The Concept of the Post-Secular and the Contemporary Nexus of Religion, Media, Popular Culture, and Consumer Culture (original) (raw)
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Sociology of Religion, Secularization and Social Theory
observe that secularization theory, and more recently empirical and conceptual debates about its birth, death and possible resurrection have been at the heart of theorizing and debates within the sociology of religion. Much of this debate revolves around two key issues. First, there is contention as to whether secularization can be an appropriate social-theoretical concept if it is accepted that it is inevitably contaminated by the normative investments surrounding its invention. Secondly, on a more prosaic but not unrelated level, it is argued that in any case secularization fails as theory due to a putative return or resurgence of the religious in postmodernity. This paper seeks to argue that secularization and its other, desecularization, are themselves embedded in and inescapably marked by theological metaphors of teleology. This is because of the stakes involved in the emergence of differentiation in modernity (driven initially by a normative secularization between the political and the theological). This tale of origins cannot escape the simultaneous invention of the polar concepts of the religious and the secular in early modernity. What this paper seeks to do is review aspects of the genealogy of secularization paying particular attention to the theological ghosts which continue to haunt sociology's emancipatory self conception as a scientific discipline. The paper will then review some of the arguments against the secularization thesis in light of these themes. The aim of this argument is to suggest that social theorists of religion can still employ secularization as a normative analyticwhen understood reflexively and as itself a social construction -in order to measure aspects of the specificity of the imbrication of the religious with the cultural and political at the turn of the new millennium. The argument will be grounded and illustrated with brief reference to empirical studies of Wicca (Bahnisch 2001) and religion as a cultural resource for political mobilization in both the culture wars of the American 1990s and recent conflicts represented as a "clash of civilizations" between the West (coded as Christian) and its Islamic other (Bahnisch 2003a).
FUTURE OF RELIGION IN THE POSTMODERN SECULAR CONTEXT
The International Scientific Conference Communication, Context, Interdisciplinarity, 2014
Secularization and the future of religion are current topics of interest not only for the philosophy of religion and for Christian theology, but also for other areas of culture and contemporary society. Postmodern thinking has changed the nature of society and how religion is viewed and practiced. What has changed in the perception of religion in today's society, and how will the religious phenomenon look in this century? Gianni Vattimo, René Girard, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor are thinkers who debate on the return of religion in public discourse and in the academic space. In this context, Gianni Vattimo speaks about secularization as a destiny of Christianity. He sees secularization as a form of expression of Christianity, and not any form, but the best expression. Secularization does not have to be seen as a negative phenomenon, but a positive one to helpChristianity to fulfill its purpose.
Post-secular sociology: modes, possibilities and challenges
Approaching Religion, 2013
It is by now well known that the modern category of religion has evolved as part of a certain trajectory of Western history. Among its many aspects, this trajectory is about how religion became part of a definitive relationship with the category of the secular – a relationship that implies an understanding of religion as something distinct – and ideally # – from other categories such as science, politics, and law. The place of the category of religion as part of this semantic as well as institutional landscape of separations makes it relevant to probe the possible consequences for sociology, if we are, as some scholars have argued, living in contexts which are increasingly post-secular. What happens, then, to the object – as well as the self-identity – of the study of religion? This article discusses some of the possible epistemological shifts inherent in the idea of a movement from secular to post-secular and it will reflect upon the possible avenues they open up for the sociologic...
I discuss the concepts of "seculariization" and its critique, starting with Brian W. WILSON and ending with David MARTIN and Joerg STOLZ. I present an overview on the most relevant contribution on this issue, including also Peter L. BERGER, Thomas LUCKMANN, Hubert KNOBLAUCH, Steve BRUCE, Pippa NORRIS/Ronald INGLEHART, Detlef POLLACK, Gert PICKEL, Rodney STARK, Karl GABRIEL, Monika WOHLRAB-SAHR, Marian BORCHARDT, José CASANOVA and Karel DOBBELAERE. I show the arguments and (some) empirical findings in favour and against secularization and conclude in the end, that secularization has to be taken serious, but has at the same time to be supplemented and transcended in order to adequately understand the present religious landscape and its processes and to correctly theorize about them.
Transforming the study of religious situations: The view of post-secular society theories
Acta Theologica, 2021
This article considers the methodology of post-secular society theories for application to research on religion. Several issues of present sociological methodology are associated with the secular discourse that divides society into subsystems and represents religion as one of them. Such an approach does not consider the role of noninstitutional forms of religion, religious ideas, and moods of individuals in forming the religious situation. The discourse emerging from theories of the post-secular society, which recognise the transformation of the place of religion in the public sphere at the beginning of the 21 st century, views the contradictory unity of religious and secular moments in any social phenomenon. This transforms the established scientific approach to the study of religion with concepts of post-secular society theories. This article defines the principal characteristics of the post-secular model of religious situations compared to the principles of the secular model. This article was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), under grant number 20-011-00400.
The Debate on Secularization and Religion. What Is Left?
There is a common view in the field of sociology, particularly, and social sciences, in general, that the world, as we know it, is a secular world and the role of religion in the public space is therefore minimal. This view has been challenged by a few sociologists of religion that pretended to see in the appearance of new religiosities and spiritualities, in the late 1970s and 1980s, a reawakening of the reality of the sacred and belief, now bound for the personal sphere and aside from the institutional functioning of churches and main denominations. Some of them have even talked about the privatization of religion and the disenchantment of the world, exhibiting mixed feelings of revivalism and nostalgia. They consider the thesis of secularization elaborated by important figures of sociology, like Max Weber, Durkheim and Marx, historically rooted and discredited by recent events in America and Great Britain and by the evolution of former atheist societies such as Russia and Eastern Europe. Modern sociologists of religion that subscribe to the thesis of secularization of the world, like Bryan Wilson, Steve Bruce and Charles Taylor, reformulated their initial outline of the model. These changes have not convinced those who shield themselves in the essentiality of religion in human society. The debate has somehow become frozen, in the two camps, around previous arguments. This essay looks to portray the evolution of the secularization thesis, taking in consideration other contributions beyond those originated in the English-speaking world. The Secularization Paradigm It was common, during the 1970s, to state that the Western world was more and more secularized and that only a few people recognized themselves as religious and pious.