Is Wrong with Cafeteria Religion? on Freedom of Choice in Theology and Religious Studies Walter Lesch

What (if Anything) Is Wrong with Cafeteria Religion? On Freedom of Choice in Theology and Religious Studies Walter Lesch

Abstract. — Religion is about responsible choices and selective appropriations of complex traditions. In this contribution, delivered as the 2020 Dies Facultatis lecture at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, the challenge of coping with plurality and individuality is explored with the help of the metaphor of a cafeteria where customers can pick and choose various items of food according to their personal prefer- ences. Classical theology is not comfortable with such a self-service mentality. Neverthe- less, theology and religious studies have to face the dynamics of individualization as the main feature of modernity. After briefly situating the metaphor of food in the context of religion, ‘cafeteria style’ will serve as a heuristic tool for the analysis of the pragmatics of dealing with diversity in the academic study of religious expressions.

1. Introduction to an Irritating Metaphor

I invite you to think about what we are doing in theology and religious studies through the lens of cafeteria religion.1 What a strange topic for a lecture at the Feast of Saint Thomas at the Catholic University of Leuven! Instead of celebrating the beauty and the unity of an academic approach to theology, I suggest having a look at the contemporary situation of faith and religion in a context of pluralism and individualization.2 We have the

1. The text was delivered as a lecture on March 10, 2020 at the Dies facultatis of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. The oral and personal style of the presentation has been maintained in order to mirror the particular setting of the event. 2. Individualization is not an exclusive feature of modern and postmodern societies. The results of a long-term research project at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (University of Erfurt) can be found in Religious Individuali- sation: Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives, two volumes, ed. Martin Fuchs, Antje Linkenbach, Martin Muslow, Bernd-Christian Otto, Rahul Bjørn Parson and Jörg Rüpke (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2019). The book also makes available pre-modern and non-Western case studies. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 165 privilege to live in a society where religious identities are no longer a matter of destiny or of authoritarian constraint. We are free to choose what kind of religion we find convincing and attractive and can even pick and choose certain elements within religious traditions without opening the gates to hell and without having to fear being persecuted by the inquisi- tion. What seems to be good news for liberal Christians, is a nightmare for those who stand up against the negative impact of relativism. The defenders of orthodoxy coined the term ‘cafeteria religion’ in order to denounce what they considered to be an inappropriate way of doing justice to religious practice and to religious doctrine. According to this tradi- tionalist view, religion has to be accepted as an integral proposal without any exceptions, even in cases of unbearable cognitive dissonance when ideas and actions are not consistent. Take it or leave it. In the worst case scenario, you are not even free to leave it and to go for a happier life without the depressing and soul-destroying ingredients of some religious narratives and institutional settings. Today most departments of theology and religious studies are run like intellectual cafeterias even if some of them hesitate to admit it openly. Very few students buy the whole package according to a maxi- malist version of study regulations. If they would do so, they would have to cope with their personal enemies in the broad spectrum of compul- sory subjects. For some of them, biblical languages are the ultimate hor- ror; others struggle with the surrealism of some debates in dogmatic theology; still others do not understand why they have to deal with the challenges of social ethics. Sooner or later, they can find their happiness in their field of specialization and get rid of all the embarrassing things they were obliged to learn. There is nothing wrong with such a progres- sive selection of the most interesting and intellectually convincing items by each student and scholar. What we do in research-based theology is cafeteria religion at its best. We get the licence to pick and choose our preferred subjects and to forget about most of the rest. That’s what suc- cessful researchers look like when they cannot afford to remain general- ist scholars all their lives following the ideal of a cultivated Renaissance intellectual. However, with their high level of specialization they might have to pay a price. Let me put it in a provocative way: these researchers are sometimes bad teachers and they show little interest in their colleagues’ work. Having spent some decades in the field of theology and religious studies, I am really scared by the lack of interaction and curios- ity to have a look at the broader picture. If everybody remains in his or her corner of outstanding expert knowledge, there will be no time for common projects and for passionate discussions. Theologians who like 166 WALTER LESCH the rhetoric of combatting relativism are very often trapped by the splen- did isolation of their research and thus contribute involuntarily to the relativization of the differentiated areas. In this lecture, I intend to reflect upon the contemporary crisis of religion by looking at the habitus of the academic experts of religion. In how far are they accountable for their choices? And in how far does religious plurality find an adequate expression in the plural voices of theological research?3 Sociologically speaking, the case of academic work is only a tiny part of the reality in which religion can appear. But it is a significant phenomenon. I invite you to consider the choices we make in our work with the help of the metaphor of a cafeteria as a reference point for the organization of our meeting places. The use of such a comparison can of course be misleading. To be clear: I am not looking for a new comprehensive doctrine. The playful use of the cafeteria case is nothing else but a thought experiment about ways of coping with plurality, common ground and interdisciplinary exchange. My argumentation will have six parts. I start by reminding us of the negative connotations of the catchword ‘cafeteria religion’ and then move on to the more general level of the metaphor of food in religion. The following three sections will be dedicated to a reconstruction of typical views on plurality in theology and sociology, with the help of Peter L. Berger and Hans Joas. The concluding remarks will be about some modest proposals concerning new configurations in the field of theologies and religious studies.

