Modern, Stevie At its annual general meeting in May this year, the Council of Australian Humanist Societies voted in support of volunteer ethics teachers entering public schools and teaching ethics programs to students as a secular alternative in religious education. The motion was put to the meeting by the NSW Society with the support of the Humanist Society of Victoria. The motion was opposed by the Queensland, Western Australian and South Australian Societies. Here is why the motion is a grave (...) mistake, and why Western Australia moved its own motion against it. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of the relations between modernity and secularization. The author argues that the discourse on secularization is the most appropriate strategy for modern self-understanding. The discourse itself is not homogeneous. One approach is a classical theory of secularization, which considers the secularization as a universal world-historical process, which passed the stages “modernization – secularization – rationalization.” Other approach is to interpret modern society as a post-secular society, but with relevance to religious (...) ethos. This approach considers Modernity as a unique social reality with a specific type of rationality and a set of behavioral strategies, which were formed as a result of the transformation of religious social reality, the center of which was a Christian myth. Accordingly, modernization becomes the result of secularization, and not vice versa, as the proponents of the first approach assumed. The thematization in the discourse on the secularization of a new type of society, which J. Habermas called post-secular society, demonstrates a crisis of principles constituting the Modernity’s foundations. Predictions of the epoch of an irreligious society did not come true, and secular reason is now forced to reckon with other types of rationality and take them into account, including in public space. This situation suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new form of social reality. Thus, the article concludes: discourse on secularization is recognized as the most adequate strategy of the comprehension of Modernity; secularization should be viewed as a consistent detranscendentalization of Christian social reality; the emergence of a post-secular society indicates fundamental transformations in the field of the most general ideas about the nature of cultural mind and cultural identities. (shrink)

While the concept of secularization is traditionally used to define the nature of modern culture, and sometimes to uncover the theological origins of secular modernity, its validity is being questioned ever more radically today. Genealogies of the Secular returns to the historical, intellectual, and philosophical roots of this concept in the twentieth-century German debates on religion and modernity, and presents a wide range of strategies that German thinkers have applied to apprehend the connection between religion and secularism. In fundamentally (...) heterogeneous ways, these strategies all developed "genealogies of the secular" by tracing modern phenomena back to their religious or theological roots. This book aims to disclose the complex prehistory of the contemporary debates on political theology and postsecularism, and to show how prominent thinkers continue this German tradition today. It explores and assesses the classic theories of secularization that are epitomized in Carl Schmitt's writings on political theology, but also addresses German philosophers whose work has been rarely associated with secularization, including Walter Benjamin, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, and Hannah Arendt. Attention is also paid to two thinkers whose role in these discourses has not been fully explored yet: Jacob Taubes and Jan Assmann. By introducing their thinking on religion, politics, and secularization, the book also makes two of their own key texts available to an English-language readership. (shrink)

In his recent book Islam Evolving: Radicalism, Reformation, and the Uneasy Relationship with the Secular West, Taner Edis discusses Islamic responses to the modern world and how the West deals and should deal with them. He argues convincingly that the biggest threat to secular liberalism is not fundamentalism but an Islamic form of modernity. He attributes some of the latter's success to Western neoliberalism and to the failure of secular liberals to come up with persuasive arguments. He thus puts part (...) of the blame on the West. However, although self-criticism is an essential aspect of a well-functioning democracy, we should not take it too far. Instead, there exist convincing reasons why a secular liberal society is strongly preferable to a religious conservative one. (shrink)

Max Weber’s sociological theories of secularization have vastly influenced the study of Protestant belief. _Protestant Modernity_ offers a multifaceted understanding of secularization within the broader context of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism. Anthony J. Carroll reconstructs Weber’s original writings to highlight Protestant motifs, reviews current secularization theories, and settles debates about contested meanings of secularization in this volume that will be essential reading for students and scholars of theology and the sociology of religion.

