My Religion
One of the most persistent myths of Western modernity asserts that lifeworlds are inexorably growing more secular. However, as a counterpoint to this movement, we find the frontline running between Islam and modernity. However, the counterpart to Islamic fundamentalism has long been Christological fundamentalism, which is flourishing in many places, and not just in the sometimes bitter defensive anti-evolutionary stance of creationists in the US »Bible belt« or indeed in evangelical mass movements in West Africa or South America. The increasingly pronounced Catholic anti-liberalism in South and Eastern Europe, the growing political influence of Orthodox Christianity in Russia and the boom of sects everywhere – there is more to the resurgence of religious fundamentalism than merely media hype.
Reflections of this development, which become visible in a variety of different ways within the realm of art and in opposition to this sphere are examined in this »My Religion« edition. In his article Sven Lütticken takes one of the most visible – and controversial – symptoms of the recent »clashes of religion« as his starting point: the veil. His concern is not to probe the cultural symbolism associated with this, but instead to look at the question of the concealed fundamentalist tendencies on the part of the alleged Enlightenment, the self-proclaimed liberal West, which bubble up to the surface in the process of grappling with this issue. Whilst the culture of spectacle has per se a tendency towards unconditional exposition, its converse comprises a kind of abstracting veiling, which conceals the status and continuing degradation of the »living goods«. It is not implicit dazzling, but rather the conscious linkage of politics, religion and the new oligarchic elite in Russia that Keti Chukhrov investigates in her discussion of current sacralisation tendencies. It is revealing to consider the claims made on the Orthodox Church in this respect, in as much as the issue at stake is not so much ideological adjustment but rather a compensatory mechanism striking the balance between spirituality and profit.
Vardan Azatyan’s essay concentrates on the church, in this case the Armenian Apostolic Church, as a fundamental ally of the nationalist government. Even in neo-avant-garde artistic circles there has until now been a willingness to accept this link as a given, provided that the old arch-enemy, Soviet culture, is put in its place retrospectively. Piotr Piotrowski considers a very different legacy of the Soviet empire, namely the profoundly Catholic reaction in Poland. His interest is occasioned by several cases of censorship over the past few years in which artistic freedom appears to have been suspended for the benefit of religious interests. Piotrowski uncovers the strata of discourse underpinning the authoritarian, almost hostile, treatment of art, and looks at how the project of root-and-branch democratisation of society - in as much as anyone still seriously buys into this - fails to proffer any substantial counterweight to how art is handled.
This essay, like other pieces in this edition, for example on the complex relationship between culture and the church in South America, makes clear that Western liberal thinking on sacralisation finds itself confronted over and over again with the other side of the coin, with elements which cannot be so easily discarded. Whether this ultimately has something to do with a structural blindness at the core of this very thinking is a query that extends far beyond this edition’s thematic focus.