This essay begins and ends with the question: what is the meaning and purpose of religious thought today? In response to this query, the paper outlines the critical significance of the socio-cultural fragmentation of contemporary religious thought by: first, reclaiming an ethical moment within the critical theory of Max Horkheimer; second, justifying the significance of that moment by expanding our understanding of morality as explained by Charles Taylor; and third, cultivating its religio-ethical content in relation to Emmanuel Levinas' understanding of God as an ethical force that interrupts, subverts and throws into question. It is this juxtaposition of themes that points toward a critical theory necessarily informed by religious insights. What it represents is an untried form of critical theory whose religio-ethical cast and substance contributes to the venture of contemporary thinking by working with the fragility of religious thought today.
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