Response to Langdon Gilkey's Inaugural Address at the Niebuhr Society, 22 November 2003 in Atlanta

Abstract

After applauding Professor Gilkey for focusing attention on Reinhold Niebuhr's book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, I framed my response by setting forth seven salient elements of Niebuhr's political theory. After affirming Gilkey's portrayal of the differences between our contemporary situation and that which Niebuhr addressed in the 1930s, I focused on a third characteristic of Niebuhr's thought that Gilkey neglected to mention, namely, the impact of his thought on African-American activists in their struggle for racial justice in the United States. That impact mainly pertained to his perceptive analysis of power conflicts among social groups and especially the societal power of racism. Niebuhr's sensitivity to that problem was heightened during his ministry in Detroit and thereafter. Thus, Martin Luther King, Jr, his protégé, Jesse Jackson and many others came to view Niebuhr as a major source of inspiration for their struggle. But, in spite of Niebuhr's appreciation of Gandhi and his support of King's non-violent resistance approach, they disagreed about the moral value of pacifism. Most importantly, I join with another African-American scholar in pointing out Niebuhr's uncritical paternalistic assumptions about African Americans and their struggle.     

Responsibility Ethics and Postliberalism: Rereading H. Richard Niebuhr's The Meaning of Revelation

Abstract

Postliberals have hailed H. Richard Niebuhr's The Meaning of Revelation as a harbinger of narrative theology. A careful reading of Niebuhr's argument, however, suggests a theological ethic that is at once attentive to the narrative formation of agency and yet distinct from postliberalism because of its attention to the divine object of Christians' stories. Niebuhr's theocentrism yields a view of narrative as opened from the inside because it requires appropriation of what he calls "external" narratives in order to do justice to the sovereignty of God. The result is a theological ethic which is sharply critical of modern conceptions of agency and yet continually sifted by contemporary insights and experience.     

Being Wrong and Being Right: A Response to Larry Rasmussen and Robin Lovin

Abstract

Larry Rasmussen and Robin Lovin have offered compelling perspectives on Reinhold Niebuhr's legacy, asking whether he was wrong or right on the economy, and whether Stanley Hauerwas's analysis of Niebuhr's work is wrong or right. In this reply, Scott Paeth argues that Niebuhr was a complex theological thinker and social critic, and is best understood as a "pragmatic idealist" who was willing to change strategies in response to changing circumstances. He was also quintessentially a public theologian who, contrary to the arguments of Stanley Hauerwas, was a vociferous critic of his social context rather than an assimilated spokesperson for it. Finally, Paeth offers some suggestions about what Reinhold Niebuhr's legacy might mean in light of the American election of 2004.     

The municipal elections of March 2001

This article analyses Algeria's ongoing 'civil war' through the lens of contemporary Algerian theatre. Specifically, it examines the relationship between Algeria's unsuccessful transition to democratic, religious pluralism and Alek Baylee Toumi's 1996 play, Madah-Sartre . Among the prominent themes covered are the issues of gender equality as represented in the efforts of Khalida Messaoudi (Toumi's sister) to resist the 1984 Algerian Family Code; the rise of Islamic radicalism; the legacy of the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir within contemporary Algerian intellectual and political communities; the problem of Islamic and state-sponsored terrorism; and the effects of the Islamic radicals' policies of assassinating Algerian intellectuals on the Algerian community in the diaspora.     

The Contribution of Reinhold Niebuhr's ‘Moral Ambiguity’ to Contemporary Discussions on the Morality of Intervention and the Use of Force in a Post-Cold War World

Abstract

The post-Cold War world poses challenges to traditional principles guiding the ethics of the use of force. Military intervention and the current war on terror are two phenomena that challenge just war criteria such as just cause, right authority, and reasonable hope for success. The just war tradition is helpful but needs to be expanded and re-thought to address the pressing issues of our time. This paper suggests Reinhold Niebuhr's category of ‘moral ambiguity’ as a contribution to the discussion. His application of moral ambiguity to his situation during World War II and the Cold War witnesses to the depth that such a category can add to current international circumstances fraught with moral complexity. Though it too requires critique, contemporary discussions on military intervention reflect many of Niebuhr's evaluations of the ambiguity in the use of force as different global actors seek humane alternatives to provide relief to intense human suffering.     

