International Studies in Philosophy 39.2 BETWEEN PASSION AND POLITICS: KIERKEGAARD, BENJAMIN, AND RELIGIOUS ETHICS 1 Annika Thiem. T he following considerations emerged from my ongoing puz- zlement concerning the vexed relation among religion, politics, and ethics in the current V.S. American context. I would like to frame this inquiry into this vexation by approaching it via the various circulating descriptions of what Ureligious ethics" is about, how it works, who practices it, and what its limits must be with regard to the political sphere. On the one hand, there is the Ureligious ethics" that comes to us through the media as they are reporting about the very vocal and active religious right rallying over issues like opposition to same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. Religious ethics in general then quickly comes to be repre- sented as a narrow-minded, ideological stance that derives norms from religious doctrine. On the other hand, there are the liberal religious voices arguing against the relegation of religion to the private and asking for a role for religion in public discourse as ex- planatory background to make our moral commitments understood. Religious ethics here becomes the mediation between religion and politics that makes religious commitments and the belief- and value- systems they imply con1municable and reasonable. Religious eth- ics understood this way makes religious commitments publicly visible without invoking religious doctrine as argumentative au- thority, but by transforming the sectarian potential into an ex- planatory cultural background to foster liberal democratic prac- tices. Certainly as soon as one actually begins to dig deeper the pic- tu re becomes more complicated, but the general perception seems to be that the relation of religious ethics to politics is a choice be