2. The Negative Perception of Cafeteria Religion

Before we go to the critique of cafeteria religion, we have to understand what a cafeteria represents as a rather modern type of food service, usu- ally in big companies and institutions. The origins are in the late 19th century in the USA. There is no table service in cafeterias. People

3. When I use the term ‘theology’, it is meant to be systematically in touch with the area of ‘religious studies’. A faculty with the name ‘Theology and Religious Studies’ is the most appropriate address for the study of all questions related to religion. Without denying the specific approach of what is called ‘theology’, this must be embedded in the framework of an academically respectable epistemology. Cf. the still relevant document published by the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat), Recom- mendations on the Advancement of Theologies and Sciences concerned with Religions at German Universities (Berlin: Wissenschaftsrat, 2010). Online: https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/9678-10_engl.pdf;jsessionid=511AE91D596EA5B802F6 33522462FF48.delivery2-master?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 (accessed April 4, 2020). WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 167 go to food counters where they can choose from among different items, drinks or prepared dishes. In some cases, hot meals can be purchased. At the end of the line, customers pay for the things they have on their tray and check out before choosing a place at a table in the dining room. The invention of this not very aristocratic way of serving food is closely linked to the necessity of having an acceptable quality of products at places where a certain number of people go to eat: in schools, universities, hospitals, museums, even places of worship as in the popular cafeterias of prestigious buildings belonging to the Church of England. The award-winning Café in the Crypt at Saint Martin in the Fields in Lon- don is one of the most famous examples.4 The typical characteristics are self-service and free choice at the food counters. All this makes it of course very different from table service and elaborated menus in high quality restaurants. The term ‘cafeteria Christianity’ started to circulate in the 1980s when highly motivated Christians accused other Christians of no longer accepting the totality of the doctrine and just selecting the elements they found suitable for their personal view on God and the world. Cafeteria Christianity became a clearly pejorative term pointing to the lack of loyalty of those who still consider themselves as members of their religious community without subscribing to all the moral rules and to all the articles of faith. Nominal (or cultural) Christians had to face the suspicion that they made the easy choice of keeping the aspects which can be accepted without any problems leaving aside the more challenging dimensions of a truly Christian way of life. The individualist and anti-communitarian attitude was seen as a lack of substance, commitment and loyalty.5 If we look back to these polemics from today’s perspective, I can hardly see any serious Christians who do not to some degree qualify as moderate representatives of a pick-and-choose-religion. Personally, I do not hesitate a second to understand myself as a cultural Catholic, still convinced by the importance of an intellectually and practically important message, not only in order to benefit from the advantages of a professorship in theology. If this were the case, I should better look for another job. But I cannot seriously imagine accepting every sentence of

