The post-secular in question: Religion in contemporary society
Abstract
A diverse but very stimulating collection. -- Robert Bellah, author of Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age The Post-Secular in Question considers whether there has in fact been a religious resurgence of global dimensions in recent decades. This collection of original essays by leading academics represents an interdisciplinary intervention in the continuing and ever-transforming discussion of the role of religion and secularism in todays world. Foregrounding the most urgent and compelling questions raised by the place of religion in the social sciences, past and present, The Post-Secular in Question restores religion to a more central place in social scientific thinking about the world, helping to move scholarship beyond unbelief. © 2012 by Social Science Research Council. All rights reserved.
... Vi forstår det post-sekulaere som erkendelsen af, at den klassiske sekulariseringsteori, som haevdede at religion ville forsvinde i takt med oplysning og modernitet vandt frem, ikke er et holdbart grundlag for at forstå religiøsitet i en globaliseret verden (Beaumont et al., 2020;Berger, 2014;Gauthier, 2019). Det kommer til udtryk i en bred samfundsbaseret holdningsaendring i forhold til religioners fortsatte tilstedevaerelse i det offentlige rum, og forsøget på at forhandle denne tilstedevaerelse i multikulturelle og pluralistiske kontekster, herunder også det stigende fokus på åndelig omsorg i det danske sundhedsvaesen og (Berger, 2015;Gorski, 2012;Habermas, 2008;Nissen & Andersen, 2022;Nynäs, 2012). I sundhedsvaesenet kan det post-sekulaere ses i den nu udbredte konsensus blandt politikere, forskere, praktikere og patienter om, at integration af åndelig omsorg på alle niveauer af de sundhedsfaglige indsatser er gavnlig for patienter, og anbefales af såvel forskere og WHO (Jones et al., 2021;Puchalski et al., 2009;World Health, 2014). ...
... Åndelig omsorg fra et post-sekulaert perspektiv Vi supplerer det post-sekulaere, som skitseret ovenfor (Beaumont et al., 2020;Berger, 2015;Gauthier, 2019;Gorski, 2012;Habermas, 2008), med den forståelse, at samfundsstrukturer er blevet sekulariseret på makroniveau (såsom sundhedsvaesenet), men er kulturelt sammenflettede og pluralistiske på individniveau. Ved pluralistisk, og efter Berger (Berger, 2014), henviser vi både til sameksistensen af forskellige religiøse, spirituelle og sekulariserede eksistentielle orienteringer i samfundet, og til hvordan religiøse og spirituelle individer interagerer med sekulaere samfundsdiskurser, såsom økonomi, lov, uddannelse og i dette tilfaelde sundhedsvaesenet. ...
... Det er nødvendigt at bemaerke, at følgende ikke skal betragtes som en endelig vurdering af, hvorvidt et af spørgeskemaerne kan anvendes i en given sammenhaeng. (Gorski, 2012;. Den danske grundlov fastslår f.eks., at den etablerede danske kirke er den evangelisk-lutherske kirke, og støttes som sådan af staten ( §4) (Nissen et al., 2019). ...
Forskning på tværs af sundhedsområder har vist, at eksistentiel og åndelig omsorg kan være til stor gavn for patienter. Det kan imidlertid være en udfordring at indarbejde denne omsorg i daglig praksis, ikke mindst i post-sekulære, multikulturelle og pluralistiske kontekster, som eksempelvis den danske. Formålet med dette integrative review var at lokalisere, evaluere og diskutere spørgeskemaer, som fokuserer på eksistentielle og ESR behov. Elleve spørgeskemaer blev inkluderet, evalueret og diskuteret, med fokus på religiøst/spirituelt/eksistentielt ordvalg og formuleringer, lokale kulturelle og pluralistiske kontekster, og i forhold til anvendelighed i et sekulært sundhedsvæsen. Artiklen fokuserer på faktorer, der bør adresseres ved implementeringen af spørgeskemaer om eksistentielle og ESR behov i forskellige kulturelle og sproglige kontekster. Derved bidrager den til den internationale udvikling, udveksling og implementering af viden og erfaringer om bedste praksis indenfor eksistentiel og åndelig omsorg i post-sekulære kontekster.
... At this point, a rich literature on cultural globalization theory exists (e.g., Pieterse 2015;Pieterse 1996;Pieterse 1994; see also Harvey 2007). There is also a plethora of crucial works on the nexus between globalization and political-economic policies (e.g., Rodrik 2011), as well as globalization, religion, and secularization (e.g., Casanova 2007;Gorski et al. 2012;Norris and Inglehart 2012;Berger 1999;Riesebrodt 2010). Even cognitive abilities have been analyzed on a global scale (e.g., Flynn 2012; Rindermann 2018). ...
... Further, the thesis does, ad hoc, explain other complex or seemingly contradictory patterns such as increasing numbers of Christians and Muslims by for instance increased birth rates in poor Christian and Muslim countries (Norris and Inglehart 2012), while others are skeptical about the theory's general validity (e.g., Stark 1999;Berger 1999;Riesebrodt 2010; see also Heelas 1996). Berger (1999) and Stark (1999) Yet others have emphasized the necessity of a more multifaceted theoretical framework that accounts for the historical records and complex empirical realities around the world in relation to religious resurgence and secularization (Gorski and Ates 2008;Gorski et al. 2012). For instance, Gorski et al. (2012, pp. ...
... However, in many of these instances it is difficult to discern to which extent these issues are political-historical rather than religious, or perhaps both. Nevertheless, with regard to secularization and the resurgence of religion, it has become rather apparent that secularization and a strong presence of religionsuch as in the US, Russia, France, UK, and South Koreaare simultaneous processes (Riesebrodt 2010;Gorski et al. 2012). Sweden is another interesting example, since the number of mosques has increased while the bulk of the host society is the most secularindividualistic in the entire world (World Values Survey 2019; see also Harlow et al. 2013). ...
