postsecular

Connecting the Parallel Lives of Critical Secular and Non-Religious Studies

Response
Lois Lee responds to our interview with RSP co-founder Christopher R. Cotter about his latest book, The Critical Study of Non-Religion. Calling his work "a milestone" that answers the need for a "systemic intervention" in critical approaches to non-religion, Lee suggests that the parallel lives of critical secular and non-religious studies are starting to converge.

Now We Know Religion is Not Disappearing

Response
Various new religious movements seek to establish a presence in politics through challenging the hegemony of traditional churches in a very peculiar way. Postsecular, like postmodern, is a title applied to phenomena in society that do not seem fit into an earlier paradigm and has thus been named post-something because it perhaps is not yet visible what comes next. It is an end of an era but also a shift towards another and has the academic world digging out all the blind spots of the earlier theories,...

The Postsecular

Podcast
Discussion focuses upon the history of the 'postsecular', potential definitions, disciplinary and geographical differences, and ultimately suggests that ‘postsecularity’ is effectively dressing up ‘secularity’ in obfuscating clothing.In his 2011 Presidential Address to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Milwaukee,

Habermas and the Problem with the ‘Problem’ of Religion in Public Discourse

Response
The starting assumption is that religious people will be fundamentally unable to speak to those who don’t share their faith. But why start with the assumption that translation will be a problem? Living in a country where you don’t know the language means you have a great excuse for not talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses. To be completely honest, I actually did understand the two Witnesses when they came to my door.

Habermas, Religion and the Post-Secular

Podcast
Habermas mostly ignored religion, contending that it was not rational enough to be included in public debate. But over the past decade, he has begun to reexamine religion in light of its persistence in the modern world, calling this a turn toward post-secular society. He argues that religion deserves a place in public debate, ...
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