Christianity, Secularism and the Crisis of Europe

What is it about?

In this piece I investigate the way in which the question of European identity has been posed in relation to the apparent crisis of Europe’s engagement with Muslim migrants and the Turkish state. In doing so I make use of the concepts of immunity and autoimmunity as deployed by Derrida, Esposito and others.

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Why is it important?

The question, and the response to the question of what is Europe always refer both to the ever-present (the essential Europe), the particular or contingent (Europe as it is, that which is ‘afoot in Europe’), and demand a conciliation of the two. In the past two decades, the question of Europe has been increasingly raised in relation to the apparent crisis of Europe’s engagement with two immanent Others, in the form of the presence of Muslim migrants in Europe and the attempts by Turkey to gain membership in the European Union. In response to these Others, a dual and seemingly contradictory definition of Europe has emerged, Europe as both secular and Christian. Europe is secular in relation to its Muslim migrants, and Christian in the face of Muslim Turkey. Within this dualistic definition, no contradiction, excess or difference is permitted or acknowledged. Instead, through the deployment of a notion Christianity understood as an historical object or relic, a socio-historical paradigm in which Christianity and the secular form a necessary and symbiotic relationship is invoked. In this piece I address this response to the imminent question of Europe and argue that the dual engagement with the Muslim migrant and the Turkish state exposes the confluence of what are portrayed as competing ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ definitions of Europe and European identity. I will suggest that Europe’s engagement with these immanent Others draws attention to the difference and contradiction at the core of what are presented as unified, essential definitions of Europe. Revealing the autoimmune process at work within these definitions of Europe presents an opportunity to re-evaluate the relationship between Europe, Christianity and the secular, and discloses new possibilities for a Europe to come.