Extending Pieterse's (1996) tripartite cultural globalization theory consisting of ho-mogenization, hybridization and polarization, the current article outlines a set of exemplifications and justifications of a fourth theoretical underpinning labeled parallelization. The theory implies that at a global scale, crucial events that appear paradoxical or contradictory occur at the same time, such as carbon emissions due to growth-fixated global capitalism, while the causes of carbon emissions lead to greater resilience against the consequences of carbon emissions as wealth accumulates. Other examples discussed are large-scale migration flows which lead to increased segregation in host societies while integration of migrants occur as a parallel process; secularization visa-à-vis the resurgence of religions; clear indications of that the biological component of cognitive abilities decreases due to fertility patterns in many locations around the globe, while the IQ test scores have risen as a consequence of various environmental factors.
... As a result, the research field is highly diversified, and no consensus exists about definitions of even its most central categories. While several authors have attempted to produce taxonomical clarity for terms like secularism, secularity, secularisation or the post-secular (Casanova 1994;Taylor 2007;Gorski et al. 2012;Lee 2015), the disciplinary perspectives and actual themes of existing scholarship seem too diverse to allow for a single, authoritative vocabulary. This chapter limits itself to the secular as it appears in an emerging field in religious studies, sociology and anthropology that deals with people, discourses and practices that are marked or consider themselves as di erent from and often opposed to religion: atheism, secular humanism, rationalism, disbelief, religious indi erence, etc. (Bullivant and Lee 2012;Quack 2014;Blanes and Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015). ...
... Besides science, another core area of secular boundary work concerns the relationship between the state and religion, a major theme in debates on political secularism (Cannell 2010;Calhoun, Juergensmeyer and van Antwerpen 2011;Scherer 2011) and the post-secular (Vries and Sullivan 2006; Braidotti et al. 2014;Gorski et al. 2012;Mapril et al. 2017). While recent debates have tended to focus on how secular states condition or suppress aesthetic dimensions of religions, an earlier stream of scholarship in the tradition of the Frankfurt School examined the aesthetics of political regimes themselves. ...
... As a result, the research field is highly diversified, and no consensus exists about definitions of even its most central categories. While several authors have attempted to produce taxonomical clarity for terms like secularism, secularity, secularisation or the post-secular (Casanova 1994;Gorski et al. 2012;Lee 2015), the disciplinary perspectives and actual themes of existing scholarship seem too diverse to allow for a single, authoritative vocabulary. This chapter limits itself to the secular as it appears in an emerging field in religious studies, sociology and anthropology that deals with people, discourses and practices that are marked or consider themselves as different from and often opposed to religion: atheism, secular humanism, rationalism, disbelief, religious indifference, etc. (Bullivant and Lee 2012;Blanes and Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015). ...
... Besides science, another core area of secular boundary work concerns the relationship between the state and religion, a major theme in debates on political secularism (Cannell 2010;Calhoun, Juergensmeyer and van Antwerpen 2011;Scherer 2011) and the post-secular (Vries and Sullivan 2006;Braidotti et al. 2014;Gorski et al. 2012;Mapril et al. 2017). While recent debates have tended to focus on how secular states condition or suppress aesthetic dimensions of religions, an earlier stream of scholarship in the tradition of the Frankfurt School examined the aesthetics of political regimes themselves. ...
... The growing international focus on the positive potential of religion and spirituality in relation to health can be argued to be an expression of the post-secular, understood here as the realization of the continued presence of the religious and spiritual in the public sphere and the attempt to negotiate this presence in culturally entwined and pluralist contexts [14][15][16][17]. In healthcare, the post-secular can be seen in the now widespread consensus among policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and patients that integrating spiritual care at all levels of healthcare is both beneficial and recommendable [9,18,19]. ...
... We supplement the post-secular, as outlined above [14][15][16][29][30][31], with the understanding that post-secular contexts have been secularized at the macro level of societal discourses (such as healthcare) and are culturally entwined and pluralist at the level of the individual. By pluralist, and following Berger [12,17], we refer to both the co-existence of various religious, spiritual, and secularized existential orientations in society, and to how religious and spiritual individuals interact with secular societal discourses, such as economics, law, education, and, in this case, healthcare. ...
Research across healthcare contexts has shown that, if provided appropriately, spiritual care can be of significant benefit to patients. It can be challenging, however, to incorporate spiritual care in daily practice, not least in post-secular, culturally entwined, and pluralist contexts. The aim of this integrative review was to locate, evaluate and discuss spiritual-needs questionnaires from the post-secular perspective in relation to their applicability in secular healthcare. Eleven questionnaires were evaluated and discussed with a focus on religious/spiritual (RS) wording, local culturally entwined and pluralist contexts, and on whether a consensual understanding between patient and healthcare professional could be expected through RS wording. By highlighting some factors involved in implementing a spiritual-needs questionnaire in diverse cultural and vernacular contexts, this article can assist by providing a general guideline. This article offers an approach to the international exchange and implementation of knowledge, experiences, and best practice in relation to the use of spiritual needs-assessment questionnaires in post-secular contexts.
... 4 However, it should be asked whether these items alone are capable of evaluating religious behaviour in general or whether they are only suitable for historical religiosities. 5 Some current publications that delve into the plural and also secular nature of religious manifestations are (Bellah et al. 2024;Dreher 2024;Taylor 2024;Joas 2020;Gorski et al. 2012). 6 With the intention of being thorough and exhaustive, it should be noted that social debate has been generated around whether the sacralization of the civil American has crystallized into religion. ...
The aim of this paper is to critically analyse the structure of religious beliefs and practices in Spain today. In order to approach this task, we have developed a research design that revolves around two analytical cores. The first is of a more descriptive–argumentative nature, where we present the Spanish religious reality by studying available data from relevant statistical sources, specifically, the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas and the Observatorio del Pluralismo Religioso. The second is of a more critical–reflexive nature, where we establish whether the available data offer an effectively exhaustive view of the Spanish religious reality in a post-secular context—that is, whether it reflects the existing scenario of religious pluralism, diversity and heterogeneity or whether, on the contrary, it merely reinforces dynamics linked to the General Theory of Secularization, emphasizing narratives that focus on the crisis of the religious and on the incompatibility between the religious and the secular.