4. Cf. the website of this iconic London church presenting its rich cultural offer: https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/visit/cafe-in-the-crypt/ (accessed April 4, 2020). 5. In spite of a spontaneous reaction of uneasiness, Practical Theology started to accept this new challenge in the 1970s under the title ‘Auswahlchristenpastoral’. Cf. Paul M. Zulehner, Religion nach Wahl: Grundlegung einer Auswahlchristenpastoral (Vienna and Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1974). 168 WALTER LESCH the Bible as God’s last word, fully agreeing with a moral doctrine that does not respect responsible choices, hiding my doubts concerning the core of Christian faith and giving unconditional support to an institu- tion which has shown that it tramples on fundamental human rights. Yes, this could indeed be one step away from the final exit option because life is too short to spend it with toxic religious truth claims and the damaging clerical authoritarianism. But for the time being, I feel at home in the sometimes windy cafeteria area where I can take the food I like and I never again have to eat what bad cooks put on the table. The customers of cafeterias are travellers, curious people searching for the company of colleagues and strangers, not interested in spending too much time every day with sophisticated meals. These can be reserved for special occasions in good restaurants and for creative cooking ses- sions at home. As time goes by, the angry people who denounce others because of irresponsible cherry picking have not necessarily become an insignificant minority. They are still there, preaching their radical messages in various denominations and violently attacking the secular world for its lack of respect of coherent religious worldviews. The gap between these one hundred percent Christians and their less convinced counterparts is getting deeper and emphasizes the cultural crisis of a tradition which no longer dominates the central stage of a secularized society. Cafeteria religion can be seen as a symptom of the forceful tendencies of disintegra- tion, pluralisation, individualisation and free choice. That is why the metaphor ‘cafeteria style’ is so thought-provoking and should not be too quickly wiped away as just another postmodern game. You will no longer doubt that I honestly like cafeterias, not always and everywhere, but in many cases. They are part of a lifestyle and not a new religion. They can be loud and chaotic places where things are done in a fast and efficient way and where I can bypass questions I do not want to cope with every day. As a vegetarian, I involuntarily trigger questions in a still predominantly carnivore culture. I am so tired of explaining again and again that I do not expect anyone to justify the preference for red meat or liver or kidneys. I don’t want to teach a lesson but simply be respected with my own judgements of taste and a healthy diet. Cafeterias are not first of all places of argumentation and confron- tation; they are places of tolerance and of avoidance. In the same way I try to avoid colleagues who are so obsessed with their personal beliefs that they would like to talk about the trinity, the eucharist, or about sacramentality and spirituality all day long. Let them be happy with their followers at their table in the university restaurant. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 169

In spite of my sympathy for cafeterias, I am well aware of their more problematic sides. They are of course places which should guaran- tee a smooth flow of customers and bring them back to work as soon as possible. They are good for a short break and for informal discussions, not places where you want to rest and enjoy good food and good drinks. The comparison between religious choices and the cafeteria style must draw our attention to the problems of a commodification of religion and of the pitfalls of a consumer mentality in religious matters.6 We cannot deny facing the reality of a giant marketplace of beliefs, products and proposals.7 This is part of the context that can and should be seen criti- cally when we use the figure of cafeteria religion.

3. The Metaphor of Food in the Context of Religion

Before we move on to analyzing the structural and theoretical aspects of pluralism and religion, I would just like to spend a moment thinking about the food dimension in the reality part of the cafeteria metaphor. It is not just the arrangement of a diversity of items at the counter, but the choice of the food made available by those who run the shop. The selection largely depends on the specific profile of the cafeteria and in some cases on religious rules which have to be respected. Food matters a lot in religious communities.8 It brings people together, serves as a marker of identity and thus divides a group according to differentiated membership rules. Dietary laws determine what has to be considered for example as kosher or halal and introduces other criteria for more or less complex understandings of what the composi- tion of dishes has to do with religious life. The history of these rules offers a fascinating and occasionally disturbing mechanism of inclusion and exclusion and of blending material and spiritual aspects of the

