Ulrich Schmiedel’s study Terror und Theologie identifies a clear enemy. This enemy is, if not Carl Schmitt as such, then at least one of his central figures of thought, namely the distinction between friend and enemy that is reserved for the sovereign’s decision.

I assume that Schmiedel would not be entirely happy with this description of his project. After all, he emphasizes from the outset that, with regard to Schmitt’s thesis, he is concerned not with its “correctness,” but only with its “reception” (43). His focus is therefore not primarily on the content of the distinction introduced by Schmitt, but rather on its “persistence” (82) in the context of the debate on political theology after 9/11.

However, I wonder to what extent such a separation between correctness and reception can actually be maintained. Schmiedel’s argument certainly feeds into this fundamental concern. He describes the return of Schmitt’s opposition of friend and enemy in the religious-theoretical discourse of the 9/11 decade as the “haunting of a spectre” (303). Accordingly, his program is explicitly aimed at “overcoming the friend-enemy distinction in political theology by recourse to the theory of religion” (6, emphasis mine). It is clear from the outset that Schmitt’s figure of thought is to be avoided on a medium-term basis. The problematization of the permanence of Schmitt’s concept of the political is thus implicitly based on a critique of the content of this concept.

To criticize such a brilliant theoretical proposal as Schmiedel’s for possibly not being one hundred percent consistent in some detail initially seems rather small-minded, if not downright obsessive. However, this criticism becomes interesting in the present case if one takes a closer look at the contours of Schmiedel’s criticism of Schmitt. In this context, the summary of Schmitt’s political theology as an “affirmation of politics through metaphysics” (328) seems revealing to me.

This characterization implies two aspects. First, it places Schmitt’s design in the confrontation “between affirmative and apophatic ( . . . ) theology” (317). Following a distinction made by Dorothee Sölle, Schmitt is assigned to the mode of “affirmation,” while in contrast, the mode of “objection” is linked to a commitment to an apophatic discourse on God (317).

Second, this formula refers to Schmiedel’s repeatedly expressed conviction that Schmitt’s decisionist gesture aims to “metaphysically permanentise” (58, 69, 82, 87, 209, 220) the identity-constitutive conflict between friend and enemy. Schmiedel asserts two symptoms for this diagnosis of the “ontologization” (53) of the friend-enemy distinction. On the one hand, he refers to the fact that Schmitt wants the opposition of friend and enemy to be understood as a descriptive grasp of a “seinsmäßige Wirklichkeit“1 or a “wirkliche Möglichkeit.”2 On the other hand, he points to the fact that Schmitt projects the opposition of friend and enemy onto the Trinitarian concept of God (82). By identifying the friend-enemy scheme even in the relationship between Father and Son, Schmitt treats it as a constant not only in anthropological but—more than that—in ontological terms.

For Schmiedel, the characteristics of affirmation and ontologization prove to be particularly problematic because they counteract his own conception of a theology capable of dealing with the present. He is convinced that situations such as the 9/11-decade call for a “theology that perceives ambivalences” (374). For him, whether a theological concept can succeed is dependent on the question of whether it is able to depict reality in its heterogeneity and ambiguity. It is this criterion that causes Schmitt’s friend-enemy schema to fail—and it is this failure that makes the continuing influence of this schema on political theology such a serious problem for Schmiedel.

In my view, the conviction that Schmitt’s friend-enemy opposition as an affirmative and ontologizing figure of thought is opposed to a political theology capable of ambivalence invites further reflection in two respects.

## 1. Affirmation, Apophaticism, Capacity for Ambivalence

In his reading of Schmitt, Schmiedel emphasizes that the decisionist definition of friend and enemy goes hand in hand with a radical homogenization of both sides (cf. 52). The line between friend and enemy runs along the line between inside and outside of a society. Schmitt thus categorically rules out the possibility of alterity—and thus the enemy—being shifted to the inside of society as “the stranger” (52). Schmitt’s political theology is accordingly bound to the gesture of disambiguation and therefore structurally fails the standard of ambivalence sensitivity.

By presenting Rowan Williams and Dorothee Sölle, Schmiedel introduces two approaches to (New) Political Theology that decidedly emphasize an apophatic approach to the idea of God. Initially, these two proposals differ in terms of the key theological motifs used to concretize apophaticism. According to Schmiedel, Williams places the idea of kenosis at the center of his theology. He thus conceptualizes the relationship between creator and creature in a way that is diametrically opposed to Schmitt. The latter understands every form of identity as the result of a setting according to the pattern of creatio ex nihilo and thus contrasts it sharply with radical alterity. Williams, however, interprets “the relationship between creator and creation through the concept of God’s self-giving” (217) and thus thinks of God as “outside the competing systems with which humans construct their reality” (231). In this way, God’s otherness eludes the opposition between identity and alterity. Rather, the Trinitarian God functions as a standpoint of “difference” (217), from which the “recognition of alterity” (227) that characterizes the religious perception of reality becomes conceivable in the first place.

