[FRA:] H-Net Book Review: The Early Frankfurt School and Religion

[Kenneth MacKendrick]

-----Original Message-----
From: theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org
[mailto:theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org] On Behalf Of Ralph
Dumain

> Perhaps the F.S. is being used  improperly for the cause of religious
restoration?

I think it is a bit more complicated than that. On the one hand, yes:
religion as critique, accompanied by the interest and desire to establish
the FS as more "religious" than is evident in their work. Much of this
emphasis is directed at stressing links between the FS and Bloch, Benjamin,
Scholem, etc.

On the other hand, no: there are people who are uncovering evidence that
Marxians have been ignoring or hiding out of embarrassment, that there is in
fact a link between messianic expectations and emancipation in the FS as
evinced in their use of religious language.

Here's the link for a group I've been working with that discusses some of
these issues for which there isn't much consensus:
http://www.criticaltheoryofreligion.org/

Jurgen Habermas has tried to sort some of this out by noting that discourse
of liberation are in fact indebted to the Judaic-Christian legacy of
salvation history (a term he borrows from Karl Lowith, I think) but that in
modernity salvation history is transformed: no gods before me = freedom of
religion; the wholly Other becomes the pluralism of others, perfect justice
and redemption = justice through argumentation, ethics. He also suggests
that religious language, like art, is indispensable as long as it serves as
a source of inspiration but - it must forfeit its theological claims as
unique.

See also Eduardo Mendieta, "Religion as Critique," the introduction to The
Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers.

ken