Johann B. Metz. An analysis of their assessments of modernity and the Enlightenment show the role that “exception” or “interruption” has within their critique of modernity. Because of the consequences of the appeal to “exception” by Schmitt and National Socialism, the United Nations, seeking to prevent such use, underscored collective legitimacy in its charter and declarations about human rights. The appeal to “exception” and “singularity” emerges again today in both the political advocacy of pre-emption and in the anti-modern critique of Enlightenment rationality. The use of “exception” in the twentieth century challenges political theology to work out a more nuanced relation to the language of rights and the cosmopolitanism of its ethics and democratic discourse.

Keywords:

• critique of modernity
• discourse ethics
• exceptionalism
• French restoration
• human rights
• Political theology