In contrast to Williams, Sölle does not begin by reading the concept of God, but by analyzing religious consciousness. According to Schmiedel’s account, her focus is on “transcendence as an activity: ‘transcending'” (321). This refers to the initially undefined “longing for something else, this desire to live differently.”3 Under this assumption, the task of political theology consists of “reflecting this indeterminate feeling in such a way that its personal and political significance ( . . . ) becomes transparent to the person who has this feeling” (323).

Kenosis as the epitome of God’s turning to the human being and transcendence as the epitome of the human being’s turning to God: According to Schmiedel, these thoroughly classical theological figures of thought represent two variants of the project of apophatic political theology. Schmiedel emphasizes that such an apophatic approach is not simply a symmetrical alternative to the program of affirmative divine speech. Rather, he reconstructs—in approval—Williams’ reading of Vladimir Lossky, according to which an apophatic approach to God does not behave as a counterprogram to the affirmative speech of God, but as a “metanoia of the intellect” (211). Accordingly, negative theology belongs to a fundamentally different order than positive theology. The guiding themes of kenosis and transcendence follow a thoroughly different logic than the topoi of creation out of nothing and the friend-enemy alterity.

However, this arrangement raises the question of how the case for an apophatic political theology relates to the ideal of an ambivalence-sensitive theology. The standard objection in this context is that, assuming that God is completely anonymous, it is not even possible to say what God is not. Now generally speaking, this criticism can still be countered by understanding apophaticism and affirmation not as mutually exclusive competitors, but as dialectical co-operators in approaching the content of the idea of God. Yet, if one follows the intuition that Williams elaborates following Lossky (and Schmiedel following both), then even this attempt at reconciliation is out of the question. For if “kenosis” and “transcending” mark a disruptive change in the shape of the God-human relationship, i.e., if apophaticism is incommensurable with affirmation per se, then an exclusive commitment to one of the two poles—either apophaticism or affirmation—seems unavoidable.

The tension between affirmation and apophaticism reflects fundamental theological ambivalences such as the tension between visibility and concealment in the context of revelation theology or the tension between “already now” and “not yet” in eschatology. How should a theology that is methodologically committed to reducing itself to a mode of speaking about God be able to depict these ambivalences?

## 2. Metaphysics, Contingency, Identity

A second pair of questions arises from the criticism that Schmitt metaphysically stabilizes the friend-enemy opposition with theological means.

First, I wonder whether Schmitt’s recourse to theological figures of thought really amounts to such a straightforward ontological consolidation of his thesis as Schmiedel’s reading suggests. Is it really the case that the insistence on the inevitability of decision ex nihilo can only be interpreted as a counter-attack against the contingency of every order?

This question can be made more precise following a footnote in Schmiedel’s study, in which Hans Blumenberg’s criticism of Schmitt is addressed. Schmiedel summarizes Blumenberg’s objection with a concise paraphrase by Jan-Werner Müller, according to which political theology ultimately amounts to “setting up a mobile army of metaphors in order to establish legitimacy for everything that has already lost its genuine legitimacy.”4 In my opinion, two ideas are linked here that are initially independent of each other. On the one hand, we are reminded that the turn to modernity creates a vacuum with regard to the legitimization of normative orders that cannot be refilled by secular means. On the other hand, the observation is made that Schmitt deals with this legitimization deficit using theological, i.e., thoroughly pre-secular, metaphors.

However, reconstructing Schmitt’s recourse to theology in terms of the use of metaphors makes it particularly clear that there is no necessary link between the use of pre-secular figures of thought, on the one hand, and the assertion of their ontological fulfillment, on the other. Is not the use of metaphors—even if they refer to an origin from a time of strong metaphysical presuppositions—in itself ontologically neutral? Isn’t the point of the metaphor precisely that it keeps the question of what the connotations invoked in the linguistic image refer to in suspension? In this sense, could it not be suggested, in contrast to Müller’s formulation, that Schmitt’s metaphors are exactly not aimed at the artificial production of legitimacy, but on the contrary want to mark the deficit of legitimacy we are inevitably confronted with under the sign of secular modernity?

With this line of questioning, I by no means want to put forward the ambitious thesis that Schmitt’s decisionism can be understood primarily or even exclusively as an ideological criticism of the radical contingency of political order concealed in liberal universalism. Instead, I merely want to recall that Schmitt’s insistence on the necessity of a decision ex nihilo allows for a very broad spectrum of interpretations. I wonder whether the persistence of Schmitt’s distinction would possibly appear in a somewhat different—milder or at least more diffuse—light in Schmiedel’s study if this very multifaceted reception within political philosophy were taken into greater account than it is the case.