... È quindi opportuno domandarsi in che misura sia possibile parlare di "religioni" senza correre il rischio di essenzializzare un fenomeno che è sì appariscente, ma il cui reale peso sulle dinamiche urbane e sulla struttura sociale rimane oggetto di discussione e necessita di ulteriori ricerche. In anni recenti, il panorama interdisciplinare degli studi sulle religioni in città è stato caratterizzato dal succedersi di due paradigmi quasi opposti: al paradigma della secolarizzazione, secondo cui nel mondo moderno e globalizzato la religione doveva sparire e diventare un fenomeno sempre più "privato" e individuale, è seguito quello della post-secolarizzazione, con la "riscoperta" che le religioni nei contesti urbani contemporanei non scomparivano né diventavano private o individuali; in questi studi è anzi spesso presente la tesi di fondo che le religioni ritornano in modo consistente a occupare la sfera pubblica e a contendere (e contendersi) gli spazi urbani (Becci, Burchardt, Casanova 2013;Becker et al. 2013;Gorski et al. 2012). ...
L’articolo parte dalla considerazione che antropologia delle religioni e antropologia urbana hanno avuto nel corso degli anni percorsi separati se non divergenti. Soltanto negli ultimi anni le due prospettive hanno iniziato a cercare di dialogare fra loro e a porre le basi per uno studio dei fenomeni religiosi proprio della città. Partendo da queste considerazioni, l’articolo pone la necessità di ricerche che cerchino di offrire nuove prospettive di avvicinamento fra antropologia urbana e antropologia delle religioni: per rispondere alle domande da cui si è originata la sezione tematica, viene analizzato lo stato degli studi e descritto il percorso teorico allestito per individuare modalità, strumenti e categorie almeno in parte rinnovati per lo studio delle religioni in città e della città attraverso le religioni. In questo percorso, l’articolo evidenzia come l’antropologia, alla luce della sua doppia e consolidata tradizione di ricerca sia sulla religione che sui temi urbani, abbia oggi l’opportunità di interrogarsi su quali siano gli approcci e le direzioni di ricerca che portano verso un quadro interpretativo più soddisfacente e adeguato ad indagare gli intrecci tra la dimensione religiosa e altre sfere che vanno a comporre l’immagine delle città contemporanee.
... It remains a potent ideology, but is also increasingly seen as a nebulous and dynamic field rather than a foregone conclusion. Scholars have therefore pointed increasingly to 'post-secular' dynamics as an influential and non-determined emerging potential (Gorski et al., 2012). ...
The question of the location of religion in the public sphere is always a matter of the logics, practices, and politics of secularism. While mythologies of a linear secular teleology have been thoroughly critiqued, the ongoing trajectories for both religious and secular
politics are contested and emergent.
New Zealand provides an important context for examining these dynamics. While New Zealand is frequently referenced as among the most secular nations in the world, with census data tracking a precipitous disaffiliation from Christianity and a concomitant rapid increase in ‘non-religion’, the actual situation is in considerable flux. A crucial dynamic is the combination of an indigenous Māori cultural renaissance and state attempts to recognise the moral imperative of decolonisation which have resulted in new languages of spirituality shaping both law and politics. Diverse religious groups have also occupied prominent spaces in shaping public concern and setting new agendas for national life.
This paper traces the emerging contours of this dynamic religious context and the contributions of religion and spirituality in shaping political leadership in Aotearoa New Zealand.
... Joas's argument requires discarding a univocal reading of the configurations of the "secular". This perspective has, by the way, several contacts with the discussion about the "secular" and the "post-secular" (Gorski 2012). These two categories, and their explanatory models, can suggest different semantics. ...
This review article is based on re-reading the Joas vs. Weber discussion about the macro-concept of "disenchantment". For Joas, the Weberian thesis brings together, in a single explanatory model, different social processes that must be differentiated. Joas's proposal highlights the need to build research models sensitive to the interaction and the play of different logics of action between tension and transaction. The collection of some of the most recent tendencies shows how research on religion and modernity has renewed its interest in "visible religion", granting a fundamental place to study the different modalities of religious agency in the recomposition of the public domain. Reading these results allows the reconstruction of an epistemological model centered on the logic of action, considering that religion can no longer be studied only on the terrain of its institutional reproduction. Instead, the plurality of religious agency requires observation at different scales: a multiscopic and multisite perspective.
... Os primeiros pensadores Cristãos e Islâmicos debateram as obrigações dos ricos para com os pobres (BROWN, 2013;TRIPP, 2006), e os Católicos teorizaram o "preço justo" e a usura (BALDWIN, 1959;LAPIDUS, 1994;LOWRY;GORDON, 1998;NOONAN, 1957). No entanto, trazer a religião atual para sustentar a economia vai na direção contrária à tese da secularização que dominou o pensamento social ocidental desde a época de Marx até as últimas décadas do século XX (GORSKI et al., 2012). Na narrativa de Weber, até mesmo a ética de trabalho Protestante acabou por perder a sua base religiosa. ...
As posições religiosas em relação à economia moral há muito tempo têm fornecido recursos importantes para a reflexão crítica sobre a vida econômica. Quando as instituições religiosas procuram construir alternativas aos sistemas econômicos e às práticas financeiras existentes, no entanto, elas também encontram uma série de problemas. Em contraste com muitas críticas seculares à economia, as críticas religiosas tendem a ser explícitas sobre as suas diretrizes morais e os pressupostos ontológicos em que se baseiam, dando origem a hábitos econômicos e instituições financeiras distintas. Por isso, o seu estudo etnográfico ilumina uma série de questões antropológicas mais gerais sobre as fontes do valor, os limites do cálculo racional, a moralidade da dívida, o significado da desigualdade, a justiça econômica e os objetivos legítimos de uma economia.
... For a particularly useful collection of essays on Habermas's writings on the postsecular, seeGorski et al. 2012a. ...
