No nos aventuramos realmente a decir nada muy original cuando decimos que la religión, o, mejor dicho, las religiones, son un fenómeno sumamente complejo que para su estudio científico requiere de una mirada atenta que trate de comprender las múltiples aristas que parecen dividirse y reproducirse según nos acercamos a cualquiera de sus fenómenos y representaciones.

The debate about secularization in recent decades has challenged long-held assumptions about Western modernity and the purported decline of religion in modern societies. However, the impact of this criticism on the idea of history has so far not received as much attention as it deserves. Jayne Svenungsson’s analysis of the influence of biblical motives on contemporary political theology illustrates one way in which the concept of history might be rethought in the wake of the crisis of the secularization thesis. In (...) dialogue with Karl Löwith’s classical argument that modern philosophy of history and the idea of historical progress are secularized versions of Christian eschatology, she argues that the prophetic vision of history as a struggle for a justice that supersedes every current law or moral system is a viable and promising alternative that ought to be considered in contemporary discussions of politics and history. Svenungsson’s analysis thus amounts to what one might call a postsecular challenge to a secular historical discourse. (shrink)