A second and final question concerns the concept of recognition. In Schmiedel’s argument, this concept represents a central axis along which the difference between Schmitt and liberal political theology is made visible. Schmitt focuses on the “mutual recognition”5 between friend and enemy, which—paradoxically—is to be regarded as a constitutive condition for the enmity of the enemy (or the friendship of the friend). In contrast, the apophatic theory of recognition in Rowan Williams’ liberal theology develops a Trinitarian theological perspective in which the “recognition of alterity” (222) takes place according to the model of kenotic “space-giving” (220) and is thus able to transcend the enmity of the enemy through the figure of an unrivaled God.

Liberal theology thus enables a view of human nature that appears much more noble than Schmitt’s comparatively primitive friend-enemy politician. It achieves this by playing the question of the anthropologically possible scope of recognition via the rail of (Trinitarian) theology. In my view, however, the question remains open as to whether the—quite unsophisticated—patterns of collective defense are thereby caught up with in terms of their seriousness and persistence.

Ulrich Schmiedel’s Terror und Theologie is one of those books that make you ask: Why has this not been written before?1 A lot has been written on terror, theology, and the change of “the West’s” self-perception since the attacks of September 11, 2001. What is new in this book is Schmiedel’s approach to lifting the theological-theoretical curtains by asking about the conception of “religion” within political theology—which, at the end of the (political) day, can influence the lives or deaths of thousands. It is further remarkable that a systematic theologian (not least one who was partially educated in Germany) undertakes this highly theoretical journey by highlighting practice as its point of both departure and arrival. The greatest strength of this work lies in its high relevance for not only one but three fields: theology, sociology, and politics. I can even imagine that Terror und Theologie can be used, maybe in a more popular scientific version, as a “guide” to inner- and interreligious dialogues highlighting practice while, at the same time, giving a solid theoretical ground to stand on during Schmiedel’s proposed movement from practice to practice. This might be a book that actually reaches the everyday world.

Allow me, therefore, to start my reflections on this book by turning to practice, just in line with the author’s advice. A long time ago, my friend Ahmad, who is a Muslim, asked me one evening while we were having tea on the outskirts of Bethlehem: “What is the thing about Christianity? No one ever told me.” I felt the heavy responsibility on my shoulders of being the representative of Christianity and told him about what I thought was the thing: the freedom that Christ offers and the love for both the neighbor and the enemy. Ahmad listened intently, and when I had finished, he said, with honest adoration: “This is really great!” And after some ten seconds of contemplation, he added, confidently: “But for me, Islam is still the best.” This was probably the simplest and most honest attempt to interreligious dialogue I have ever had. I treasure it dearly.

It was, in a wider sense, what Schmiedel would call an interreligious encounter that focused on the Schleiermacherian notion of Erfahrungseindruck (the “impression of experience,” meaning the own experience of the transcendent). The differentiation between precisely this Erfahrungseindruck, on the one hand, and the Erfahrungsausdruck (the “expression of experience”), on the other hand, represents the backbone of the theory of religion that Schmiedel, with the help of Dorothee Sölle, develops during his work and which he specifies later on with the attributes “coalitional and comparative” (37). While it is difficult to label an Erfahrungseindruck as wrong, an Erfahrungsausdruck, in its most stringent form: the dogma, often has to be approved by a religious authority. Schmiedel’s emphasis on staying within the sphere of Erfahrungseindruck gives his project, in my opinion, a sympathetically democratic and grassroots vibe that I was able to feel that evening in Bethlehem. The question remains, however, what we are to do when we arrive at the second stage. When we have asked, explained, listened, and tried to understand, and, still, at some point inevitably will arrive at the Erfahrungsausdruck, at the (diverging) dogmas, what will we do then? This is, of course, the one-million-dollar question and I do not expect Schmiedel to have the answer, but I wish that he had discussed it. How, in practice, will the dwelling in the Erfahrungseindruck stage help us to sort things out when we enter the field of Erfahrungsausdruck? How can we prevent it from becoming a status of “anything goes,” in which we then still need a final instance (probably not unlike the Schmittian sovereign), which in the (bitter) end needs to decide exactly what does or doesn’t “go.” In the meantime, I and my dear friend Ahmad, after all kinds of relativizations, still stand there and both think that our respective religion “is the best”—which we are completely entitled to think and feel and act upon!