Pride,Sensuality and Han: Revisiting Sin from the Underside

Abstract

This paper critically reconsiders the earliest feminist critiques of Reinhold Niebuhr's doctrine of sin and sketches out succeeding developments in feminist understandings of human sin and alienation. Borrowing the concept of "han" from Korean minjung theologians to name the experience of broken-heartedness/being sinned against that the feminist literature highlights, it argues that han can be a precondition (along with anxiety) for human sin. Finally, it asks whether there is room in Niebuhr's system for an understanding of han as a precondition for sin, and concludes that there is.     

Reinhold Niebuhr and the US War on Terror: A Response to Dr Gilkey

Abstract

Building upon Langdon Gilkey's reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society, this article examines Niebuhr's enduring contribution in relation to two pressing international concerns: religious terrorism and the US War on Terror. As these two issues are characterized by their suppression of reason, I argue that Niebuhr's critical understanding of reason, a human rational capacity to consider interests other than one's own, offers an important resource in rectifying the disorder created by the two issues. Despite his stringent critique of a liberal idealistic view of reason, Niebuhr refused to completely deny the value of reason; although reason is always tainted by sin, it is not entirely ineffectual. This critical notion of reason is a necessary antidote to the unilateralism of the Bush administration and religious fundamentalism which altogether reject a dialogical, reflective value of reason. In an increasingly interdependent global society, a critical use of reason is indispensable for the achievement of global peace and justice.     

‘It is because of our Islam that we are there’: The Call of Islam in the United Democratic Front Era

Abstract

This article examines the South African Islamic anti-apartheid organisation, the Call of Islam, in order to understand how progressive South African ‘ulama navigated the contested territory of Islam through an interpretation of the Qur'an that demanded a Muslim alliance with the oppressed in the anti-apartheid struggle and a South African Islam. The emergence of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983 in reaction to the apartheid government's Tricameral Parliament created a space in which South African Muslims could enter the national anti-apartheid struggle according to their religious rather than ethnic identity. To illustrate the historical development of the Call of Islam and its affiliation with the UDF, the article will first outline the formation of the UDF in the Western Cape, the geographical area with the largest concentration of Muslims in South Africa. The focus will then turn to the impact of the UDF on the Cape's Muslim community, particularly the divide that developed amongst its ‘ulama over the stance of Muslim participation in the anti-apartheid struggle. The following section will analyse the emergence of the Call and how the questions of its founders concerning the religious Other led to an examination of Islam in its South African context. The final section will then look at the sources that the Call used to show it was indeed because of their South African Islam that they affiliated with the UDF and the oppressed.     

Between Apartheid,the Holocaust and the Nakba: Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Pilgrimage to Israel-Palestine (1989) and the Emergence of an Analogical Lexicon

ABSTRACT

On 22 December 1989, the anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu conducted a Christmas pilgrimage to Israel and the Occupied Territories. Tutu used his visit to relay political messages in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle and to criticize Israeli-South African ties, and his statements evoked sever criticism on the part of Zionist Jewish constituencies. Through a tighter focus on Tutu’s various public statements and their reception in the years leading up to the visit, this article traces the history of different sets of interlocking analogies in Tutu’s thought, positioning his 1989 visit to Israel-Palestine—neglected thus far in the critical literature —as a landmark in his thinking. In so doing, it offers a critical analysis of another instance of the Israel-apartheid analogy in the political struggle against the Israeli occupation. At the same time, it points to the genesis of the analogy in Tutu’s ongoing engagements with the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust.     