Secularism is usually thought to contain the project of self-deification, in which humans attack God’s authority in order to take his place, freed from all constraints. Julie E. Cooper overturns this conception through an incisive analysis of the early modern justifications for secular politics. While she agrees that secularism is a means of empowerment, she argues that we have misunderstood the sources of secular empowerment and the kinds of strength to which it aspires. Contemporary understandings of secularism, Cooper contends, have (...) been shaped by a limited understanding of it as a shift from vulnerability to power. But the works of the foundational thinkers of secularism tell a different story. Analyzing the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau at the moment of secularity’s inception, she shows that all three understood that acknowledging one’s limitations was a condition of successful self-rule. And while all three invited humans to collectively build and sustain a political world, their invitations did not amount to self-deification. Cooper establishes that secular politics as originally conceived does not require a choice between power and vulnerability. Rather, it challenges us—today as then—to reconcile them both as essential components of our humanity. (shrink)

In this brief response to Herbert De Vriese’s The Charm of Disenchantment, his attempt to link secularism and modernity is questioned. Criticism is leveled at De Vriese’s use of the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick the Great without reference to the historical context, notably the confessional states that existed between roughly 1650 and 1800 in Europe. De Vriese’s apology for disenchantment and modernity is also questioned in the light of both modern religious and secular responses to modernity as exemplified by (...) the Dalai Lama and Bernard Stiegler. (shrink)

What is secularity? Might it yield or define a distinctive form of reasoning? If so, would that form of reasoning belong essentially to our modern age, or would it instead have a considerably older lineage? And what might be the relation of that form of reasoning, whatever its lineage, to the Christian thinking that is often said to oppose it? In the present volume, these and related questions are addressed by a distinguished group of scholars working primarily within the Roman (...) Catholic theological tradition and from the perspectives of Continental philosophy. As a whole, the volume constitutes a conversation among thinkers who agree in their concerns but not necessarily their conclusions. Taken individually, each essay concentrates on a range of historical developments with close attention to their intellectual and sometimes pedagogical implications. Secular reason, they argue, is neither the antipode of Christian thought nor a stable and well-resolved component of it. Christian thinking may engage with secular reason as the site of profound difficulties, but on occasion will also learn from it as a source of new insight. _Christianity and Secular Reason_ contributes to the contemporary discussion of secularity prompted especially by Charles Taylor’s book _A Secular Age_. Unlike Taylor's work, however, this collection concentrates specifically on secular _reason_ and explicitly on its relation to Christianity. In this sense, it is closer to Michael J. Buckley’s _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ or, to a lesser degree, Louis Dupré’s _Passage to Modernity_, which concern themselves with broad cultural developments. "This volume offers a variety of perspectives, some historical, some normative/constructive, on the questions of the relations between politics/culture/religion and the relations between selfhood/humanity/world. The essays are, without exception, of high quality in both scholarly-exegetical terms, and constructive-normative ones. The writers are learned, sometimes witty, and often interesting." —_Paul Griffiths, Duke Divinity School _ "This is no other volume I know of that covers just this ground. There is a substantial literature on, for example, the Habermas/Ratzinger exhange, and on Kant's view of the relation between philosophy and religion, and on the twelfth century background for thirteenth century reflection on this relation. The merit of _Christianity and Secular Reason_ is that it holds these threads together, and others besides, in a new and fruitful way." —_John E. Hare, Yale University_. (shrink)

The issue, which is at stake here, consists in analysing the modern view of ethics in the context of the social and cultural transformation of the status of the individual. The role of ethics in the history of the modern mind is strictly related to the struggle between liberal individualism and the ge- neric idea of “man,” presented as a social actor in a large political and ideological arena. As a matter of fact, beginning with Illuminism, the radical as- sumption (...) concerning the “human rights” has sev- ered two different directions of thought: 1) The theory of human rights, which are immediately and unconditionally related to the preservation of both negative and positive rights of the individual; 2) the Hegelian and Post-Hegelian view (especially Marxism) – the social and political liberty of the indi- vidual is protected only by the direct intervention of the State. Thus, introducing the traditional concept of “virtue” – following Alasdair MacIntyre’s theory on traditional virtues – into the arena of the modern ethics debate is seen at first as an adven- turous task, but finally, as a possible solution – the neo-Aristotelian view of virtues could be considered as a positive response to the more increasing crisis of traditional values in our society. (shrink)

The ideas of modernity and post-modernity have recently come to figure prominently in social thought. Their importance for social thought about religion, however, has not generally been explored. Yet recent concern with modernity and its aftermath is closely related to the widespread interest that used to be taken in secularization. Indeed, I hope to show that some of the basic questions at issue are much the same.