This first and practice-oriented reflection leads me to the theoretical questions in which the practical ones might be rooted. After having engaged with Terror und Theologie, I could not let go of one of the book’s prominent topics, namely identity. In this short text, I choose to focus on identity in reference to (i) Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction, which, according to Schmiedel, has set and dominated the (underlying and under-reflected) discourse on the theory of religion in the decade following 9/11. Further, I am interested in (ii) Schmiedel’s deeper thoughts on the concept of vulnerability, which he is applying to this context in order to open new doors for dialogue on religious experiences.

Schmiedel’s approach of looking behind the curtain of theological self-evidence and examining the theory of religion (or lack thereof) underlying different theological systems is carried out in an analytically exemplary way throughout the book. I was, however, missing this analytical thoroughness when it came to the notion of identity. Chapters one, two, and nine of Terror und Theologie deal with identity more explicitly, and it is one of the main and most basic concepts reappearing frequently in the general string of argumentation. The author chooses to present identity as the crucial momentum for Schmitt’s famous friend-enemy distinction, which is, speaking in Schmiedel’s terms, more or less the root of all evil (my words, not his). Within the thought construct of the friend-enemy distinction, identity emerges “out of nowhere.” It is Schmitt’s sovereign who decides which group one belongs to. Schmiedel is not satisfied with this theory of the emergence of identity and it is easy to follow his argumentation at this point. In the two last chapters, one gets an idea of how the author wants to understand identity. He sympathizes with Sölle’s picture of identity as something that is shaped in process and, as Sölle says, rather a task than a given (326). This forms the basis of his further thoughts on a coalitionary and comparative theory of religion. Within this framework, an understanding of identity as something soft and open is crucial. As so often, the question is, however, where the line is drawn between openness, on the one hand, and deformation, conformation, and instability, on the other. I think Schmiedel’s argument could be stronger if he situated himself more clearly within the (broad) field of identity research, and nuanced his own position that right now only is presented as the shining star against the backdrop of the dark firmament of an identity caught in the friend-enemy distinction. Many questions about identity, a notion of high importance for the argument of the book, need to be addressed. How does Schmiedel define identity? Why speak of identity in process? How long is this process, and if it is life-long, is there really something we can call identity then or is the concept devaluated by the constant change within this process?

Against the omnipresent theoretical base of the friend-enemy distinction, Schmiedel presents an approach building on the term vulnerability, deriving from Marianne Moyaert and Francis X. Clooney, as well as Dorothee Sölle’s Angewiesensein (32–34, 326f., 389f. 395). Vulnerability is defined as openness, “the common human capacity to be affected and affect” (32f). Pointing out the ambivalence of vulnerability briefly, Schmiedel highlights the positive aspects, the openness to the other, and the readiness to see the friend-like attributes in the enemy and the enemy-like attributes in the friend. But again, in a book on the (theological and political) reactions to acts of terror, a true state of crisis, I would have liked to read more about how Schmiedel meets the downside of this vulnerable approach. Vulnerability also means the (very likely) possibility of getting hurt. Is it not in a vulnerable state that the distinction between friend and enemy is tremendously important? People and animals alike tend to get dangerous in a vulnerable state when sometimes attack is the only defense that is left. To call for openness in situations of crisis, like terror, could resemble a suicide mission. This ambivalence of vulnerability needs to be taken more seriously when thrown into the context of conflict. Moyaert is inspired by Clooney who speaks about a vulnerability that even should be cultivated2 when putting religious texts next to each other. One can follow Schmiedel who wants to translate this method to, so to speak, putting (religious) people next to each other and letting them share and compare their experiences of transcendence. These attempts are made for times of tranquility and peace, and it is in these times, when all parties are at their best, to join a comparative dialogue. Yet, should not a book that has 9/11 as its point of departure and puts practice at its center problematize how this attempt will make it through the reality check, especially when reality already is (in danger of) conflict? Schmiedel himself summarizes this vulnerable theological approach as a “destabilization of one’s own position” (34). One still must ask: Is there not a very high risk that destabilization also comes to equal “instabilization?” “One’s own position” is, in this case, hard to separate from one’s identity. Will this, then, argumentatively lead to an unstable identity as something that should be cultivated?

Having pointed to the serious ambivalence of vulnerability, the thought of ambivalence within the friend-enemy distinction might be put in its place. As Schmiedel has shown thoroughly, if the construction of the relationship between me and the other rests on the assumption that we must be either friends or enemies, we seek to define the other already before we have met them. Schmiedel points out how the different theological approaches he presents fall victim to this devastating distinction that leads to different kinds of “wars” against the decided enemy. Nevertheless, I do not find it easy to dismiss this distinction totally. It is highly problematic in its totalitarian tendencies, but it also points to the vital capacity of being able to analyze risks and judge situations of danger and threat. In situations of crisis, the capacity to make a distinction between “friends” and “enemies” is what can keep one alive. I wonder if not the concepts of the friend-enemy distinction and that of vulnerability are close to each other in their point of departure, where they both wrestle with the other’s otherness and, thereby, the realistic possibility of conflict (44). Moyaert maybe summarizes my concerns when she uses the term “hesitation,” which for her belongs to the idea of ambivalence: “What is required is not an enthusiastic embrace of the other but a form of ‘hesitation’ that expresses the fear of inflicting violence on the other.”3 And, as I would like to add to my ambition to stress both sides of ambivalence, the fear of the other inflicting violence on me.

