In Response to the Religious Other by Moyaert Marianne;

Author:Moyaert, Marianne;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Absolutism

In the literature on interreligious dialogue, closedness is linked inextricably to claims of absolute truth and claims to superiority and normativity. That is true, perhaps, but there is another possibility. Could it not be that absolutism is a way to find release from the unrest caused by one’s own strangeness—a strangeness that is felt truly only in the encounter with the strange other? The believer is always already strange, but the strange other makes us aware of our own strangeness. Along with our anthropological vulnerability, “the longing for a strong and steadfast identity is very deeply rooted in us.”[67] Sometimes, people just want to be “at home” without having to be reminded of their own strangeness. In this regard, I think Ricoeur agrees with Küng, who claims in their conversation that “often, those who are the most aggressive in matters of faith, are those who are not that certain about their beliefs.”[68]

To avoid the discomforting confrontation with one’s own vulnerability, the question of one’s own identity—who—is answered in terms of what (idem), “claiming to give the recipe of the identity proclaimed or reclaimed.”[69] This is what we are, we, ourselves; this is how we are and not otherwise; this is what we have always believed and affirmed: a summing up of creedal statements.[70] We claim to know who we are because we know “what” we are and “where” we belong. The outcome is a substantial definition of identity. Religious identity is reduced to an enumeration of core values, non-negotiable norms, and shared ideals.

Here, religious identity is derailed in an ideological discourse that tolerates no “difference.” Identity deteriorates into an idée fixe. “Central to this is the fixation upon the apparently perfect internal consistency of one’s own story in which every shadow of doubt must make way before the brilliance of the unequivocal truth. Rigid systems try to absorb every difference, and, therefore, precisely for this reason, they are opposed to openness, receptivity, and orientation toward alterity.”[71] Identity and alterity are placed as antitheses. The discontinuity between identity and otherness is made as large as possible, thereby diverting attention from one’s own strangeness. The certainty thus attained is an expression of the inability to deal with complexity, nuance, and strangeness. “That which is characteristic of oneself is equated with the positive, reassuring, while from it the unfamiliar is completely separated as the negative, unsettling, that must therefore be banished.”[72] The outcome of this is xenophobia.[73]

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