6. Cf. Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practices in a Consumer Culture (New York and London: Continuum, 2007). In March 2006, the Research Group ‘Theology in a Postmodern Context’ organized a conference on this book at KU Leuven. The texts of the symposium have been published in Consuming Religion in Europe? Christian Faith Challenged by Consumer Culture, ed. Lieven Boeve and Kristien Justaert, Special Issue of Bulletin ET (European Society for Catholic Theol- ogy) 17/1 (2006). 7. Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, Götter global: Wie die Welt zum Supermarkt der Religionen wird (Munich: Beck, 2014); Mark C. Taylor, About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999). 8. Cf. Jonathan Schorsch, The Food Movement, Culture and Religion: A Tale of Pigs, Christians, Jews and Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2018). 170 WALTER LESCH anthropology of food. There are plenty of examples for field studies giving an exact description of the religious impact on the culture of eating and praying.9 Whereas the separating aspects of group-specific diets seemed to disappear in the secular age, they are back massively under post-secular conditions and have a high potential of conflicts around the availability of the appropriate food. If we do not want to impose the strict rules on those who are not at all convinced of the sense of the restrictions, the cafeteria style can offer a pragmatic solution. Various items produced according to certified standards can coexist on the shelves and counters of a self-service restaurant where believers from all religions are welcome. Food and common meals are omnipresent in theology and religious studies: as anthropologically relevant aspects of human life and as ways of structuring the relationships between insiders and outsiders. In the ‘soul kitchen’ of religious communities food becomes a vehicle of shared experiences and of salvation or condemnation. For the sceptical observer this may not really count as an argument. But societies dealing with pluralism have learned to respect these particular cultures as legitimate expressions of religious freedom. If the consumer’s problem can be solved by the means of self-service, the producer has to invest in the supply of kitchens and chains of distribution leading to the presentation on the counters.10 As an ethicist, I am tempted to enter into a normative analysis of the economics of religion.11 But this has to wait for another lecture about restaurant arrangements and the new professional qualities of cooks and other staff members. So let’s get back to the cafeteria metaphor. Even if religion cannot be reduced to its dietary norms, these are relevant for the organization of a peaceful coexistence. At a deeper level it remains hard to understand why the choice or the avoidance of this or that product is the best way to serve the divinity and to lead a good

9. Cf. the articles in Food and Religion, ed. Florence Bergeaud-Backler and Anne- Marie Brisebarre, Special Issue of Anthropology of Food: Revue interdisciplinaire des phé- nomènes alimentaires 5 (2006). Online: http://journals.openedition.org/aof/31 (accessed April 4, 2020). 10. Cf. John Lever and Johan Fischer, Religion, Regulation, Consumption: Globalis- ing Kosher and Halal Markets (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018); John Lever and Johan Fischer, Kosher and Halal Business Compliance (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). 11. The more traditional approach from the perspective of moral theology could be inspired by the virtues of an adequate nutrition. Thomas Aquinas made his contribution in the reflections on the vice of gluttony (Summa Theologiae, Secunda Secundae Partis, Quaestio 148). This is not completely irrelevant today, but nevertheless rather far away from contemporary reality. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 171 life. From the point of view of a neutral observer those practices are as irrational as the theological affirmations accompanying them. One might wonder if religion itself is simply a matter of taste? Then it would be as subjective as the nutrition rules which depend on archaic traditions. The Latin word for wisdom is ‘sapientia’ which also means intelligence, good sense and good taste. Theologians insisting on the truth claims of a religious tradition are often horrified when they are told that their claims should be assimilated to judgements about taste. Cafeteria religion can be interpreted as an opportunity to dedramatize the clash of different food cultures. In spite of the impossibility of getting everybody around one table, cafeterias play their constructive role in a glo- balized world taking into account culture-specific demands in an efficient style. They combine the opportunity of individual choice with the recogni- tion of collective rights. This difficult equilibrium is exactly what is at stake in our individualized and multicultural societies where the contradictions between individual and structural perspectives have to be negotiated.

4. A Systematic Overview of Theological Reactions to Cafeteria Religion

After our visit to the gastronomic business and its responsiveness to religion, we can now have a closer look at the interpretation of the diversified religious landscape. Systematic theology has the noble task of structuring complicated questions and conflicting claims. I am in the comfortable position of being inspired by a stimulating article on cafeteria religion by the Protestant theologian Ingolf Dalferth who has a very international background. His career started at the University of Tübin- gen. Now a professor emeritus at the University of Zurich, he is still active as a professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California. When he moved from Frankfurt to Zurich in 1995, his programmatic inaugural lecture was on theology in the age of cafeteria religion.12 Dalferth’s view is critical and without any conces- sions to fashionable talk about individual choices that make religion completely arbitrary. The strength of his article is the careful and well informed reconstruction of the conditions of religion at the end of the