When confronted with the other’s otherness, we are also immediately confronted with the self’s selfness. First, then, is it meaningful to speak of “identity,” when the self realizes its boundaries to the world around it and starts to compare itself to the world as well as differentiate itself from it? Both the friend-enemy distinction and the concept of vulnerability go back to this point. Schmitt’s great mistake is, of course, that otherness is always negative. Here, the vulnerable approach is to be preferred, as it leaves more space for development and transformation. In the end, we, Schmiedel and I, cannot and do not want to abandon the belief that even enemies can be transformed into friends. A little “hesitation,” however, makes any kind of transformation more stable and reliable.

Reading Ulrich Schmiedel’s work on political theologies “after September 11” (if this is a phrase under which his book can be summarized), and especially the chapter on Dorothee Sölle’s political theology out of which he develops his new “new political theology,” reminded me of a recent series of events that took place in Rijeka, Croatia. Croatia, as a border country of the EU, is a country that is crossed by many migrants who travel from the Middle East through Greece, Macedonia, and Bosnia to the West. Exhausted, without any shelter during the nights, the migrants traveling through Rijeka to Italy, France, and Germany spend their nights sleeping in the railway station, waiting for the new day, new travels, and new insecurities. When this intense migration through Croatia started in 2022, a group of citizens and NGOs started to cook food, bring clothes, and give basic medical assistance to the migrants in the station. This group of citizens and NGOs consists of people who are quite well-known in the community as liberal-lefty activists, very often in strong confrontation with the institutional (Catholic) Church’s presence in society and the political sphere. When so many new migrants arrived that their need for food, shelter, and clothes exceeded what this group of citizens and NGOs could offer, the Catholic Archbishop approached them to ask whether the church might join with its own resources in helping migrants. And then, a coalition was forged. Hand in hand, Catholic nuns and young pro-choice and pro-life activists started to support migrants in Rijeka together, which is what they have been doing up to today. As a symbol of this coalition of practice, the Archbishop invited this group of citizens and NGOs—twelve “enemies of Christian values,” so to speak, and in any case mostly irreligious and antireligious men and women—to Rijeka Cathedral on Maundy Thursday. He washed their feet—which was followed by consternation in church circles.

Schmiedel’s Terror und Theologie represents engagement with the very concrete and contemporary topic of the role of the Christian faith in the political sphere, with inter-religious (including religious-secular) collaborations on urgent political issues, and, last but not least, with the theological resources for such collaborations. My reading and response to this important book concentrate on the chapter “Religionstheorie als Politikum: Schmitts Vermächtnis und Schleiermachers Versprechen in Sölles Politischer Theologie,” which could be translated as “Theory of Religion as a Political Issue: Schmitt’s Legacy and Schleiermacher’s Lessons in Sölle’s Political Theology.” In this chapter, I found plenty of rich material to think through the topics I have previously mentioned. The section on Sölle is largely descriptive, tracing Sölle’s efforts to turn the plurality of religions from a problem into a program of political theology, going all the way back to Schmitt and Schleiermacher. However, the way Schmiedel describes Sölle’s theology brings many concerns and conclusions into the open that are often swept under the carpet. So, let’s start with them.

As I read this chapter, Schmiedel tries to address the need for new “new political theology” after 9/11, focusing particularly on the “theory of religion.” The new “new” political theology points to the fact that he builds on the foundations presented by the so-called new political theology established in 1970s Germany by theologians such as Johann Baptist Metz, Jürgen Moltmann, and Sölle. I appreciate the return to the political theology of the 1970s because that theology is often neglected in current discussions about the politicization of religion and the religionization of politics, although it offers rich insights that can be drawn on in current conflicts. At the very end of this chapter, Ulrich points to the need for “multi-religious coalitional practice” (364), similar to the coalitions of practice in Rijeka that I mentioned above. These coalitions of practice are at the core of the theory of religion that he outlines at the end of the book. Schmiedel, then, starts (and ends) with the theory of religion that would allow scholars to study and support such coalitions of practice. This is a very ambitious enterprise for a number of reasons. Of course, such a “new” theory of religion, which he finds embodied in Sölle’s political theology, resonates with the work of a number of theologians who reflect on the crucial question of political theology—namely, what are the resources of Christian theology to engage in the thinking (and contributing to!) major political problems of our time, doing justice to the core Christian beliefs, on the one hand, and to the multireligious, pluriform worldview landscape and political world that Christians inhabit, on the other hand. Let me mention just two of these efforts—Luke Bretherton’s Christ and the Common Life reflects on the common practices that stem from the core of the Christian beliefs as a way to transcend the polarizations created in the political arena through different worldviews that, in the words of Sölle and Schleiermacher that Schmiedel draws on, focus on their “expression of transcendence” (Erfahrungsausdruck) rather than their “experience of transcendence” (Erfahrungseindruck). Also, from an Orthodox perspective, Aristotle Papanikolaou’s Mystical as Political reflects on the ascetic, mystical approach of Christian political theology, which corresponds to Sölle’s emphasis on mysticism as a starting point of political resistance, at least somewhat.

