Orientalism originated as a Christian politico-theological project, not merely imperial ideology

Evidence

Orientalist representations of the Jews have always been at the very center of orientalist discourse (which we believe to be based historically in the Christian West’s attempts to understand and to manage its relations with both of its monotheistic Others). Strangely, perhaps one benefit of studying the Jews as a topic in orientalism may be discovering how much orientalism has been not only a modern Western or imperialist discourse, but also a “politico-theological,” Christian one. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 69

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the secular/imperial reading of Said’s Orientalism by grounding it in Christian theology - fits with broader revisionist scholarship on the religious roots of modern concepts. — connects to: Religious-nationalist antagonism originated in Western imperial heartlands, not just its colonies. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2311
• QUESTION: How exactly did the Christian theological management of two monotheistic Others translate into imperial-era orientalism? Worth tracing the mechanism.