Babylon in the church ???
THIS distinction is so important now because even in the church evil may lurk . . . . .
The question is:
Is the church caught in Babylon or is Babylon in the
church. Such insight comes from a
secular philosopher. Giorgio Agamben developed the idea homo sacer, which
is defined as the sacred man who has the
quality of being murder-able, without consequence to/for the murderer. The
sacred human may thus be understood as someone outside the law, or beyond it.
With respect to certain monarchs, in certain western legal traditions, the
concepts of the sovereign and of the homo sacer have been
conflated (CN).
Giorgio Agamben writes:
Ratzinger emphasies the difference between this thesis and
Augustine’s, who nonetheless has clearly drawn inspiration from it for his idea
of a Church permixta of
good and evil. ‘[In Ticonius] there is not that clear antithesis of Jerusalem
and Babylon, which is so characteristic of Augustine. Jerusalem is at the same
time Babylon, it includes it in itself. Both constitute one sole city, which
has a “right” and a “left” side. Tyconius did not develop, like Augustine, a
doctrine of the two cities, but that of one city with two sides’.
Citing:
Sidecar, a publication of the New Left Review
Constitution of Norway
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