This chapter investigates democratic politics and religious pluralism in contemporary Turkey through the lens of the concept of “postsecular society.” The author first reconstructs Habermas’s notion of postsecular society as an ideal type and proposes three criteria by which one can identify postsecular formations: secular differentiation, committed pluralism, and complementary learning processes. He then utilizes this framework to investigate relations between religion, state, and civil society in contemporary Turkey, focusing in particular on compulsory religious instruction in primary and secondary schools, the standing of atheism and unbelief in the public realm, and the rise and political suppression of a postsecular ethics of citizenship in the course of the Gezi protests of 2013. This analysis demonstrates that the concept of postsecular society, when applied critically, provides a powerful tool for identifying the forces for and against religious pluralism in contemporary societies, including those outside Europe.
... O cunho deste termo tem em conta que houve um período que antecedeu a este denominado secularização. Em outras palavras, que houve um período longo e progressivo de uma efetiva perda de significado religioso, mas que pela multiplicidade de contextos a sua aplicabilidade não se diluiu, e que, partindo da pergunta de Gorski (2012) "Which world has changed-the "real" one or the scholarly one?", o termo mede a atenção dos cientistas sociais à religião e às mudanças que demonstram um ressurgimento da mesma. Assim, a aplicação do termo sobre Durkheim só é possível na atualidade, porque se presenciaram dinamismos na modernidade que proporcionaram uma reconfiguração do panorama religioso. ...
The religious education in the Portuguese public schools is a complex matter which, since the first quarter of the 19th century, has been open to discussions about its pertinence in the public school system. Despite these discussions, and with the exception of the Republican regime, the teaching of moral and religious education remained a right and responsibility of the Catholic Church. However, from the 25th April 1974 on, there were a number of changes that led to a reconfiguration of the religious field, which consequently had implications for the programs and for the teaching of moral and religious education, with particular reference to the progressive detraditionalization, the increase of individualization, the resurgence and revitalization of new religious movements and the increase of religious diversity. Furthermore, the disappearance of the compulsory attendance of this course in favour of the current optional status has led to a progressive decrease in the number of students. In view of this situation, the course's programmes prove to be a clash point between an attempt to adapt to the national religious scene and their effectiveness according to teachers' experience.
Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to understand, through a qualitative methodology, the representations that teachers of Catholic Moral and Religious Education in public schools in the municipality of Porto have about the current program of the course. Through interviews and document analysis of the EMRC programs of 2007 and 2014, it was possible to demonstrate that these programs - still very religious - are inconsistent with the trends of the national religious panorama. Nonetheless, both the program and the educators prove to be part of a process of organizational secularization.
... In postsecular societies, religion is resurgent while "new forms of religious pluralism also emerge within a secular horizon that call into question established institutions and practices" (2). Thus religion is politicized while politics becomes sectarian, believing and belonging often do not go hand in hand, and religious pluralization leads to new and diverse understandings of the secular (Braidotti et al. 2014;Davie 2002;Gorski 2012;Kyrlezhev 2008). Multiple secularities and multiple religiosities coexist in a postsecular society, and thus the sacred can take different forms, immanent as well as transcendent ones. ...
... But these arguments still confront both the 'new paradigm' (Warner, 1993), 'multiple modernities' (Eisenstadt, 2000), and the desecularization thesis, which together maintain that religion is alive and well in the modern world (Berger, 1999;Casanova, 1994;Stark, 1999). Given these tensions, some scholars have pushed for the adoption of the phrase 'post-secular' to describe the current religious landscape (Gorski, 2012;Gorski and Altınordu, 2008). With these debates in mind, this article contends that Charles Taylor's (2007) A Secular Age provides some useful theoretical vocabulary to explain the present situation, despite its omission of quantitative studies and the curious absence of any discussion of technology and its effects. ...
Explanations for the rise of the religiously unaffiliated have regained attention from sociologists in light of recent declines in religiosity. While the secularization thesis has seen revisions across disciplines, few studies link lower levels of religiosity with greater Internet use. This article draws from Charles Taylor’s widely regarded account of secularity and his concept of ‘the buffered self’ to argue that individuals who use the Internet more frequently are less religious. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey (2017), I find that with higher levels of Internet use, individuals are less likely to pray, read sacred texts, attend religious services, consider religion personally important, or affiliate with a religious tradition. Greater Internet use is further associated with being an atheist, while other media activity such as watching television is not similarly linked. These findings ground Taylor’s theoretical work by specifying empirically measurable, contextual conditions that explain recent declines in religiosity.
... Some observers have described this set of conditions as "post-secular," indicating the porous boundary between the religious and the secular in contemporary political life (e.g. Gorski et al. 2012 ;Merlini 2011 ). In a postsecular world, faith-based organizations appear as increasingly relevant participants in the global political ecosystem, no longer at the margins of international legitimacy. ...
... First, pluralism is an attitude and social action of the religious community with the other, both in one religion and more than one religion immortal [42]. Secondly, in pluralism there are associative social processes [43], especially in religious dialogue. In this regard, religious pluralism is examined using a sociological perspective because of the associative social processes [44]. ...
Mengaji Maghrib movement is a form of Community social movement initiated by the Government of Buru regency together with the Ministry of Religious Affairs Buru Regency as an effort to use Maghrib time and avoid the community from impacts Due to technological developments and the movement as a medium for the achievement of prealism. This research is a qualitative study aimed to describe the implementation of the Mengaji Maghrib movement in the Namlea district of Buru District. The research site is focused on Namlea subdistrict with the consideration of density and heterogeneity of society. The number of informant will be interviewed as many as 25 people taken in purposive. The analytical techniques used to follow the concepts given by Miles and Huberman include data reduction, data presentation and withdrawal of conclusions. The results showed that the Maghrib movement received a positive response from the community where the initiation of the community was able to become an instrument of achievement harmonization of community life to keep each other and remind When using Maghrib. In addition, the mapping of sectoral community activities in the Maghrib movement gave birth to two components namely moral and ethics that functioned to grow and maintain the pruralism in Namlea subdistrict. Pruralism becomes an important basis for tolerant living in different peoples ' order of tribes, groups, religions and customs.
... First, pluralism is an attitude and social action of the religious community with the other, both in one religion and more than one religion immortal [37]. Secondly, in pluralism there are associative social processes [38], especially in religious dialogue. In this regard, religious pluralism is examined using a sociological perspective because of the associative social processes [39]. ...