However, Schmiedel’s effort is different from theirs, mainly because of his constant addressing the new political theology that has developed in Germany. He is aware that the post-9/11 context differs from the world of the new political theologians. The issues at stake are not secularization and the deprivatization of the Christian faith, as Metz put it, but possible collaborations with Islam. However, the foundations, I dare to say, can remain the same since political theology is not about the hows and whys of engaging secularism in the 1970s and Islam(ism) in the 2000s, but about the theological questions that are contained in these issues. Are there ways to remain faithful to Christian identity and at the same time turn the distinctive religious foundations of one’s own faith into a tool for creating coalitions and something more than a dialogue with different, even opposite worldviews? For various reasons, I find that this is one of the major challenges in our contemporary theology and Church practice. Crucially, nowadays populism and religious belongings (and that especially after 9/11 with the heightened attention to Muslims as others in the Western political arena, plus the migrations that we witness in Europe) place a huge emphasis on identity and one’s own distinctiveness. However, this identity and distinctiveness are not only related to what is seen as the “ultimate other”—namely, Islam—but also to the various “players” within the same respective communities we inhabit. Here, collaborations between different worldviews as a program is mainly placed as a secondary thought for Christian identity—yes, collaboration, but firstly we need to find out whether we are starting from the same worldview perspectives and only if we agree on that, might we collaborate. This tension between identity and collaboration, without losing either, presents the major obstacle to building any kind of theory of religion that has coalitions of practice at its core.

I have mentioned that, as I understand Schmiedel, we need “more than a dialogue” since Christian political theology in our political landscape is not in a position only to conduct dialogue, but needs to work, out of different religious resources, toward the practices that can make our societies and political communities the home for everybody, on the one hand, and resilient communities in view of global threats, on the other. Schmiedel gives us some helpful clues for how to deal with this dichotomy presented in Christian theology and political and social identities, i.e., how to conceptualize a theory of religion that becomes the “framework for arguments about politics in which Christian and non-Christian voices can be heard” (308). Among many approaches that this chapter offers, I will pinpoint the one that emphasizes Christian theology primarily as “transcending,” which starts not with the being but looks toward the “not-yet-being” (321). This concept might be connected to, albeit with different argumentation, Moltmann’s early writings, especially in his Theology of Hope, where he termed Christian theology as primarily eschatology. This eschatological character also has this emphasis on “not-yet-being,” it is not focused primarily on expressions of dogmatic statements but on the practice of, to use Sölle’s terms, “imagination” and “liberation” that will be fulfilled in the future. It is known how these concepts influenced, for instance, various theologies of liberation that used “expressions of transcendence” as a tool for broad coalitions for political liberation. So, in Sölle, as well as in Moltmann, this eschatological transcending has not only strong political implications and explications, but such conceptualization of theology primarily puts an emphasis on what Sölle, with reference to Schleiermacher, has explained as “experience of transcendence” instead of “expression of transcendence.” Sölle’s transcending, experiential mysticism, an act of stepping outside of one’s identity, resonates with Rahnerian transcendental anthropology in which this experience is placed as a possibility for every human being. Such transcending represents the starting point of her (and Schmiedel’s) thinking about the possibilities of creating a theory of religion that will not only be political but will allow different worldviews and religions that have different (or opposed) expressions of transcendence to stand on equal footing.

