The Telos Press Podcast: Jon Simons on Walter Benjamin, Rabbis for Human Rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Jon Simons about his article “Divine Violence, Profane Peace: Walter Benjamin, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Peace in Israel–Palestine,” from Telos 192 (Fall 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 192 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

Continue reading →

Negative Theology, Power, and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Aryeh Botwinick’s “Negative Theology, Power, and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict” appears in Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power. Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.

From a Machiavellian perspective, peace is war by other means. You can have a much greater watchful vigilance of your former (or future) opponent in times of peace than in a time of war. Israel as a sponsor (or co-sponsor) of a kind of Middle East Marshall Plan: Rebuilding your enemy so that he becomes your ally and friend. Enemies must learn to use each other’s weapons. The weakness of the Palestinians has to be matched by the deliberate, self-consciously generated weakness of the Israelis in the form of benevolence and generosity in order for both sides to emerge as triumphant. If this approach is pursued, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict harbors the prospect of turning into a sum-sum conflict, where both sides stand equally to gain by pursuing peace.

Continue reading →

The Catholic Church and the Challenges of the Modern World

The following paper was presented at the Seventh Annual Telos Conference, held on February 15–17, 2013, in New York City. Bishop Giovanni D’Ercole is Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of L’Aquila, Italy.

In the paper I am presenting, I shall focus on how I think the Catholic Church can contribute to solving the crucial issues facing humankind today. I will do so by referring to two events that have marked the evolution of the Church in her dialogue with the modern world, namely, the publication of the encyclical Pacem In Terris, and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. We are currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of both events.

A quick overview of the globalized world reveals the many contradictions and forms of injustice plaguing it. Underlying the crisis that has now taken on a global dimension is a three-fold question that characterizes what has come to be defined as the postmodern era. First of all, there is a fundamental question that is coming up again today, after the fall of totalitarian ideology. This is the anthropological question, a truly crucial question. The second question is related to the first. The social question has now become critical, and has to do with the very nature of man. Finally, the anthropological and the social question inevitably leads to the theological question, for man, by his very nature, is open to the transcendental and cannot be reduced to a creature that merely satisfies its material needs.

Continue reading →