Sjoerd Griffioen investigates the polemics between Löwith, Blumenberg and Schmitt in the German secularization debate. ‘Secularization’ is revealed as a contested concept in ideological struggles over modernity and religion, both in this debate and contemporary postsecularism.

The purpose of this article is to identify how modern Russia can build good relationships between multiple Russian religions and the state. At present there are many obstacles standing in the way of achieving this goal. The article includes a great many statistics, and discusses political, social, and religious views of the issue.The working Russian Constitution provides major legal provisions for democratic relationships between religions and the state. The law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” (1997) clarified constitutional provisions. (...) It should not forgotten that Russia is a secular state claiming to respect all religions. No doubt the supremacy of Orthodoxy in Russia after 1721 and the extreme atheism that arose in the Soviet Union after 1917 influenced people’s minds greatly. While the countries in Western Europe were moving from religiosity to secularism, Russia was developing the other way around. But while respecting all religions, Russia should not forget to be mindful of extremism. Religious associations themselves are likewise uneasy about the danger presented by certain mystic, neo-pagan, and destructive sects. The author argues that the best compromise between religions and the modern Russian state canonly be achieved on the basis of equality and freedom. (shrink)

This article seeks to consider the ways in which substitutes for religion have been found both through a discussion of the treatment of religion in the classical sociological theories of Weber; Durkheim and Marx and then the way in which in modern societies alternative sets of belief and practices which fulfi l the same function as religion have been developed in the Communist and the postCommunist and Western worlds.

In _René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis_, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible’s exposure of the (...) cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism._ In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard’s basic intellectual vision and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of “secularization” and “modernity,” as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard’s own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: “What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?” "Scott Cowdell's book is the first comprehensive study of modernity and secularity in René Girard's thought. Cowdell brings Girard's theory into a fruitful dialogue with leading approaches on secularization like those of Max Weber, Hans Blumenberg, Peter Berger, and Charles Taylor. Scholars and students of theology, philosophy, and sociology will benefit from this wide-ranging overview of the relationship between religion, modernity, and secularization." — Wolfgang Palaver, Institute of Systematic Theology, University of Innsbruck __ "In a stunning analysis, Cowdell shows that Girard’s sustained intellectual pursuit, which began in the 1960s with his mimetic analysis of modern realist fiction, has always been about the religiosity of the modern and postmodern social condition, even when it has dealt explicitly with the religious origins of antique culture. Cowdell demonstrates the 'highly explanatory and predictive' quality of Girard’s cultural anthropology, within which the 'secular' does not escape the 'religious.' This is a powerful book." — Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame __ "Scott Cowdell is one of the most interesting theological voices of his generation. The themes in Cowdell's work are always cosmic and vast in scope. This is a remarkable reading of our contemporary situation through the lens of René Girard. Accurate, informed, and illuminating, Cowdell has written a fabulous book. For the person needing a way into Girard and for the person who is already using Girard's work, Cowdell brings out the implications of Girard for the moment in which we live. An absolutely essential addition to your personal library." — The Very Rev Dr. Ian Markham, Virginia Theological Seminary_. (shrink)

_Global Religious and Secular Dynamics_ integrates European theories of modern secularization and theories of global religious revival as interrelated dynamics. Casanova contrasts the internal European road of secularization with the external colonial road of global interreligious encounters and the globalization of the secular immanent frame with the expansion of global religious denominationalism.

We live in a time when the religious outlook is rapidly losing its popularity. According to the Gallup International Association, which studied religiosity levels in 57 countries around the world, covering about 70% of the world's population, more than half the earthlings, 59%, regard themselves as religious people, while 23% said they were not religious and 13 % generally refer to themselves as convinced atheists. As a result, 36% of people do not have religious beliefs. These data prove the fact (...) that in recent years, 9% of humanity has broken with religion. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss the historical adequacy of Charles Taylor's philosophical history of secularization, as presented in his A Secular Age . I do so by situating it in relation to the contextual historiography of secularization in early modern Europe, with a particular focus on developments in the German Empire. Considering how profoundly conceptions of secularization have been bound to competing religious and political programmes, we must begin our discussion by entertaining the possibility that modern philosophical (...) and historiographic conceptions of secularization might themselves be outcrops of this unfinished competition. Peter Gordon has rightly observed that Taylor's philosophical history of secularization is a Catholic one, and that this is bound up with a specific view of secularization as a theological and ecclesiological “disembedding” of rational subjectivity from its prior embodiment in a sacral body, community , and cosmos. Taylor delivers this history in his “reform master narrative”: that certain fundamental religious and cultural reforms or changes in early modern Europe wrought the secularization responsible for a modern epoch of “unbelief”. (shrink)