How can such an emphasis on these experiences of transcendence help in forming coalitions of practice, particularly in view of a “new” theory of religion that will not collide with “expressions of transcendence?” Let me try with just one hint, maybe following in the footsteps of Schmiedel’s work. If we start from the expressions of transcendence, we will necessarily end with tolerance which not only makes people “apathetic” (350), but also brings different transcendences into discussion, perhaps conflict, and, as the best option, allows for acceptance of the carriers of different transcendences. However, Schmiedel doesn’t give up on these expressions but turns them into the driving force for an experience of transcendence or, as Sölle would say, “more decisive political activity means more piety, and more piety means more decisive political activity” (349). As I see this refiguration of “transcendences,” these are the transcendences turned upside-down that build a bridge between a necessary quest for identity (piety) and a common struggle for societies and political spaces (politics). Also, with such a reading of Sölle, Schmiedel has managed to bridge the dichotomy between the privatization of the Christian faith and its public dimension. The Christian faith is public, it can create coalitions and enter the political struggle with many different actors, while simultaneously being deeply rooted in an identity that is not in being but in becoming, without losing both of its expressions. Schmiedel’s book is very innovatively continuing the work of the new political theology in a very different context and with very different actors, within and outside of Christian theology. It is the work that develops a theoretical framework for fostering coalitions, such as the one that is happening right now in Rijeka, that joins many different players, with different expressions of transcendence in the same boat.

Ulrich Schmiedel’s Terror und Theologie ends with a call to comparative political theology. Instead of a political reasoning based on friend-enemy distinctions, where after 9/11 Islam has become a trope of the enemy, Christian political theology should be pluralized in its exchange with Islam. Christian theologians should sit at a table with Muslim theologians. I am sitting on the other side of the table. As a Muslim reviewer, I also believe that Islamic political theology should learn from Christianity. Here, I try to briefly reflect on what contemporary Islamic political theology might learn from Christianity. I emphasize that to engage in a project of comparative theology, it is important to cultivate the virtue of epistemic vulnerability, where one does not have any qualms about questioning certain all-cherished beliefs. Put in Paul Ricoeur’s terms, Marianne Moyaert suggests that no appropriation of a different theology can happen without disappropriating part of one’s own theologies.1 That is why my response to Schmiedel involves both a critique of the triumphalist friend-enemy developments in Islamic political theology and a reconstruction of political theology by learning from Schmiedel’s reading of Dorothee Sölle.

Islamic political theology has been very much informed by Islamist and so-called post-Islamist intellectuals and movements. While Islamists looked for all the responses to their individual and social questions in (a reading of “pure”) Islam, post-Islamists also looked for their responses to the retraction of religion from the public sphere by recourse to alternative readings of Islam.2 Both Islamist and post-Islamist discourses arose in highly polemical contexts, focusing on very controversial social and political issues such as human rights, women’s rights, and the relation between religion and state, among other things. Criticism of the tradition, the “West,” religious institutions, and governments has been central to their arguments. Although it has influenced much of twentieth-century Islamic thought, this reading of Islamic political theology is now at a point of crisis, if not demise. Terrorist attacks in different parts of the world by Islamist groups and individuals, the failure of certain Islamist groups such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to speak to the concerns of the new generation, as well as the difficulties of self-proclaimed “Islamic States,” such as the one in Iran, all have led to the weakening of any form of “political Islam.” Indeed, now it seems clearer than ever that political Islam aspired to something much bigger than what it could realistically achieve. One symptom of this situation is the total absence of religion in the Mahsa uprising in Iran (also known as “Women, Life, and Freedom,” 2022), where neither the protesters nor the suppressive system used religion to question or promote what was denied in the name of religion, i.e., the compulsory hijab. In fact, religion seemed totally pointless.

In my opinion, this does not entail an entire secularization of politics in Muslim-majority societies. Neither the historical experience nor the philosophical understanding of secularism allows us to comfortably bid farewell to religion in the public sphere. And that is why Muslim intellectuals are called to reconstruct an Islamic political theology. The path toward that comes from comparative political theology. Now, instead of writing apologetically about what Islam has in comparison with other religions that make it more politically relevant, Muslim intellectuals could try to learn how political theologies of different religions have successfully responded to the challenges that the world is facing. A comparative political theology will help develop contemporary Islamic theology, which does not seek power but engages seriously with the question of the running of the polis. If Islamic political theology is no longer triumphalist, and only condemns any kind of hegemony rather than favoring one kind of hegemony over others, it can benefit from the concept of “sympathy” and “vulnerability” in Christian literature. Taking my clues from Schmiedel’s reading of Sölle, I suggest that theologies of sympathy and vulnerability can replace a friend-enemy model in political discourse, not the least in Islamic political theology.

Many resources within Islamic tradition are quite compatible with a theology of sympathy. If an Islamic political theology is to replicate the prophetic community in very early Islamic times, this political community can be imagined in terms of sympathy and shared suffering. The following citation of relevant Qur’anic verses does not mean that the theology of sympathy is the only prevalent discourse in the Qur’an. Nor does it mean that an Islamic political theology should be based on what the Qur’an seems to be saying in particular contingent situations. Rather, my point is that there are sufficient scriptural resources for a theology of sympathy instead of a theology of triumph to be developed. Indeed, due to the contingent context of the Qur’anic verses and their rhetorical purposes, there are many voices running through it. Hence, the reader may choose from among all these voices and decide, based on their own reasoning in particular situations, what kind of political theology should be preferred.