Searching for the Promised Land: Examining Dr Martin Luther King's Concept of the Beloved Community1

Abstract: 4 April 2008 marked the 40th anniversary of Dr King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. Since his murder we have seen Dr King's message of social justice, the growing threat of militarism, the threat the USA's burgeoning empire posed, and his goal of ending injustice boiled down to a few words spoken in Washington DC when he declared his dream to see his children grow up in a society free of race prejudice. This paper engages with Dr King's work and presents a more geographically sophisticated understanding of King's legacy than the oft repeated Washington speech. Through an analysis of Dr King's concept of the Beloved Community, I argue that Dr King's work stems from the experiences of the Black Atlantic world. Consequently, we should see Dr King's social theory as part of a larger anti‐colonial struggle which sought to integrate African American and Western notions of community, which holds contemporary importance as a counterpoint to current neoliberal conceptions of community.     

Islamic radicalization in Russia: an assessment

To what extent does Russia face the threat of Islamic radicalization? This article provides an assessment of the nature and severity of the threat and its changing dynamics from the Yeltsin to the Putin periods in post‐Soviet Russia. It argues that, contrary to many accounts, the threat was at its greatest during the late 1990s and in the Yeltsin period. Moreover, the Putin administration adopted a series of policies that have had some significant successes in stemming the flow of Islamic radicalism within Russia. This has involved a policy mix, including repression and coercion, most notably in the military campaign in Chechnya; diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and broader Muslim world to improve Russia's image; pro‐active domestic policies to co‐opt and support moderate Russian Muslim leaders and their communities; and attempts to construct a national identity and ideology which supports the multi‐confessional and multinational nature of the Russian state and recognizes the Muslim contribution to Russian statehood and nationality. Although these policies have had their successes, there are also significant limitations, the most notable of which is the failure to address the problems of poor governance in the North Caucasus, which has sustained the Islamist insurgency in the region. The failure to develop an intermediary Muslim civil society in Russia more generally also contributes to the continuing appeal of Islamist radicalism, particularly among younger Russian Muslims.     

At Last! The Voegelin Reader

ABSTRACT

The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, one of the great political scientists of the twentieth century, run to 34 volumes. The selection republished in this Reader will provide senior undergraduates and graduate students (and perhaps their teachers) with a wide-ranging introduction to Voegelin's modern but Aristotelean political science. The selection includes excerpts from his Autobiographical Reflections and from his best-known work, The New Science of Politics. There are several examples of his late an alytical essays. Readers unfamiliar with his relationship to Christianity, always a contentious issue, will find his discussions of the relationship of philosophical or noetic symbols and experiences to revelatory of pneumatic ones especially helpful. The editors and the University of Missouri Press have performed a major service to contemporary political science by making this se lection available.     

Pierre Manent and the Politics of the Possible

Pierre Manent's recent works are marked by what he describes as a sense of realistic political possibility, which he uses to form a political response to the challenge of Islamic radicalism. Manent's “politics of the possible” differs from the usual alternatives that propose to integrate Islamic communities on liberal-individualist terms, or to repatriate Islamic immigrants to their countries of origin. Neither of those alternatives involves “politics” in the sense of articulating a political form within the polity given to us—a polity that now includes a sizable antiliberal minority. Manent's proposal to incorporate Muslim communities formally into the French polity by way of a certain social contract is thus a “politics of the possible” even if it is unlikely to be pursued. This article outlines Manent's account of political possibility and discusses two difficulties with his approach. First, the modern state's success and account of its legitimacy have distanced it from the foundational experiences in which it was capable of addressing the question of religion. Second, the situation caused by the radicalization of existing and new Muslim communities occurs at a different juncture in European political history from that which gave rise to the modern state.     

The Politics of the Good Samaritan

Abstract

Liberals usually misconstrue the recent political movements, worldwide, that have been motivated by fundamentalist religious ideologies. We often dismiss the representatives of these movements both morally and intellectually as fanatic, benighted anachronisms that cling to medieval absolutes. We would be better served, however, if we regard these movements and their representatives in the light of Reinhold Niebuhr's psychology of sin. The purpose of such a construal would not be the cheap, ironical pleasure of accusing fundamentalists of sin, but to provide a more nuanced grasp of their beliefs and behavior, and to open a more promising avenue in our attempts to defuse the furor and mitigate the damage caused by their movements on the national and international stage.     