12. Inaugural lecture at the University of Zurich. English version: “‘i determine what god is!’ Theology in the Age of ‘Cafeteria Religion’,” Theology Today 57, no. 1 (2000): 5-23. Online: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F004057360005700102. The original text: “‘Was Gott ist, bestimme ich!’ Theologie im Zeitalter der ‘Cafeteria-Religion’,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 121, no. 5 (1996): 415-430. 172 WALTER LESCH

20th century. According to him, religion “has not lost its fascination, but the church has lost its power of attraction.”13 The quest for strong values and experiences, for spirituality and the meaning of life is still a crucial aspiration. But it is more and more dissociated from religious authorities and regular participation in established worship and rituals. The new slogan is “I determine what God is!” without needing official guidance and confirmation. Dalferth is suspicious of that self-assured attitude which should not be mixed up with the valuable freedom of conscience. Of course no one should be compelled to do or to believe if she or he finds it intellectually and morally inacceptable. Unless we think that a qualitative leap is necessary to enter the religious sphere, rational communication about personal beliefs must be possible. Otherwise, it would be the end of theology as an academic project. Ingolf Dalferth distinguishes three types of contemporary theology: the first one in the line of Enlightenment, the second one under the impression of the communitarian responses to liberal modernists and the third one (Dalferth’s own preference) in a pragmatic shift to the perspective of the participants of religious practice and their obligation to public accountability. The Enlightenment perspective is still the most important reference as a point of departure, also for the alternative paradigms. With the authority of reason, and reason alone, religion begins to be pushed into the sphere of private convictions which cannot be justified according to public, neutral and rational standards. That’s how religious people can believe whatever they find attractive. But they have to pay a price: they stay limited to their private playing ground. “Because if religion is essentially particular, positive, and private, while rationality is just as essentially universal, neutral, and public, then how can religious convictions ever be rationally justified and publicly accounted for.”14 As a matter of taste, religion is an object of conversation; we can have a dispute about it, but without arriving at a consensus with clear normative implications. Among the most influential reactions to this liberal defeat of religious reason, Dalferth mentions the communitarian response of the Yale School where religion is seen as a specific culture or a specific language which we can only understand by getting thick descriptions of this comprehensive system. “Christians, it is said, speak their own language and follow their own rules of morality and truth, which depend on the conceptual framework of their biblical perspective of reality. Thus they live in their own world, which is fundamentally different from the worlds of other religions

13. Dalferth, “‘i determine’,” 5. 14. Ibid., 10. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 173 and the world of secular culture that surrounds them.”15 Such a “postmodern tribalizing of faith”16 is no less problematic than the individualistic self-assertion. The slogan “I determine what God is” simply becomes “We determine what God is” with dramatic consequences for the relations between the different tribes of believers. Those who are strong enough to impose their ideas on others may celebrate their victory. That’s how it worked in the longest part of Christian history until now. If believers are really convinced of their arguments, there is no reason to be afraid of serious talks with all those with whom they share a common world outside the inner sphere of religious practice and intimate beliefs. The creed “God determines what we are” calls for a rational demonstration of what this assumption means theoretically and practically in the perspective of participants. “Because they confess that they live out of the perception of God’s effective presence, Christians are obliged to resist the contemporary tendencies toward the privatization of faith, subjectivist mysticism, and the dissolution of religion into psycho- technical media of self-discovery.”17 For all these reasons, Dalferth strictly refutes the shallowness of cafeteria religion. He is interested in the broader picture of religion’s relevance for modern and postmodern societies and offers his plea for theology’s presence in a university context. I fully agree with Dalferth as far as he argues against the communitarian isolation and against the repression of religious statements as purely private and irrational. I am less sure whether we must have the theological ambition to make explicit the full range of all the elements that belong traditionally to a religious world view. That is where the definition of priorities and the selection of relevant aspects begins. We can honestly admit that no theologian can pretend to have an encyclopedic overview. In spite of his reservation about a pick and choose mentality, Dalferth of course agrees that there can be no coercion in a truly respected religious field. This valuable insight of the Enlightenment philosophy has lost nothing of its urgency and its force as a regulative idea. What we are looking for is a revival of Enlightenment without its blind spots and its categorical certainties of neutrality which had to be fought for in the context of a politically and ideologically oppressive state. If we are no longer obliged to be loyal to one specific religious tradition and if we can also freely choose to have no religion at all, the case of a publicly respectable religion and its theological presup- positions has lost its self-evident certainty and is called to justify its claims.

