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(2009) Postcolonial philosophy of religion, Dordrecht, Springer.

The meaning and function of religion in an imperial world

Nelson Maldonado-Torres

pp. 193-211

It is fairly evident today that the modern Western theory of religion has been intimately connected with the critique or defense of Christianity in a context imperialism and increased secularism. Most analyses have focused on the tensions between Christianity and secular ideas, while a critique of the workings of the theory of religion in relation to imperialism has been more recent. This essay contributes to these more recent efforts by offering a Fanonian sociogenic analysis of religion in an imperial world. It brings out the necessity to consider intersubjectivity and spatiality as relevant coordinates to study religion and the theory of religion in the West. The analysis is grounded on Frantz Fanon's critique of ontology and his descriptions of the imperial/colonial context, in critical dialogue with the work of L. Feuerbach, GWF Hegel, and F. Nietzsche. A Fanonian approach insists on the centrality of intersubjective relations and dynamics of power that can only be understood by illuminating the constitutive role of spatial relations among regions and subjects that conform the modern world.Things take precise forms and meanings according to their order and position. If the human and social sciences are so complicated, it is precisely because they do not deal only with things, but also with a multidimensional order of things that allows each one of its elements to get the most varied meanings and functions. Things appear to us, but, as Husserl notes, only from certain angles and shades. Meanings of a thing may remain hidden and only appear as we struggle with our position or locus of enunciation. Then, sometimes, we begin to see new unforeseeable dimensions of the thing and the order to which it belongs. This paper is an attempt to reveal certain aspects of the meaning of theistic religion in the "order of things' known as Empire. 1 With Empire, I do not refer solely to historical expressions of imperialism, but, more exactly, to an Imperial order of things linked to modalities of human existence and to intersubjective relations inserted in processes of recognition that give rise and sustain a fundamental condition of lordship and bondage. 2 This perspective has not found much attention in the field of the study of religion, particularly in the theory of religion. I attempt here also to articulate reasons and reveal methodological limitations that animate or foment this remarkable forgetfulness of the question of Empire.This essay has two parts: the first is an attempt to elucidate the religion of Empire with reference to the work of Ludwig Feuerbach and Frantz Fanon; the second deals with the dismissal of imperiality in Western critiques of religion. Nietzsche's ideas about asceticism and his discourse about the "death of God" are central in the discussion. A form of critical reflection aware of the significance of intersubjective relations to the formation of subjectivity and human reality (viz. Feuerbach), as well as the integration of spatiality as a coordinate of reflection in critical discourses (viz. Nietzsche, Feuerbach, and Hegel) are called for as necessary components of a theory of religion that aims to reveal the traces of Empire in our varied and multiple religious expressions.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-2538-8_11

Full citation:

Maldonado-Torres, N. (2009)., The meaning and function of religion in an imperial world, in P. Bilimoria & A. B. Irvine (eds.), Postcolonial philosophy of religion, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 193-211.

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