5 Messianic Ethics and Diaspora Communities

Abstract This chapter argues that most forms of political liberalism — including those of theorists such as Jeffrey Stout who are receptive to the consideration of religious reasons and theological ethical contributions in a secular democracy — prohibit serious discussion of the religious cosmologies underlying religious ethical discourse. In particular, it is argued that secular state sovereignty rooted in Hobbesian political theory effectively eliminates all forms of messianic political theology from public consideration. The chapter goes on to argue that a messianic ethics engages secular pluralism critically in a public stance that is neither accommodationist nor separatist, but ‘diasporic’. It acts ethically from a ‘weak Messianic’ power (Benjamin) exercised not through the coercive enforcement of political ideals but in quotidian acts of community service that build up the well-being of the saeculum from below.