15. Dalferth, “‘i determine’,” 12. 16. Ibid., 13. 17. Ibid., 22-23. 174 WALTER LESCH

The admittedly vague diagnosis of cafeteria religion tries to point out that we live in a culture of pluralism and soft personal commitments. Choices have to be made. But how exactly? What does it mean to prefer one religion to another if we are rarely confronted to such an existential choice? What does it mean to make rational choices within the rich and diversified offer of one religion? Theology cannot answer these questions without being interested in the way sociologists of religions address the same topic. I have chosen two famous authors who represent different moments of the debates on secularization and religious pluralization: Peter L. Berger and Hans Joas. Berger’s view on plurality is quite close to the challenging discoveries of diversity in the 1970s. Joas develops his ideas almost four decades later and can already take into account some new ways of thinking about the (post)secular age. Chronologically speaking, Dalferth’s theological contribution is situated halfway between the two positions I now present.

5. The Inevitability of the Heretical Imperative

Peter L. Berger, the Austrian-born American sociologist, was already a famous author, particularly known for his work on the sociology of knowledge and on social constructionism and the revival of the interest for the sacred, when he published an essay in 1979 with the provocative title The Heretical Imperative.18 This book represents the mindset of the seventies with the discovery of religious pluralism and the growing fascination for Eastern religions and spiritualities. The main thesis is that modern societies generalize the tendency to heresy in the sense that religious membership is no longer a question of inescapable destiny, but of free choice and responsibility. Whereas traditional cultures condemned dissidents as dangerous heretics, heresy is nowadays the normal situation of making choices when authorities can no more enforce the strict obe- dience of all rules. Berger has a Protestant background, but is also informed about the transformations of post-conciliar Catholicism. This approach to religious phenomena reminds us of the diagnosis formulated with the help of the cafeteria image. Believers born and raised in a mono-religious environment can feel free to choose and to combine, to reject and to invent. They can say: Let’s be heretics. That’s what we are anyway. Berger plays with the etymology of the Greek word ‘hairesis’ (αἵρεσις) which appears in the New Testament and means

18. Peter Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (New York: Doubleday and Anchor Press, 1979). WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 175

‘choice’.19 Later it progressively becomes the technical term for what is considered a mistaken choice or error from the perspective of the religious authority and a reason for hostility and persecution. Modern heretics lead a less dangerous life than their ancient predecessors and are sometimes even admired as non-conformists and creative minds. Berger states that such a positive reassessment of heresy must put into question the conventional structure of a coherent interpretation of belief systems. He portrays possible reactions in a typology with three different options: the deductive, the reductive and the inductive way. The deduc- tion from the dogmas of a given faith is comparable to the communitarian neo-orthodoxy in Dalferth’s typology. In such an approach the religious community reaffirms its own fundamental beliefs and tends to deplore the secular world as a story of decay and destructiveness. The reductive model functions in the opposite way because it recognizes the cultural superiority of modern reason and reinterprets obsolete parts of the old worldview in the light of scientific and societal revolutions. Dalferth’s presentation of Enlightenment and its impact on modern (liberal) theology proceeds in a similar way. Liberal elements can also be found in Berger’s third option: the inductive way based on experience. It is the most obvious manifesta- tion of the heretical imperative and its transforming power that definitely liberates the individuals from authoritarianism and paternalism. Berger sees the increasing importance of being in touch with new religious visions bringing new scenarios of cross-over worldviews and syncretism, but also new rivalries and conflicts between religions.20

6. The Liberating Power of Faith as an Option

Our last dialogue partner among the theorists of religious plurality is the sociologist and social philosopher Hans Joas who has built a lot of bridges between disciplines and academic cultures. As a traveller between German and American universities he is a competent observer of the different views on secularization in Europe and North America. Several

