Rosenzweig’s political theology recasts Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as war-related figures

Evidence

Rather, it constitutes Rosenzweig’s political theology, the theologico-political configuration that links three, rather than two entities commonly referred to as “religions.” This term, “religion,” means of course very little to Rosenzweig, who recasts each “element” (God, world, and man) as privileged in its relation to one of the three “religions.” Judaism is with God, Christianity is man on its way to God, Islam is the war of the world. Judaism is theological, and it therefore experiences war as political. Christianity is the embodiment of the theologico-political, unable to know the difference when it comes to war. Islam, finally, is fully detheologized and can therefore spread nothing but holy war. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 500

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out Rosenzweig’s tripartite schema for how each ‘religion’ relates to God, world, man, and war.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s persistent theme of the enemy figure and to Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption, and to the three-element structure recalling Hegel’s triad.