Confessional Hospitality

Abstract

This chapter looks at critical debates on religious hospitality-as-translation in contemporary political philosophy—notably in critical theory and Jürgen Habermas. Interestingly, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, and Joseph Ratzinger all agree with Ricoeur on the central need for “hospitality” in our modern political discourse. While they speak from different perspectives—Habermas, secular; Derrida, Messianic; Ratzinger, Catholic—they all concur that hospitality offers a radical alternative, however complicated, to the infamous friend-enemy opposition made intellectually current by Samuel Huntington after 9/11. After analysing key aspects of these debates, the chapter ends by addressing the difficulties that arise in regard to Habermas’s model of secular hospitality to religion.