In the lively debate of the last two decades about the validity of the ‘secularization thesis’, the comparison between Europe and the USA plays a central role. The high level of religiosity beyond the Atlantic has put under pressure the assumption of the loss of importance of religion in modernity, which had been prevalent for a long time. In this debate, the connection between the differentiation theory and sociology of religion, which has already been discussed by the classics of (...) the discipline, has attracted too little attention. This article takes up this desideratum and proposes, following Max Weber, a theory of differentiation which is able to cover the variety of religious processes. This proposed analysis will be made concrete with reference to the different paths to modernity of Europe and the USA and the related importance of religion. (shrink)

The article considers the key factors in development of the religious situation in the second half of the twentieth century, which caused a radical change in the attitude to the theory of secularization by sociologists of religion. From the beginning, the theory of secularization was a core part of the general theory of modernization and marked the specifics of modernization`s impact on religious life. However, the inability to explain such phenomena as the sharp rise in religiosity in post-socialist (...) countries, as well as the consistently high level of religiosity in the typically modernist United States, led researchers to abandon the classical theory of secularization. Another reason for the change in the attitude to secularization was the presence of a religious component in numerous political conflicts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The religious factor in the conflicts was so unusual and decisive that under its influence the theory of “clash of civilizations” by S. Huntington was born at the end of the twentieth century. Even though the general theory of modernization has not disappeared and still remains popular among sociologists of religion, there is no clear reference to the theory of secularization. Secularization is considered either a random part of modernization processes at certain stages, or one of the options for the development of the religious situation along with counter-secularization, or even completely rejected as a false positivist construct that has not been validated with the real state of affairs. (shrink)

Weiming’s program of overcoming the enlightenment mentality and throws a critical light on his conceptions of religious or spiritual Confucianism, of a Confucian modernity, and of the multiple modernities theory in general. It defends a unitary rather than multiple concept of modernity in terms of the realization of a morally controlled principle of free subjectivity and tries to show how Confucianism, understood as a secular ethics, could contribute to this goal.

This paper considers Stephen Darwall’s recent attempt to overturn Elizabeth Anscombe’s claim that moral obligation only really makes sense in terms of a divine command account, where he argues that in fact this account must give way to a more secularized and humanistic position if it is to avoid incoherence. It is suggested that Darwall’s attempt to establish this is flawed, and thus that his internal critique of divine command ethics fails.

Cover -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One: Writing against Theodicy: Secularization in Baudelaire's Poetry and Critical Essays -- Chapter Two: The Mourning of God and the Ironies of Secularization in Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris -- Chapter Three: Sublimation and Conversion in Zola and Huysmans -- Chapter Four: The Staging of Doubt: Zola and Huysmans on Lourdes -- Chapter Five: Religious and Secular Conversions: Transformations in Céline's Medical Perspective on Evil -- (...) Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Book. (shrink)

Daniel Bell’s writings are often cast as offering a contemporary jeremiad regarding the corrosive effects of culture upon the modern economic and social order. In this paper, I take the opposite approach and argue that Bell is a sensitive cultural analyst who is claiming that human experience ought not to be deprived of culture – understood as symbol and myth that tap into the felt need for human transcendence. Bell could therefore be seen as a strong advocate for the concept (...) of culture, and for a cultural sociology. It is only that the modern (and postmodern) versions of culture do not realize the full potential of culture to move and inspire human actors. The conclusion is reached that what ails modern culture is neither rationalization nor secularization, but rather what Bell termed the ‘Great Profanization’. Rendering culture profane is much more serious, and deleterious, than any of the other specific dynamics sociologists have diagnosed regarding modern culture. (shrink)