19. Cf. Heinrich Schlier, “Haíresis,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, abridged in one volume by Geoffrey W. Bro- miley (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), 28. 20. A more recent sociological approach of the same question can be found in Ulrich Beck, A God of One’s Own: Religion’s Capacity for Peace and Potential for Violence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010); German original: Der eigene Gott: Von der Friedens- fähigkeit und dem Gewaltpotential der Religionen (Frankfurt a. M. and Leipzig: Verlag der Weltreligionen im Insel Verlag, 2008). 176 WALTER LESCH of his articles from the first decade of the 21st century can be found in his book Faith as an Option,21 where he argues for the future of Chris- tianity not in spite of secularization but with the potentials of a demo- cratic and tolerant secular world. If faith has become optional, this does not mean that it is necessarily weak and irrelevant. On the contrary, it is set free to be an integral part of authentic individuals who can shoul- der responsibilities together with fellow citizens of good will sharing common ideas of dignity, justice and solidarity.22 Joas is not primarily concerned by the selective character of the option for a religious belief and its practical outcomes. It is first of all a fundamental option to be rooted in a rich tradition. Reading religious membership as an option, does not minimize its importance. Quite the contrary: it underlines the ethical dimension of a reflexive and critical acquisition of the words and the grammar of a religious worldview. That is exactly where theology and religious studies come into the picture we can now see through the wide-angle lens. It is trivial to say that we have to make choices because we must simply surrender before the endless possibilities of scenarios so that we pick an option by chance. It is less trivial to find out in how far the religious choice is not arbitrary when we understand how it is framed by a coherent justification of personal commitment open to rational discussion. This implies of course much more than the choice of food in a cafeteria style restaurant.

7. New Configurations of Religious Studies

When we look back on the various ways of coping with diversity, we can identify several perspectives for the future of theology and religious studies in the years to come. My concluding remarks are nothing more than a rough sketch of a roadmap that needs further debate. They just want to go beyond the limited scope of the cafeteria metaphor which was

21. Hans Joas, Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). Translated from the German original: Glaube als Option: Zukunftsmöglichkeiten des Christentums (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2012). 22. This position is close to Charles Taylor’s typology of three different interpre- tations of secularity: (1) the creation of secularized public spaces and the complete dis- placement of religion into the private sphere, (2) the crisis and decline of belief and its practical expressions, (3) the experience of transcendence becoming an option among others. Cf. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 15. It is Taylor’s project to focus on the third model of secularity and to examine the optional commitments to religious beliefs by making their conditions explicit and their authentic experiential dimension plausible. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 177 more a starting point than a programmatic label. Real life happens outside of canteens and is confronted with more complex situations of choice than the selection of a salad or a coffee. However, the comparison remains helpful as far as the selectivity of individual belief and practice is concerned. This does not mean that the institutional dimension of religious life should be totally neglected. (a) Theology as a study program is less attractive than in former gen- erations. This can be explained by changing expectations of the public, but also by a lack of flexibility and imagination of theologians and other experts of religion. We have to rethink the items put on the shelves and cannot be sure which of them will be chosen by future students and researchers. The ambitious idea of a complete exhibition of all ages and all expressions of religious belief systems seems to be obsolete when they can be reconstructed ad hoc for the specific needs of a research agenda relying on a thick description of the historical and philological foundations. The presentation of integral systems cannot resolve the challenge of the personal appro- priation and the test of justifiable options. (b) The professional study of theology and religion has adopted a self- reflexive attitude which helps it to cope with its inner plurality where different styles can find a legitimate place.23 The sympathy for plurality is more than a luxury option for an urban, intellectual and cosmo- politan lifestyle experience. It is a condition of peaceful coexistence and new discoveries in a field with manifold interconnections and tensions. (c) Religion is about freedom. Its purpose is not to combat free people but to empower them. The story of religion and liberalism has not come to an end by the hypothesis of privatization. The sweeping judgement on the failure of liberalism24 as a thin worldview showing a lack of compassion and solidarity minimizes the potential of the connecting lines between liberalism and religion which are still on the research agenda of political philosophy and should also be of some interest for experts of theology and religious studies.25 (d) Freedom of choice is not arbitrary. The paradigm shift from destiny to choice must not forget all that precedes us when we think to make