Mengaji Maghrib movement is a form of Community social movement initiated by the Government of Buru regency together with the Ministry of Religious Affairs Buru Regency as an effort to use Maghrib time and avoid the community from impacts Due to technological developments and the movement as a medium for the achievement of prealism. This research is a qualitative study aimed to describe the implementation of the Mengaji Maghrib movement in the Namlea district of Buru District. The research site is focused on Namlea subdistrict with the consideration of density and heterogeneity of society. The number of informant will be interviewed as many as 25 people taken in purposive. The analytical techniques used to follow the concepts given by Miles and Huberman include data reduction, data presentation and withdrawal of conclusions. The results showed that the Maghrib movement received a positive response from the community where the initiation of the community was able to become an instrument of achievement harmonization of community life to keep each other and remind When using Maghrib. In addition, the mapping of sectoral community activities in the Maghrib movement gave birth to two components namely moral and ethics that functioned to grow and maintain the pruralism in Namlea subdistrict. Pruralism becomes an important basis for tolerant living in different peoples ' order of tribes, groups, religions and customs.
... Examine further the meaning of social action against prulalisme then According to Emil Durkheim [18], Religious pluralism should be developed for two reasons. First, pluralism is a social attitudes and actions of religious communities with one another, either in one religion or more than one religion [21], Second, pluralism there are social processes that are associative [22], Particularly in religious dialogue. In this regard, religious pluralism analyzed using sociological perspective because it happened the social processes that are associative [23], Thus, there is a chance in a variety of possibilities to uphold religious pluralism in social values that underlie the meaning of a desire for peaceful coexistence between the various elements of society [24], Morals and ethics became an important part of people's activities in maghrib time. ...
Maghrib Bupolo movement chant is a form of social movement initiated by the Government of Buru together with the Ministry of Religious Affairs Buru as efforts to use maghrib time and avoid the public from the negative impact of technological developments and to make the movement as a medium pruralisme achievement. Bupolo movement recite Maghrib received a positive response from the community where the initiation is done society to become an instrument of achieving the harmonization of social life to look after each and remind the maghrib time utilization. In addition, the mapping of sectoral activities in the community recite Maghrib Bupolo Movement spawned two components moral and ethical.
... Habermas understands post-secular society as a society that "adapts to the fact that religious communities continue to exist in a context of ongoing secularization" (Habermas 2003, p. 104). The concept of the post-secular is conceptually related to a variety of subjects and issues of discussion in humanities and the social sciences (Beckford 2012;Gorski et al. 2012). Through this reflection, a growing attention toward the impact and the role of religion in our modern pluralist societies is expressed. ...
The main purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the relationships between secularism, pluralism, and the post-secular public sphere in the thought of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and William Connolly. The three authors develop a thorough critique of secularism which implies a radical break with the dogmatic idea of removing religion from the public sphere. My main objective is to show that this critique is related to a normative understanding of our post-secular situation and requires a rethinking of the boundaries of the public sphere in relation to the predicament of pluralism. Arguing against the post-metaphysical conception of secularism, Taylor develops a critique of Habermas’s “institutional translation proviso”, and Connolly stresses the agonistic dimension of the post-secular public sphere. I take these criticisms into account, while arguing that Taylor and Connolly are unable to provide a sound basis for the legitimacy of our institutional settings. In contrast to Taylor and Connolly, I propose a reading of Habermas’s theory based on the internal relationship between universal justification and the everyday contexts of pre-political solidarity. I conclude with a focus on the need to take into account the agonistic dimension of the post-secular public sphere.
This chapter provides an overview of the relevant works at the intersection of Islam, postsecularism, TED Talks, and new media storytelling. This chapter will explore this turn as an interdisciplinary dialogue. It makes an argument for a specific approach to that intersection, which is evident in the TEDified Islam. Divided into three key sections, it begins by examining the debates on postsecularism and its connection with secular media narratives on the sacred. The second section introduces TED to the context and outlines key arguments about the platform (TED) and its communication practices. The final section surveys existing literature on Islam and new media, focusing on the audiences and authorities, and develops a case for examining the discourse on Islam in the new media landscape that is neither Islamophobic nor produced with ritualistic importance. This chapter outlines TED’s narrative production on Islam as a storytelling on Islam that echoes the secular’s renewed interest in exploring the quintessential of Islam. Therefore, TEDified Islam resonates a nexus between postsecular ways of storytelling on Islam in the new media landscape.
The article outlines the idea of “postsecularity,” which has already become traditional in certain areas of religious studies and sociology of religion. On the one hand, it is contested within other research areas, and on the other hand, has not led to the creation of a clear and consistent theory, although it has become very popular in public discussion. In defending his position, the author refers both to his own works on the topic and to a large corpus of texts that to one degree or another touch upon the “post-secular thesis”, including studies devoted to the concepts of “secular” and “religion” in the aspect of their rethinking in modern times. Secularism, understood as an ideology and quasi-religion, and its fate in the modern world are discussed. It is argued that classical European secularization has now ended due to the fact that secularism as a global civilizational project has failed not only in non-Western contexts, but also in zones of active secularization, which took place in European contexts, albeit in different forms – both the ghettoization of religion (in the European West), and the atheism of the entire society (as in countries where the socialist project was being implemented). The new post-secular situation is characterized as the return of religion/religiosity not only to the public sphere, but also to the Lebenswelt of individuals who actualize various forms of religiosity, including the so-called spirituality. Thus, contrary to the standard thesis about secularization, which assumes a decline in people’s religiosity, the modern world demonstrates its new forms, not necessarily associated with long, dominant religious traditions and organizations. The author believes that the concept of a “true believer” as the most conscious, informed and religiously active individual, which has become standard in the science of religion, should be discarded, given that religiosity manifests itself in a variety of forms, far from such rigoristic interpretations. The author’s final thought is that in the current situation, the modern European description (understanding) of religion can no longer be a prescription for religion, that is, a requirement addressed to it, which is one of the aspects of the “post-secular turn”.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
Over the past two decades, the Social Sciences have seen the rise of a new theoretical framework in the discourse surrounding religion and secularization, which centers around the term 'Post-secular'. This theoretical framework became dominant in Israel's academic discourse through its utilization in the critical examination of the popular classifications in Israel for religiosity and secularism, and in a rejection of the dichotomy between these terms. Regarding the element of rejecting the dichotomy between religiosity and secularism, those who advocate for post-secularism in Israel's academic discourse claim that the 'post-secular' exposes the impossibility of a Jewish secularism and, in other words, that Jewish secularism hides its own religiosity from itself. In the article, I will critically examine the context of the rise of the post-secular theoretical framework in the Social Sciences, and its use in Israeli academic discourse – and especially the criticism that it (and neighboring stances) raises regarding the probability of a Jewish secularism. I will maintain that Jewish secularism does not exist merely as a fact based on a kind of false consciousness and suggest a primary outline for the phenomenology of this identity.
In this chapter, we use the ideas and practices of Jane Addams and Monica Prasad’s work on problem-solving to sketch a direction for sociologists to move forward with their work in the present day. We start with Addams’s thinking on morality and social practice, situate it within a larger body of pragmatist social theory, link it to Prasad’s work, and use all these ideas to consider practical ways of doing moral sociology to solve social problems and make an actual difference.
In the present study, I undertake to show that the public sphere can be constructed within the frames of a discourse loaded with religious symbols, either as part of religious institutions and manifestations, or, in a more interesting case, through the media discourse. I want to show that media functions as a ritualizing agent, which builds symbolic spaces of action and thinking. Journalists accomplish this by presenting events as if they had pre-established and immutable order and meaning, set within a religious system. The ritualization of the journalistic performance and the mythologization of the representation of events are some of the strongest tools for promoting a representation of events in a language loaded with religious symbols and to outline a public sphere constructed in a religious frame. Thus, using a sacralizing language, media creates a religious public sphere, which function as a liminal, subjunctive framework: it is possible to assume that now a new type of public sphere, defined by a religious frame, is developed, in a social context and symbolical frame that are totally different to the usual circumstances of a religious experience.
The paper focuses on early phase of students' socialization to the academic Study of Religions and its influence on their personal relationship to religions. Based on the social constructionist perspective, academic study of religions is seen as a specific social reality where individuals internalize norms in the socialization process. In the beginning of the study, initial scholar identity starts to build and students begin to learn how they should think and act as ideal typified scholar in the field of the study of religions. The text shows how this socialization process modifies students' thinking about religions and what does it also mean for their individual lives – especially for their religious identities. The empirical part of study is based on qualitative analysis of interviews of six students from the Study of Religions at Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno.
This article presents some features, potentials, limitations, and bibliographies of the intersection of postcolonialism, postsecularism, and literary studies. It examines literatures, cultures, religions, indigenous beliefs and practices, and political imaginaries from Africa, Europe, and South Asia. The religions discussed include Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. The article shows how the institutional and discursive emergence of postcolonial postsecularism, including its intersection with literary studies, can draw lessons from similarly contestatory fields of study, such as postcolonial theory, postcolonial feminism, and intersectional feminism. The article includes bibliographies of literary works that address secularism and postsecularism, including their intersection with postcoloniality.
According to my study, "political secularism" means the separation of political power from religious institutions, while "social secularism" is a theory and endeavor to eliminate religiosity from not only public but also private life, considering it an obsolete way of thinking. I examine four case studies based on my ethnological fieldwork in Hunza (in the Pakistani-controlled Kashmir), the Middle Ural (Russia), Transylvania (Romania), and Sápmi (northern Scandinavia). I outline and compare ethnic minorities (Hunzakuts, Tatars, Szeklers, Samis) according to their historical background, contemporary social environment, relation to the majority, their political endeavors, and the role of religion(s) among them. Based on my fieldwork notes, interviews, and sociological data, I analyze the similarities and differences of ethnic complexity, terminological confusions, problems of "lived religion," and the impact of social and political secularism. Since their religiosity differs from the majorities' ones, I found that secularism has a complex role and reception. Political secularism is essential for defending these minorities from assimilation, but most of these minorities reject social secularism since religion is part of their multifunctional ethnic discourse space. Religiosity is part of their survival strategy. Notwithstanding, ethnic minorities' religious institutions participate in political activity and propagate their claims for self-governance.
The approach to contemporary articulations of religion is still problematic within the fields of literary criticism and cultural studies. Nevertheless, given the interdisciplinary aspiration of the latter, an amalgamation of research coming from the fields of philosophy, anthropology, and psychology of religion must find a proper place within any culturalist approach to religion. In this article, we lay out a set of semantics drawing from current research around religion and culture, with the goal of posing and answering the questions of why, how, and where to tackle religion in contemporary cultural forms. Overcoming classical tensions between the religious and the secular self, as well as the analyzer and the analyzed subject, we will detach our approach from any theological inquiry. However, by adhering to a broader understanding of the concepts of mediation and practice, we will also attempt to circumvent ideology-based obstacles that often surface in the study of the myriad ways in which contemporary authors navigate religion.
During the past two decades or so, the emergence and ever-accelerating development of digital media have sparked scholarly interest, debates, and complex challenges across many disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Within this diverse scholarship, the research on digitality, gender, sexuality, and embodiment has contributed substantially to many academic fields, such as media studies, sociology, religion, philosophy, and education studies. As a part of the special issue “Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment in Digital Spheres: Connecting Intersectionality and Digitality,” this roundtable consists of a conversation between five researchers from different (inter)disciplinary locations, all addressing matters of methodology, intersectionality, positionality, and theory in relation to the topics of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. Said roundtable begins with a critical self-positioning of the participants’ (inter)disciplinary and embodied locations using examples from their own research. The conversation then progresses to how these researchers have employed contemporary theories, conceptual vocabularies, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres to then conclude with some ethico-political notes about collaborations between scholars and (digital) activists.