Daniel Bell’s writings are often cast as offering a contemporary jeremiad regarding the corrosive effects of culture upon the modern economic and social order. In this paper, I take the opposite approach and argue that Bell is a sensitive cultural analyst who is claiming that human experience ought not to be deprived of culture – understood as symbol and myth that tap into the felt need for human transcendence. Bell could therefore be seen as a strong advocate for the concept (...) of culture, and for a cultural sociology. It is only that the modern versions of culture do not realize the full potential of culture to move and inspire human actors. The conclusion is reached that what ails modern culture is neither rationalization nor secularization, but rather what Bell termed the ‘Great Profanization’. Rendering culture profane is much more serious, and deleterious, than any of the other specific dynamics sociologists have diagnosed regarding modern culture. (shrink)

Gravestones and inscription stones, which are among the oldest indicators of the phenomenon of death engraved in the public memory with images and rituals, are the ancient interpreters of the consciousness of death, which is the redemption of human beings as conscious beings. The phenomenon of death or dying, which was domesticated through a natural spirituality in antiquity, and a monotheistic religiosity in the Middle Ages, loses its spirituality by becoming profaned in the hands of consumer culture and is brutalized (...) today in terms of lifestyle by being cut off from existence in positivist paradigm in epistemological terms. The study deals with the secular perception of death and the individual and social crises caused by this perception in the context of tradition and modernity. The purpose of the study is to draw attention to the spread of natural and materialist assumptions in the perception of death and the strengthening of the profane elements in mourning ceremonies and to make sense of the traces left by this process in the individual and society. It is seen in the study that the efforts to cover up and intimidate the deceased and the subject of loss bring existential crises, alienation, and violence against oneself or others. On the other hand, it is also understood that it is not a coincidence that the traces of the culture of reconciliation built between death and life by the traditional perception of death in the countryside as an alternative perception faced. The study has been conducted with the document analysis design method, which is a qualitative research type. The approaches to the phenomenon of death have been subjected to a chronological literature reading in the study, and the diagnoses of the 21st century attitudes of the death perception, which were reached by going back to early days, were tested in historical and semiotics terms with the films Making Ships from Watermelon Shell (2004) and Shattered (2021), which were chosen to represent two different paradigms as documentary data. The study is important in that it examined the changing perception of death and the culture of mourning in detail and created a current topography and contributes to the studies of the sociology of death, which is still a fresh field. (shrink)

Charles Taylor in A Secular Age describes the modern secular age as one in which ‘the eclipse of all goals beyond human flourishing … falls within the range of an imaginable life for masses of people’. This article reflects on his historico-analytic investigation of the emergence of modern secularity and his account of how it shapes the current conditions of belief. Taylor challenges the widespread presumption against belief mainly on ethical considerations, especially what counts as human fulfilment. The article argues (...) that he fails to deal adequately with epistemic considerations bearing on belief and unbelief. Furthermore, his argument is weakened by a surprising absence of attention to the primary account of human fulfilment in Greek philosophy as a central element in the Christian tradition. (shrink)

In his philosophical texts Levinas privileges le dire (“the saying”), which always presupposes the relation to the other, over le dit (“the said”), which transforms the other into an objective entity. Likewise in his analysis of thinking, he does not limit himself to the thought itself but aspires to reach what he characterizes by the word “transcendence.” This is a cardinal concept of his philosophy; it is not restricted to the religious meaning that God and God’s essence are beyond human (...) comprehension, but expresses the true sense of beyond myself. Such is the vocation of ethics, but it can be conceived and understood only through the secularization of “the sacred” (or more exactly, “the sanctified”). The literal meaning of “transcendence” is “beyond” (trans) and “ascend” (scando). In Levinas’s work, this word designates the change of place that is conceived as the ethical passage of the I to the other, or the substitution of myself for the other. (shrink)

In his philosophical texts Levinas privileges le dire, which always presupposes the relation to the other, over le dit, which transforms the other into an objective entity. Likewise in his analysis of thinking, he does not limit himself to the thought itself but aspires to reach what he characterizes by the word “transcendence.” This is a cardinal concept of his philosophy; it is not restricted to the religious meaning that God and God’s essence are beyond human comprehension, but expresses the (...) true sense of beyond myself. Such is the vocation of ethics, but it can be conceived and understood only through the secularization of “the sacred”. The literal meaning of “transcendence” is “beyond” and “ascend”. In Levinas’s work, this word designates the change of place that is conceived as the ethical passage of the I to the other, or the substitution of myself for the other. (shrink)