23. Cf. Christoph Theobald, Le christianisme comme style: Une manière de faire de la théologie en postmodernité, 2 volumes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2007). 24. Cf. Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2018). 25. Cf. Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (Cambridge, MA and London: Har- vard University Press, 2017). 178 WALTER LESCH

autonomous choices. Human agency is always contextualized26 and needs to be thought of in a self-critical way.27 Most people never have to make a deliberate choice of belonging to a particular religion. We grow up in a tradition, learn to appreciate it or to struggle with it, confirm or terminate our membership or simply remain nominal members without agreeing with every single idea and rule. Only con- verts are more likely to identify with more than the core values. (e) The interest in plurality and coherence is situated in the larger picture of our mindset which focusses on the fundamental questions or on the tiny details that should not be neglected if we want to understand human nature. Isaiah Berlin beautifully formulated this tension in a famous essay published in 1953: There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog’s one defence. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has signifi- cance – and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle. These last lead lives, perform acts and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal; their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, uni- tary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contra- diction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky,

26. Cf. Charles Taylor, “What Is Human Agency?,” in id., Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 15-44. 27. Cf. Jean-Pierre Wils, “Wahl und Kontexte: Über die Geschicke religiös motivierter Handlungen im säkularen Zeitalter,” in Unerfüllte Moderne? Neue Perspek- tiven auf das Werk von Charles Taylor, ed. Michael Kühnlein and Matthias Lutz- Bachmann (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2018), 294-323. WHAT (IF ANYTHING) IS WRONG WITH CAFETERIA RELIGION? 179

Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodo- tus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce are foxes.28 The comparison between the fox and the hedgehog has also been passed on by Erasmus (Adagia I, V, 18): “Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum (πόλλ’ οἶδ’ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ’ ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα).”29 Isaiah Berlin considers Erasmus as a typical fox. Aristotle is also labelled as a fox knowing many things. Where would Berlin have put one of Aristotle’s greatest readers: Thomas Aquinas? Most probably among the hedgehogs because of his obsession with religious truth. This case shows that we are more likely to combine features of both animals. I am certainly closer to the fox flirting with the benefits of cafeteria religion. On the other side, I see myself as an ethicist in the good company of typical hedgehogs.30 (f) A convincing combination of the two mindsets can be found in the biblical verse of 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (KJV).31 This is the pragmatic imperative of testing the practical uses and the credibility of abstract doctrines and rules. It is an efficient remedy for sclerotic orthodox mindsets. For all these reasons, the thought experiment of cafeteria religion can be used as a probe for the exploration of a religious landscape characterized by plurality and individualization as the main features of a self-critical secularity open to a balanced view on personal options and societal dynamics.

Walter Lesch is professor of social ethics and moral philosophy at the Université catholique de Louvain with a joint appointment at the Faculty of Theology and at the Institute of Philosophy. His research focusses on political ethics (migration, populism, the European integration), cultural studies (art, media, gender) and on fundamental questions of philosophy of religion, hermeneutics and pragmatism. Selected publications: Übersetzungen: Grenzgänge zwischen

28. Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox, edited by Henry Hardy with a fore- word by Michael Ignatieff (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, second edition, 2013), 1-2. 29. The Adages of Erasmus. Selected by William Barker (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 87-89. 30. Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA and London: Har- vard University Press, 2011). 31. The context is of course less provocative than it may sound to postmodern readers. The demand not to quench the Spirit and to be open to prophecies can also be framed in a fundamentalist way by urging the believers to stick to an unquestionable ultimate commitment. 180 WALTER LESCH philosophischer und theologischer Ethik (Fribourg/CH: Academic Press Fribourg and Freiburg i.Br.: Herder, 2013), Kein Recht auf ein besseres Leben? Christlich- ethische Orientierung in der Flüchtlingspolitik (Freiburg i.Br.: Herder, 2016), editor of Christentum und Populismus (Freiburg i.Br.: Herder, 2017), co-editor of Le nouvel esprit du management (Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2018) and of Globales Gemeinwohl: Sozialwissenschaftliche und sozial ethische Analysen (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2020). Address: UCLouvain, Faculté de théologie, Grand-Place 45, bte L3.01.01, BE-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected].