A Situation that Cannot be Found: Theorising the 'Inter' of the Interreligious

This article draws on the work of Jacques Derrida to investigate the 'inter' of the interreligious. I argue the typical imagination of the 'inter' as a space between religions has severe limitations. I suggest the situation is aporetic: On the one hand, the interreligious cannot...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: van Hoogstraten, Marius (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Oxford University Press [2018]
In: Literature and theology
Year: 2018, Volume: 32, Issue: 2, Pages: 178-192
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
AX Inter-religious relations
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Resolving-System)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This article draws on the work of Jacques Derrida to investigate the 'inter' of the interreligious. I argue the typical imagination of the 'inter' as a space between religions has severe limitations. I suggest the situation is aporetic: On the one hand, the interreligious cannot be assigned a stable location or place, but remains a khoraic non-site that frustrates attempts to control or subdue it, as much both-and as neither-nor. On the other hand, however, religious identity depends on this non-site, as identity is always already oriented toward its 'other.' The confrontation with difference thus confronts religious identity with the aporia that what makes it possible simultaneously makes it unstable. What is most intimately mine, my religion, is not mine. Instead of a choice between interreligious commonality and difference, this deconstructive experience of religious difference may, paradoxically, engender a desire for reconciliation or wholeness, which remains the matter of a tenuous promise, making itself apparent as a call to solidarity.
ISSN:1477-4623
Contains:Enthalten in: Literature and theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/litthe/fry011