Against Empire. Matthew T. Eggemeier

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СКАЧАТЬ formal ethos of radicalization is rooted in a set of overlapping concerns. First, radical democratic theorists view dominant forms of democracy in the North Atlantic world as significantly weakened by representative and constitutional systems that delimit the power of the people and disincentivize their political engagement. They respond to this situation by advocating for more egalitarian approaches to power-sharing through horizontal forms of democratic participation (Hardt and Negri), localism (Wolin), or community-based organizations (Stout, Coles).14 Second, proponents of radical democracy criticize the proximity that exists both ideologically and historically between capitalism and liberal democracy. Neoliberals defend this proximity and argue that the economic freedom guaranteed by capitalism is the prerequisite for the political freedom of democracy. For instance, for Milton Friedman, the free market represents an ideal form of democracy insofar as it represents the synthesis of the individual free choice of all participants. Against neoliberalism, radical democratic theorists argue that an inverse relationship exists between capitalism and democracy, and so it follows that economic democracy is needed to support the political project of democracy.15 Finally, radical democratic theory is committed to pluralism in two respects. For radical democratic theorists, democracy constitutes an open, unfinished project for which there exists no specific or predetermined political form. Ernesto Laclau has argued that radical democracy supports a “plurality of ways of radicalization” and so when “radical democracy” is invoked it “cannot be attached to any a priori fixed institutional formula.”16 A second area where radical democratic theorists focus on the importance of pluralism is in relation to the project of coalition building. In contrast to reductionistic forms of leftist politics that view class struggle as the exclusive site of resistance and organization, radical democratic theorists affirm the need for a plurality of sites, forms, and coalitions of resistance to the dominant social order.17

Even though a deep commitment to pluralism is a fundamental mark of radical democracy, the significance of religion for political struggle often has been dismissed by radical democratic theorists. For instance, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri observe without argumentation that “today there is not even the illusion of a transcendent God” and that “every metaphysical tradition is now completely worn out.”18 Hardt and Negri flatly reject transcendence and claim that the “multitude” has “dissolved” transcendence and “recuperated its power.”19 For them, immanent struggle among diverse constituencies represents the sole basis for an authentic contemporary politics. Accordingly, they evaluate religious belief as a backward remnant from the past that blocks the path to an emancipatory politics of immanence.20 Chantal Mouffe offers a slightly different approach to the relation between radical politics and religion but similarly marginalizes religion from participation in radical democratic projects. Mouffe observes,

Far from being an irreversible event, the democratic revolution may come under threat and has to be defended. The rise of various forms of religious fundamentalism of Christian origin in the USA and the resurgence of Catholic integrism in France indicate that the danger does not come solely from outside but also from our tradition. The relegation of religion to the private sphere, which we now have to make Muslims accept, was only imposed with great difficulty upon the Christian Church and is still not completely accomplished.21

Mouffe expresses legitimate fears about how religious extremism threatens democracy, but her approach is worrisome insofar as she groups all religious identities together and then proceeds to relegate these identities to the private realm. In this regard, the foundational commitment to pluralism and difference is extended everywhere but to the religious realm. Within Mouffe’s framework, religious persons are invited to participate in radical democratic politics only if they leave their religious commitments at the door.22

Of course, nonreligious radical democratic theorists like Jürgen Habermas, William Connolly, Romand Coles, and Jeffrey Stout have made something of a postsecular turn by contesting the secularist commitments of the left.23 In his recent work, Habermas has argued that democracy relies on pre-political and often religious sources for its vitality and that if these sources are eliminated from civil society or hijacked by dogmatic and exclusionary voices it will lead to disastrous results. He maintains that the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West is the wellspring from which the commitment to morality, solidarity, human rights, and democracy emerged and “up to this day there is no alternative to it.”24 He thus calls for a renewed engagement with religious traditions precisely because these traditions offer critical sources of moral and political formation not readily available elsewhere in civil society.

If there has been something of a turn to religion by several radical democratic theorists, there has been an analogous turn in contemporary Christian political theology to radical democracy. Stanley Hauerwas’s turn to radical democratic theory has occupied a central role in these debates. In his response to Jeffrey Stout’s criticisms in Democracy and Tradition, in which Stout argued that Hauerwas’s theology had been corrosive to American politics and fueled resentment toward public life among Christians, Hauerwas invoked the radical democratic politics of Sheldon Wolin and Romand Coles as models for political engagement.25 Hauerwas’s engagement with radical democratic theory has received a great deal of attention in recent debates, in part, because this engagement appears to represent a significant departure from his perceived aversion to non-ekklesial politics. However, it is important to note here that Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Cornel West advocated for the alignment of Christianity with radical democratic politics long before Hauerwas’s engagement with the work of Wolin and Coles. Furthermore, Schüssler Fiorenza and West’s engagement with radical democratic theory emerges out of other trajectories in American political theology, offering a very different understanding of the relationship between Christian theology and radical democracy. Specifically, where Hauerwas views American forms of radical democratic theory as well suited to support a peaceable politics of ekklesial witness, Schüssler Fiorenza and West view radical democracy as a means for Christians to witness to an intersectional approach to justice for the oppressed and marginalized.

In Against Empire, we examine the relationship between radical democracy and political theology by analyzing four approaches to ekklesial politics. The approach to ekklesia adopted here is rooted in a retrieval of the original political meaning of the Greek word ekklesia as a political assembly.26 The political theologians analyzed in this work describe plural forms of ekklesia as radical democratic spaces of resistance to multiple forms of oppression that include racism, sexism, poverty, and political violence: the black church (Cornel West), the ekklesia of wo/men (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza), the church of the poor (Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino), and the peaceable church (Stanley Hauerwas).27

In distinctive ways, West, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ellacuría/Sobrino, and Hauerwas call for the mobilization of ekklesial communities toward a politics of resistance to empire. However, because their work remains largely disconnected, a theoretical task of this work is to examine the links that exist between these diverse forms of ekklesial resistance. The work of coalition building is a central area of focus in radical democratic theory. The question of how to link diverse ideological movements—from feminists, antiracists, and environmentalists to antiwar activists and critics of capitalism—is central to the attempt to theorize a radical politics that moves beyond the class-based politics of Marxism. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe refer to this project of coalition building as establishing chains of equivalence among different social movements. They maintain that the goal of radical politics is to establish areas of commonality among diverse groups so that no single struggle takes precedence over another and each group retains its distinctive focus and autonomy. Equivalence does not eliminate difference but rather establishes connections between movements that occupy a similar position of subordination in society.28 Radical democratic theorists establish equivalence between these diverse movements by producing a common “antagonist” that generates a “we” or coalition of resistance to the dominant social order. For instance, Mouffe contends that within the contemporary economic-political configuration this “we” should take form as radical democratic citizenship.29

      Against Empire argues that a chain of equivalence exists between black prophetic thought, feminist theology, Latin American liberation theology, and peaceable theology. These political theologies differ СКАЧАТЬ