Christianisme et discours global sur la modernité Colloque international (24 et 25 Avril 2025, Institut Catholique de Paris)

In face of contemporary globalization processes, Western civilization (in its dual aspect of modern science and democracy) has increasingly become an ambivalent object of reflection. Positive, critical, and/or culturalist evaluations of this civilization are now an integral part of post- and de-colonial theories themselves, which reveal the need for an intercultural discussion on the multiple configurations of modernity. The theoretical challenge that arises here consists in the possibility of legitimizing a rational community between different modern civilizations, one that rescues the spheres of science, politics, and economics from both identity particularisms and abstract universalism. As a central aspect of Western modernity, Christianity is also called upon as a phenomenon that exemplifies the current transformations in the relationship between civilizations. In being originally a contamination between two cultures (Jewish and Greco-Roman), the history of Christianity can be seen both as a dialectical process in which the West deconstructs itself by opening up to ever further configurations of its tradition and as an epistemic injustice that imposes the absoluteness of certain categories of the divine, man, and the world on other cultures. This point has been amplified by recent investigations into the key role played by the Renaissance and the Jesuit missions in shaping the concept of modernity. As a result, Christianity needs to be reinterrogated as an agent of the sometimes ambivalent processes of globalization (J. Casanova), de-limitation (H. Schelkschorn) and de-coincidence (F. Jullien). This international colloquium aims to understand whether and how Christian thinkers or notions have contributed, and still contribute, to a global discourse about modernity based on the mutual dialogue between Western and non-Western philosophical-religious traditions. Intended as an interdisciplinary reflection between philosophy, theology, political science and anthropology, this scientific event marks a first significant cooperation initiative between German-speaking and French-speaking intercultural research centers.