ABSTRACT
A Christian religion worthy of the name, one that has not yet been secularized into a utopia (which, as everyone knows, is not the object of anyone’s prayers), is in the highest degree and almost irritatingly noncontemporaneous. It is indeed informed of this by all parties. For the left, Christian religion serves as a special example of a noncontemporaneous residue left from the period preceding the
Enlightenment; it is perceived as professing a purely perfunctory interest in universal justice and liberation. As for the right and the center, the situation at first appears different. Indeed there is even talk of an ideological shift (Tendenzwende) in society toward religion; and religious terminology is once again appearing in political programs. Yet it must be asked whether what is at issue here is really a matter of religion. Is this shift a timely form of inspiration and irritation wrought by religious noncontemporaneity? Or is it instead an indication of society’s interest in its own security, a type of protective ideology for affluent bourgeois societies that, confronted everywhere by increasingly insistent demands and challenges, refuse to alter their priorities and look to religion as a supposedly reliable and time-tested accomplice in their efforts to safeguard the status quo?
