Being as Tradition (original) (raw)

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.

Religious Globalisms in the Post Secular Age

This article explores the interconnections between mounting global crises and the emergence of the post-secular. Specifically, the article argues that the post-secular is both a description of and a response to shifting global realities in the twenty-first century. It describes the crisis of secular rationalism, brought about in many ways by an overemphasis on economic rationalism and neoliberalism ). Yet, as noted by Jürgen , Mariano Barbato , and Justin Beaumont and Paul Cloke (2012), the post-secular offers a way of resisting, reforming, and potentially revolutionizing these dominant secular, rationalist, neoliberal frameworks that presently shape global politics and society. We suggest, however, that the influence of globalization has been undertheorized in these previous studies. In particular we argue that the intersection between the post-secular and emerging global political ideologies of market and justice globalisms is having a profound impact on religious movements, generating 'religious globalisms' that offer alternative responses to global crises around finance, poverty, and climate.

Religion in the 21st Century Debating the Post-Secular Turn

For a long time there seemed to be a broad consensus in Western democracies - at least among political theorists and legal scholars - concerning the place of religion in the public sphere and the separation of church and state. However, since the end of the last century, religion has again become a highly contentious issue. With the arrival of sizable groups of immigrants for whom religion remains an integral part of their identity - not only Muslims, but also evangelical Christians - religion is back in the public square of many modern Western democracies (a place, arguably, it never really disappeared from in the United States). This reassertion of religion, Stanley Fish observed in 2005, has ‘re-alerted us to the fact […] that hundreds of millions of people in the world do not observe the distinction between the private and the public, or between belief and knowledge, and that it is no longer possible for us to regard such persons as quaintly pre-modern or as needy recipients of ...