On the track of the fugitive Gods: Heidegger, Luther, Holderlin

At each of the decisive turning points in his philosophical career, Heidegger found inspiration in Holderlin. More recently, commentators have raised questions about the role that his reading of Holderlin played in Heidegger's political actions of the 1930s. It has been suggested that Heidegger's reading of Holderlin is linked with a troubling nationalism, romantic militarism, and cult of the German "fatherland." On this reading, Heidegger's lectures and essays on Holderlin from the 1930s and 1940s testify to his betrayal of his youthful work that had been animated by the more congenial spirits of early Christianity and Kierkegaard. While I by no means wish to deny the troubling aspects of Heidegger's romantic politics, I also want to retrieve another aspect of Heidegger's engagement with Holderlin that has received less attention. In particular, I hope to show in what follows that Heidegger's essays and lectures on Holderlin can be read, in part, as attempts to work out a philosophical theology.