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2. Secularization and Totalitarian Movements: Probing the Limits of the Concept
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61 CHAPTER TWO SecUlarization and totalitarian movementS Probing the Limits of the Concept The secularization thesis in many ways boils down to the insight that modern philosophies of progress are impossible without certain presuppositions about the nature of the historical process that originate in Judeo-Christian eschatology. Some progressivisms retain these presuppositions explicitly, remain loyal to the Bible, and secularize the myth of salvation only in the limited sense of reinterpreting the originally transcendent civitas Dei in historical terms: as a possibility lying within the scope of human achievement. Others go a step further, reject the Bible, and replace the civitas Dei with a non- or antireligious utopia. In such ideologies, of which Marxism represents a prominent example, biblical foundations are hidden and unconscious, implicit in lingering structural assumptions, such as that history is teleology. Regardless of whether modern progressivisms secularize biblical eschatology partially or completely , however, they all contain a measure of religious dogma. This insight opens up the possibility of interpreting Wilson’s liberal idea of progress as secularized eschatology, but before performing this interpretation it is worth noting that traditionally secularization theory has been used almost exclusively on totalitarian and illiberal ideologies, not liberal ones.1 The concepts of totalitarianism and secular (political) 1 This is not to deny the existence of literature on political theology as it relates to 62 STATECRAFT AND SALVATION religion share extensive bridges and tend to be regarded as two parallel categories for analyzing twentieth-century dictatorships. This fixation of secularization theory on totalitarianism, what may be called the secularization -totalitarianism nexus, raises the question of whether it is legitimate to extend secularization theory to liberal progressivisms in the first place. In addition, political religion historiography is also heavily skewed toward non- and antireligious movements and ideologies, implicitly raising a second important issue: is secularization theory applicable to religious ideas of progress? After all, one might ask, how could an ideology possibly be both religious and secularized at the same time? Both of these objections are directly relevant to any attempt at a secularization analysis of Wilson’s progressive “New Diplomacy” and the broader tradition of American liberal-republican millennialism exemplified by it. Wilson was nothing if not a patriotic American liberal and a deeply devout Presbyterian in whose understanding progress, liberty, and religion were inseparable: “Let no man suppose that progress can be divorced from religion,” he declared on one occasion, adding on another that he “could not imagine liberty in a world in which there was no progress .”2 Therefore, it is necessary to probe the analytical limits of secularization theory, scrutinize these objections, and determine whether they are valid. What will emerge is that neither the secularization-totalitarianism nexus nor the fixation on irreligious ideologies is justified; ample space exists within secularization theory to accommodate other modern narratives of progress and perfection, including liberal and religious ones. The neglect of these narratives by current political religion historiography reflects insufficient attention to the subtleties of secularization theory: the general scope of Löwith’s thesis and the fact that secularization does not necessarily mean de-Christianization. the liberal nation-state. Notable recent examples include Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, trans. Lorenzo Chiesa and Matteo Mandarini (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2007); and Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds., Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006). However, this literature is not informed by Karl Löwith’s classic statement of the secularization thesis in Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949). 2 See, respectively, Woodrow Wilson, “Address in Denver on the Bible” (May 7, 1911), in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link et al. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966–1994) [henceforth PWW], 23:20, and Wilson, “Lecture on Democracy” (December 5, 1891), in PWW 7:363, 365. [3.89.116.152] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:31 GMT) SECULARIZATION AND TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENTS 63 Historical Origins of the Secularization-Totalitarianism Nexus The beginnings of secularization theory, it was seen, roughly correspond to the aftermath of World War I. Löwith, who fought in the Prussian army and sustained heavy wounds, had barely returned from his Italian captivity when he enrolled at the University of Freiburg and started formulating the root ideas for his Meaning in History. Berdyaev, who...