A sociotechnical order for the umma: connecting Islam and technology in Suharto’s Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article explores narratives connecting Islam and technology that arose in Indonesia during the New Order period (1965–1998). These public discussions defined technological work, especially work in high technology, as a vital spiritual and economic arena for Indonesian Muslims. By asserting technology as a site for spiritual action, Indonesian Islamic activists offered a redefinition of economic development intended to alter both its goals and the character of participation in the development enterprise. In doing so, they framed technological activity as a crucial form of moral agency. Embracing the postsecular turn in historical scholarship which emphasizes attention to the ongoing social processes which define religiosity and secularity, this article investigates how religion and technology are entangled in contemporary Indonesia.     

Siegefields: An Archaeological Assessment of 'Small' sieges of the British Civil Wars

Abstract

Despite outnumbering the pitched battles of the British Civil Wars of the 1640s, sieges, particularly 'small' sieges against single structures such as castles and country mansions, have not been subjected to the intensive study that the battles have enjoyed. While sieges are described in the contemporary literature, we do not fully-understand the physical dynamics of 17th century siege warfare, nor have we identified the key archaeological signatures of such military events. Although castle interiors have been 'cleared' and some partially excavated, the areas immediately beyond the walls have not come in for systematic study. Yet these 'siegefields' may be 'conflict sensitive' and hold the greatest potential for information regarding siege activity. Using an array of data drawn from various survey methodologies, it may be possible to establish strategies for examining siege sites.     

Government and Community Development in Ireland: The Contested Subjects of Professionalism and Expertise

Abstract: This paper historicises the recent and ongoing professionalisation of community development in the Republic of Ireland. The term professionalisation refers both to the designation and accreditation of a distinctive community work occupation and a wider set of processes that effect more strategic approaches to the planning, delivery and evaluation of community organisations. The paper reviews some tensions associated with professionalisation; tensions that closely relate to community work's reputation as a “bottom‐up” or “participatory” strategy. It also interrogates community development's place as a strategy of government in contemporary Ireland. In so doing it reconsiders the assumed separateness and distinctiveness of the state and community sectors, arguing that the state has been centrally implicated in calling the community sector into being. In their turn community development organisations have shaped and mediated policy delivery on the ground. It is these processes of hybridisation, co‐operation, antagonism and struggle that have given professionalisation its momentum.     

Establishment Radical: Assessing the Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr's Reflections on the End of an Era

This article argues that Reinhold Niebuhr's most politically radical work, Reflections at the End of an Era (1934) is more determinative of his subsequent political theology than Niebuhr scholarship has acknowledged. In particular, the doctrine of grace and view of history that Niebuhr here developed continued to shape his mature thought, infusing his work with a politically unsettling quality that Niebuhr scholarship routinely overlooks in favor of depicting him as the “establishment theologian.” This article maintains that reclaiming the legacy of Reflections will enable future reception of Niebuhr to recover the radical dimension to his thought.     

Towards an Anti-Western Stance: The Economic Discourse of Iran's 1979 Revolution

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 saw the mobilization and cooperation of a variety of groupings that were brought together by their shared determination to overthrow the Shah. However, it was not only opposition to the Pahlavi regime, but also suspicion of and disdain for that regime's Western backers that united these revolutionary groups. Religious leaders (ulama), merchants (bazaaris), intellectuals and students alike all espoused the strong anti-Western sentiments that had been developing in Iran over the previous two decades. But what particular factors can be seen to have encouraged the adoption of these sentiments in the lead-up to the revolution, and in what ways were they articulated and subsequently put into practice by the leaders of the new regime? This article suggests that various domestic and international influences can be seen to have shaped the emergence of Iran's revolutionary discourse of “economic independence.” In particular, the paper argues that a peculiar blend of Shi'i concepts of social justice and Marxist-Leninist discourses of class struggle and anti-imperialism not only informed the economic outlook of Iran's burgeoning revolutionary movement during the period 1953–79, but was also enshrined in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic.