Secularization as Kenosis

214 | postmodern condition and secularity
have to take notice of the fact that the Christian religion has an intrinsic relation with
modern secular society. Does this mean that Vattimo argues for a (re)christianization of
European culture as the best guarantee of a sustainable tolerance? Vattimo argues exactly
the other way around. Christianity cannot play the role of one of the religious parties
in a multicultural society. Christianity is not simply one party among many, rather
it is the precondition that made the multicultural and multireligious society possible.
In this sense, Vattimo is not a multicultural thinker, rather he quite explicitly claims
a unique place for Christianity. To his mind, Christianity has a much more complex
relation to the state and to other religions than multiculturalists have it. Its vocation is
rather to ‘further articulate its own profile as a source and precondition of secularity’ 195
So although Vattimo rejects the picture of a liberal, neutral society that functions as an
umbrella under which diverse religions can seek recognition, he is equally opposed to
an explicit presence of the Church in society. Vattimo suggests that we should always
realize that a secular culture originates in the Christian West and that the fate of Christianity
and secular culture are inescapably intertwined. 196 Christianity is the carrier of
the idea of secularity and in a multicultural context it should continue to disseminate
its laïcistic intent.
Another aspect of political reality that is indebted to the Christian past, is universal
intent. The current globalizing direction of the western political and social reality is
understandable only from the missionary nature of Christianity and its claim to universality.
Although the modern Christian West has often been imperialistic and Eurocentric,
Vattimo is not downright negative about this. A certain missionary universalism
belongs to the original Christian heritage. The role he sees for Christianity today is,
however, not to spread the truth of Christianity, in an evangelizing mode, as a superior
claim to truth, rather to pursue a secular culture as an open space that makes possible
a dialogue of different religions and views of life. The motto of such a postcolonial
Christianity would not be ‘universalism’ but ‘hospitality’. 197 In Vattimo’s reading of the
history of western culture as a history of secularization, the position of Christianity is
privileged, in the sense that it brings with it the conditions for a secular society. As an
example, Vattimo points to the controversy over the wearing of the veil by Muslim girls
in French public schools. The veil is an expression of belonging to a strong tradition at
odds with secular modernity. The symbol of the cross on the other hand does not give
way to this friction, precisely because it refers to the origins of that society that has
developed to our present-day secular society. Christianity as a weak identity enables a
coexistence of diverse religious traditions, precisely because it tends to secularize. The
identification of, or parallel between, secularization and Christianity leads Vattimo to
do away with the distinction between secular and profane history. As a matter of fact,
he sees this idea of secularity as ‘the last metaphysical misunderstanding’ of Christian
thought. He defines this as:
common religion.” Vattimo, After Christianity, 100.
195 Vattimo, After Christianity, 103.
196 Vattimo writes: “To share in the fate of modernity and the West means most of all the deep Christian
meaning of secularization . . . the profane space of liberal society has a religious character, more than liberalism
and Christianity usually admit. It makes no sense to take the position of one of the parties in the field of
religious conflict as a specific identity. Its calling is much more to articulate more fully its own specific profile
as source and precondition.” Vattimo, After Christianity, 103.
197 Vattimo, After Christianity, 106.