Dissenting from Redemption: Judaism and Political Theology

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in European Judaism. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ej.2017.500106.Beginning from a critique of Schmitt’s description of "secularised theological concepts" as insufficiently attentive to implicit religion, this paper utilises the concept of redemption as understood within Judaism and Christianity in order to investigate the problematique of inter-religious dialogue that is founded on “shared language”. It argues that political theology’s excessive attention to explicit forms of religion fails to account for the important role theological concepts play in forming implicit, unexamined pre-philosophical attitudes about the way the world works, and thus gives rise to a problematic illusion of shared values.Beginning from a critique of Schmitt’s description of "secularised theological concepts" as insufficiently attentive to implicit religion, this paper utilises the concept of redemption as understood within Judaism and Christianity in order to investigate the problematique of inter-religious dialogue that is founded on “shared language”. It argues that political theology’s excessive attention to explicit forms of religion fails to account for the important role theological concepts play in forming implicit, unexamined pre-philosophical attitudes about the way the world works, and thus gives rise to a problematic illusion of shared values