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Abstract
The presence of houses of worship, religious clothing, food and sounds like church bells and the call for prayer in liberal and democratic societies is testimony to a vibrant religious diversity in the public sphere of such societies. In Germany, the historical predominance of Christianity is inscribed in the material culture as well as in temporal forms like the calendar. This chapter focuses on public controversies and social conflicts about religious holidays as public holidays in Germany. I discuss two such cases: the contested status of Good Friday as silent holiday and discussions about the introduction of an Islamic holiday as public holiday. I demonstrate that in both cases, religious holidays are mobilised as (temporal) things of conflict. State institutions use arguments based on culturalization or heritagisation of religion to escape accusations that the state privileges Christianity. Despite of that, however, the one-sided endorsement of Christian temporal forms by the state, contributes to the construction of an imagined collective cultural ‘we’ that is based on a ‘Judeo-Christian culture’, which is positioned against religious minorities, especially Islam.
This contribution responds to Saba Mahmood’s critique of secularism and uses it for theory development in liberal political philosophy. Building on the work of Rahel Jaeggi I reconstruct selected parts of Mahmood’s works as an immanent critique of secularism as a form of life. I argue that liberal egalitarian political philosophical approaches to religious difference should broaden the focus of social critique. Beyond – but not instead of – formal regulations such as constitutional law and religious accommodation, political philosophy needs to address what Mahmood calls “ethical sensibilities”, and informal social practices and conventions. My considerations are informed by an exploration of the refusal of some pious Muslims to shake hands with someone of the opposite sex, and controversies about this issue in Western-European countries.
This article suggests an understanding of blasphemy as violence that enables us to identify various kinds of injury that can be inflicted by blasphemous acts and artefacts. Understanding blasphemy as violence can take three forms: physical violence, indirect intersubjective violence, and psychological violence. The conditions that allow for an understanding of blasphemy as physical violence depend on very specific religious assumptions. This is different in the case of indirect intersubjective violence that can take effect in social circumstances where certain forms of blasphemy reinforce existing negative stereotypes of believers. The analysis of blasphemy as psychological violence reveals that interpretations according to which believers who take offense to blasphemy are ‘backward’ and ‘unenlightened’ do not suffice to explain the conditions of the insult that is felt by some believers. The article shows that these conditions can be explained by means of Harry Frankfurt’s philosophical theory of caring.