This article aims to understand why religion has proven difficult to address in secular healthcare, although existential communication is important for patients’ health and wellbeing. Two qualitative data samples exploring existential communication in secular healthcare were analyzed following Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, leading to the development of the analytical constructs of ‘the secular’ and ‘the non-secular’. The differentiation of the secular and the non-secular as different spheres for the individual to be situated in offers a nuanced understanding of the physician–patient meeting, with implications for existential communication. We conceptualize the post-secular negotiation as the attempt to address the non-secular through secular activities in healthcare. Employment of the post-secular negotiation enables an approach to existential communication where the non-secular, including religion, can be addressed as part of the patients’ life without compromising the professional grounding in secular healthcare. The post-secular negotiation presents potential for further research, clinical practice, and for the benefit of patients.
This article examines the relationship of the Church to politics in post-secularism popularized by Jurgen Habermas. The research method used in this research is literature study. This research finds that, Post-secularism offered by Habermas provides space for the Church to translate the wealth contained in religion into a public message. In the view of post-secularism the Church has an important role to fill in the empty spaces that cannot be achieved by rationality. Habermas's thoughts on post-secularism also serve as a bridge to harmonize faith and rationality, as well as to explain dual citizenship as an unrelated Christian political view.Artikel ini menelaah hubungan Gereja dengan politik dalam pos-sekulerisme yang dipopulerkan oleh Jurgen Habermas. Metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah studi pustaka. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa, Pos-sekulerisme yang ditawarkan oleh Habermas memberi ruang Gereja untuk menerjemahkan kekayaan yang terkandung dalam agama menjadi pesan publik. Dalam pandangan pos-sekulerisme Gereja mempunyai peran penting untuk mengisi ruang kosong yang tidak dapat dijangkau oleh rasionalitas. Pemikiran Habermas mengenai pos-sekulerisme juga menjadi jembatan untuk menyelaraskan iman dan rasional, sekaligus menerangkan kewarganegaraan ganda sebagai pandangan politik Kristen yang selama ini tidka dimengerti.
In order to examine the collective social-symbolic work realized to address societal grand challenges, we use the concept of imagined communities. We define missionary organizations as organizations diffusing their imaginary in order to convert external members, and to build new communities. In this paper, we explore the social-symbolic work conducted by missionary organizations in order to build an imagined community around the constitution and resolution of grand global challenges. Focusing on Hello Tomorrow as an illustration of a missionary organization, we explore the social-symbolic work conducted in order to build the new organizational field of deep tech. Our analysis reveals three central types of work used as a vehicle for the transmission of the imaginary: meaning work, cultural work and discursive work. 2
Afin d’avoir une idée de la performativité du référent écologiste sur les comportements et les structures de nos sociétés contemporaines, nous analyserons les effets de l’intégration de ce référent sur une institution religieuse, en l’occurrence ici l’Église catholique dans le contexte français. À travers une analyse du discours écologiste de l’Église, de sa réception et sa mise en application individuelle et collective, nous verrons que la « conversion » de l’Église à l’écologie génère un mouvement contraire d’individualisation de l’engagement militant et d’implication institutionnelle dans les controverses écologistes. Ce mouvement favorise assurément l’institutionnalisation de l’écologie, mais celle-ci ne sera effective que si l’Église s’inscrit dans une quête de cohérence, où le maintien d’une ligne politique sera aussi décisif que la valorisation d’une spiritualité écologiste.
Nasreen Qadri is an Israeli pop singer of Palestinian-Arab origin whose professional achievements came in return for her loyalty to Israel. Successfully crossing cultural lines, Qadri claims Mizrahi identity, challenges the Ashkenazi-Zionist definition of Jews and Arabs as antagonistic ethnonational binaries, and helps Mizrahim reclaim their Judeo-Arabic heritage. However, following her controversial attempts to convert to Judaism, she fell short of crossing into religious-national privilege in Israel-Palestine. Qadri’s failure to overcome colonial segregation testifies to how Israeli racism is based on a perceived religious blood community, which is anchored in state laws and to which non-Jewish women are mostly exposed. Qadri’s case demonstrates how racialized politics of conversion are related to demographic considerations that show the fragility of the Zionist settler-colonial project. Finally, this article suggests that Palestinians in Israel may face elimination, if they seek racial and religious equality with Jews based on a shared Arab culture with Mizrahim.
This article considers the place religion holds in post-Soviet Russian society, and most importantly, the case of the dominant Russian Orthodoxy. It shows that the gap between low everyday religiosity and high public profile of religion is the key to a specific Russian version of secularity. How religion’s spectacular appropriation of physical and social space, up to the imaginative space of the national culture as such, does not cancel the strong counterweight of deeply ingrained secular cultural arrangements – either genetically linked to some European variations or specifically related to (post)communist experience.
Purpose
This study aims to perform a systematic review of the dialectics and telematics strategy for regulating religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also analyzes some important issues related to religions, state, and society.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical literature review was performed to complete this study, using media, institutional, national, and international reports, as well as recent and previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
Religion was one of the social entities that had a crucial effect on the COVID-19 pandemic. The new system in the form of social distancing affects its performance. Furthermore, the response of religion in Indonesia is unique when its status is considered as the largest Islamic country in the world. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze and demonstrate the dynamics of relationships between actors, religion, and state in the process and strategy of religious regulation.
Research limitations/implications
This study was carried out using a single methodological approach.
Practical implications
This study provides input to both religion and the state (government) in building a synergy of constructive responses to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social implications
It provides input to society in understanding the critical intersection between religion, state, and society.
Originality/value
This may be the first academic study that analyzes the problems of the process of regulating religion in the context of COVID-19.
The article proposes a review, based on the work of Talal Asad, of the critical turn in the studies of religion and secularism. I revisit some aspects of Asad's genealogical and anthropological approach to religion, the secular, and secularism, and address two lines of research it has encouraged: the comparative study of actually existing secularisms and the symmetrical study of frictions and controversies between the secular concept of religion and the traditions it encompasses. I conclude by debating whether the recent realignment of religion in secular scholarship would indicate a turn or a paradigmatic shift.
