Nation und Identität

The renaissance of the nation and the current increased need for individual and social identity are two closely connected topics which require discussion in a theological debate as well, since they show the necessity of rethinking the connection between theology and the political. With the help of postmodern theories (Lyotard, Deleuze, Anderson, Taylor), Andreas Holzbauer reconstructs the political essence of the theories of Hirsch, Gogarten and Elert as a concurrence of the creation of national and individual identity. He shows that their aim of legitimizing the totality of the political can only be reached by using imaginary terms. These can be used to describe the imaginative constitution of the nation which refers to the totality and the ambivalence of the imaginary, which also needs to be discussed in regard to its theological relevance.