In his Political and Social Essays, Paul Ricoeur addresses forthrightly the situation of the religious believer in the modern world, especially in modern secular society. Quoting from scripture (Matthew 5, 13), he insists that believers are meant to be "the salt of the earth"—a phrase militating against both world domination and world denial, that is, against the dual temptation of either controlling or rejecting worldly society As he writes poignantly, "the salt is made for salting, the light for illuminating," and religion exists "for the sake of those outside itself," that is, for the world that faith inhabits. In Ricoeur's view, religion—including (especially) Christianity—has been for too long enamored or in collusion with political power and domination, a collusion that some recent theologians have aptly labeled "Christendom" and that has exerted a "demoralizing effect" on believers and non-believers alike, driving them to "cynicism, amoralism, and despair." However, the situation is perhaps not entirely bleak. When it emerges from this collusion, he adds, religion "will be able to give light once more to all men—no longer as a power, but as a prophetic message," that is, as a light that illuminates but does not blind. In a similar vein, Emmanuel Levinas has defined the role of Judaism or Judaic faith "in the time of the nations," namely, as a non-domineering voice of conscience that remembers and faithfully reiterates the call to justice.¹