The relatively late legalization of same-sex partnerships in Italy in comparison to other European countries is partly due to the powerful presence of the Vatican within Italy’s borders and its voice in political debates. Although the number of Italians who actively practice the Catholic religion is decreasing, Catholic values are enshrined in history, laws, and everyday life, making Catholicism in Italy an “influential minority” with aspects of “vicarious religion.” In response to the legalization of same-sex partnerships, anti-European and anti-immigration populist forces have mobilized the Vatican discourse against “gender ideology” to gain public legitimacy. This chapter analyzes the complex entanglements of religion and homosexuality by looking at the shifting boundaries of public and private spheres, the contradictory and unintended effects of the Europeanization of LGBT+ rights, and the transformations of Catholicism and the plurality of the Italian religions’ positions on LGBT+ rights.
This book discusses in detail how Orthodox Christianity was involved in and influenced political transition in Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia after the collapse of communism. Based on original research, including extensive interviews with clergy and parishioners as well as historical, legal and policy analysis, the book argues that the nature of the involvement of churches in post-communist politics depended on whether the interests of the church (for example, in education, the legal system or economic activity) were accommodated or threatened: if accommodated, churches confined themselves to the sacred domain; if threatened they engaged in daily politics. If churches competed with each other for organizational interests, they evoked the support of nationalism while remaining within the religious domain.
El objetivo de este artículo es iluminar la relación particular que guardan religión y política en la época actual, a partir de la restitución de los aportes que Habermas ofrece al respecto. Para ello, en primer lugar, revisaremos la noción de “lingüistización de lo sagrado”, con la cual el filósofo alemán pondera el lugar que la religión ocupa dentro del sistema de su Teoría de la acción comunicativa. En segundo lugar, examinaremos qué función ocupa la religión para Habermas, en el contexto de una era postmetafísica signada por la caducidad de todo discurso sostenido sobre la base de dogmas y verdades absolutas. En el tercer apartado, reconstruiremos el modo en que Habermas habilita la introducción de la religión al interior del espacio público, fundamentalmente en el marco de las democracias norteamericanas. Por último, inscribiremos los argumentos de Habermas sobre la relación entre religión y política en el contexto más amplio del debate sobre lo postsecular. En la conclusión, se recapitularán los argumentos presentados.
The book is devoted to the analysis of changes in the way the interaction of religion and
society that have occurred in Ukraine during its independence, including the issue of the
functioning of religion as a social institution. Denial of the hard secularist policy of Soviet
times, providing real freedom of conscience led to the apparent revival of the Church’s life,
the return of religion to the public sphere, the sphere of symbolic representation of society, including religios ritual activity in the lives of large numbers of people. However, it remains questionable sociological content of this religious revival, its importance in terms of the formation of life’s strategies and tactics of believers, their everyday behavior and outlook. To answer this question in the book discusses the main social function of religion, the changes that occur in the performance of the functions of religion in modern societies in general and in Ukraine in particular. Using a big amount of data from representative surveys of the population of Ukraine tries to assess what social functions of religion continues to perform, and the implementation of which is taken away by other social institutions.
Redolent with the idea of supernatural intervention in the everyday, the notion of revelation rarely figures in the public imagination. If it is considered at all, it is often dismissed as implausible in educated society. I suggest that this is because revelation is considered first as a matter of belief rather than as a question of experience. Revelation presents a problem for our age in three, interconnected ways. Culturally, revelation has become both unintelligible and unimaginable; in lives largely bounded by the immanence of the world, the concept of revelation seems arcane or anachronistic. Philosophically, revelation resists the kind of analysis that we readily identify with many Western philosophical approaches; there is little place for a concept of revelation linked to the particularity of religious traditions. Theologically, revelation is often understood as a set of things that have to be believed, things seemingly bearing no relation to present experience. In all three cases, belief or lack of belief becomes an obstacle to the very possibility of revelation. I will argue here that revelation can be a meaningful possibility and that we have to allow for that possibility within experience, even as we affirm its impossibility as experience at the same time.
In Lebanon, civil society organisations engaging youth in interreligious activity face a twofold challenge: how to build a rich, sustainable, socially engaged religious pluralism based on mutual empathy and trust among young people, and how to do so against a backdrop of often-ossified post-war identities, geographies and patterns of living. This chapter contributes to the academic literature on interreligious engagement in Lebanon by presenting a snapshot of the most recent youth work of two of the most active organisations in this area: Adyan and Dialogue for Life (DLR). We argue that these organizations help to build a third way between calls for the re-confessionalisation and de-confessionalisation of Lebanese politics. A challenge remains of how to translate values of emotionally engaged religious pluralism, cultivated in ‘spaces apart’ within civil society, into both everyday life in Lebanon and into the state’s institutions.
Although Islam is described as a fundamental aspect of Kyrgyz national identity, its theological aspects are generally elided in nationalist discourse. However, as Islam becomes more prominent in Kyrgyz society, anxieties about ‘Arabisation’ and the weakening of national traditions permeate popular and political discourse. These anxieties operate simultaneously in the national and religious registers, suggesting the extent to which theological beliefs inform national identity, even in secular states. Examining a recent controversy over veiling in Kyrgyzstan, this article argues that theology is both linked to nationality and also a site of contestation over the terms of nationalism itself.
In social scientific examinations of religious pluralism, the typical scale of analysis is the nation state, though considerations at the community or neighbourhood level are also common (e.g., Mislin in Saving Faith: Making Religious Pluralism an American Value at the Dawn of the Secular Age. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2015; Phan in The Joy of Religious Pluralism: A Personal Journey. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 2014). Scholars have devoted considerable energy to the task of understanding the dynamism of the so-called ‘religious marketplace’ in the United States or to the status of minoritarian traditions in nations with established religious institutions.
Sociological theories of symbolic boundaries (understandings of who belongs to in-groups and out-groups) and social boundaries (material stratification) argue both are related, but empirical analyses often focus on one or the other. Using survey data from 2014, we replicate and validate earlier research describing patterns in how Americans draw symbolic boundaries against a range of minority groups. We then go beyond this work by demonstrating a new link between boundary-drawing and attitudes about inequality and civil liberties with material implications. Drawing symbolic boundaries is not a benign practice; rather, it is associated with willingness to draw social boundaries that support material and political inequality.
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