One of the keys to a theology of sympathy may be found in the Qur’anic representation of vulnerability. Vulnerability is, for example, seen in the comfort that the Prophet receives from God on different occasions (e.g., Sura 93). Taking their clues from Moyaert’s writings on epistemic vulnerability as a precondition for understanding, Muna Tatari and Klaus von Stosch explore this vulnerability in the story of Mary as represented in the Qur’an (Suras 3 and 19).3 Mary in the Qur’an is weak, vulnerable, and approachable. This is all the more important in that in recent scholarship the Qur’anic portrayal of Mary is read as a representation of Muhammad. That is, Mary’s vulnerability is the same as that of Muhammad’s. In the Meccan context of the Sura, Muhammad is portrayed as lonely, vulnerable, and wounded.

Another example is Sura 28, which despite its apparently triumphalist discourse, does contain a discourse of weakness and vulnerability. It is true that the Qur’an 28:5–6 promises the abased on the earth to be the leaders and inheritors, something which may be read in triumphalist terms. Still, a number of Moses episodes do clearly valorize vulnerability. For example, Moses cries out to God to “rescue me from the wrongdoing people” (v. 21) and he pleads “O Lord, I am in need of whatever good you send down to me” (v. 24). This weak, vulnerable man is described as “strong and reliable” by the girl he has helped (v. 26). It is true that strength is here taken as a positive value; yet, it is in weakness that Moses finds strength. This strength is to be used in the service he offers to his employer (v. 27). After the period of service, Moses has a divine encounter at the bottom of a valley in all his solitude (vv. 29–30).

It may be argued that the spirit of Meccan verses is more appropriate for such a reading, while the Medinan Suras are to be understood from a triumphalist perspective. But indications to the contrary are difficult to miss. Sura 3, for example, is not devoid of triumphalist discourse. In fact, one of the keywords of the Sura is the word “nasr” meaning “victory” (vv. 13, 123, 126, 147, 160). Nevertheless, failure in a battle is comforted in these terms:

Then He sent down to you safety after grief—a drowsiness that came over a group of you—while another group, anxious only about themselves, entertained false notions about God, notions of [pagan] ignorance. They say, “Do we have any role in the matter?” Say, “Indeed the matter belongs totally to God.” They hide in their hearts what they do not disclose to you. They say, “Had we any role in the matter, we would not have been slain here.” Say, “Even if you had remained in your houses, those destined to be slain would have set out toward the places where they were laid to rest, so that God may test what is in your breasts, and that He may purge what is in your hearts, and God knows best what is in the breasts.” Those of you who fled on the day when the two hosts met, only Satan had made them stumble because of some of their deeds. Certainly God has excused them, for God is all-forgiving, all-forbearing. O you who have faith! Do not be like the faithless who say of their brethren, when they travel in the land or go into battle, “Had they stayed with us they would not have died or been killed,” so that God may make it a regret in their hearts. But God gives life and brings death, and God sees best what you do. If you are slain in the way of God, or die, surely forgiveness and mercy from God are better than what they amass. And if you die or are slain, you will surely be mustered toward God. It is by God’s mercy that you are gentle to them; and had you been harsh and hardhearted, surely they would have scattered from around you. So excuse them, and plead for forgiveness for them, and consult them in the affairs, and once you are resolved, put your trust in God. Indeed God loves those who trust in Him. If God helps you, no one can overcome you, but if He forsakes you, who will help you after Him? So in God let all the faithful put their trust (3:154–160).

These verses have either been read as calls to martyrdom or, at some points (for example in reference to verse 159) as a confirmation of the democratic vote as the basis of the state. While the context and the meaning of the verses are not by any means pacifist (indeed, they involve a military engagement on the ground), they do imply a politics based on sharing pain in expectation of divine comfort. The divine itself is not to be seen in terms of an all-powerful sovereign granting its power over a ruler. If it is granting anything, it is mercy (v. 159). And if it is granting help, it is not through human proxies (v. 160). While verse 159 has been read as an affirmation of democracy, it may be read as seeing the basis of counsel in the statesman’s humility.

To reflect on an alternative Islamic political theology in conversation with Christianity, I have tried to find a point to vulnerability rather than power as an important element of the polis. As mentioned earlier, the Qur’anic reference to an alternative politics of sym-pathy (i.e., suffering together) and vulnerability should not be overstated, nor should the Qur’an by itself be taken as the basis of politics (even if it had contained any clear formulation on that). Yet, drawing on Schmiedel’s political theology, I tried to suggest how a political theology of vulnerability may find Qur’anic support just as much as democratic or theocratic readings do.