Post-Secular Theory

This book argues that hope is the indispensable precondition of religious practice and secular politics. Against dogmatic complacency and despairing resignation, David Newheiser argues that hope sustains commitments that remain vulnerable to disappointment. Since the discipline of hope is shared by believers and unbelievers alike, its persistence indicates that faith has a future in a secular age.

Drawing on premodern theology and postmodern theory, Newheiser shows that atheism and Christianity have more in common than they often acknowledge. Writing in a clear and engaging style, he develops a new reading of deconstruction and negative theology, arguing that (despite their differences) they share a self-critical hope. By retrieving texts and traditions that are rarely read together, this book offers a major intervention in debates over the place of religion in public life.

This article is concerned with thinking transformations of the secular, and does so in relation to two theoretical terrains, while empirically grounded in ethnographies of Christian and Islamic pious women in the Netherlands. A first theoretical terrain under consideration is that of how the relation between modernity and religion is elaborated, notably in secularization theories, and how these established frameworks are challenged by a different kind of articulation between modernity and religion that I observed in narratives and practices of young Evangelical and Islamic women in the Netherlands. The article traces the contours of a 'pious modern', showing how from a faith-centred perspective the modern can be incorporated and indeed produced. In this context, I argue that the way in which notions of modernization and secularization have been theoretically hinged on each other needs to be further revisited, and I propose to consider the 'post-secular' as a new disarticulation between the modern and the secular. A second theoretical terrain concerns questions of agency and subjectivity. Here I trace how situating religious agency in its own grammar makes secular assumptions in social, critical and feminist theory visible, and generates different understandings not only of agency but also of notions such as autonomy, and the capacity to act and shape the world.

The discipline of anthropology is dominated by a secular analytical approach which requires the bounding of religion and its exclusion from anthropological ways-of-knowing. This is premised on a historical understanding of the discipline as scientific, rational, objective and modern. While these norms are now routinely critiqued, theology remains peculiarly marginalised. This article probes the contours of an anthropology beyond the secular which involves both critical reflection on the secularity of the discipline and a willingness to experiment with new ways of doing anthropology with/in theology.

Taking ideas about interfaith communication among stakeholders in the British “God Debate”
as an illustrative case, I propose that the translation metaphor, widely adopted across
disciplines, might productively be replaced by a different metaphor, “translanguaging”
(García and Wei 2013). I suggest that the model of sociolinguistic relations offered by
translanguaging nicely addresses the genealogical inseparability of “religious” language and
“secular” language. This working replacement for the translation metaphor invites new kinds
of philosophical and anthropological engagements with difference and may be extended to the
analysis of other phenomena that demand non-binary thought, such as transculturalism,
transgenderism and transnationalism. [translation metaphor, translanguaging, Britain,
religion, interfaith dialogue]

About 25% of the Jewish population in Israel consists of “secular believers.” They self-identify as secular but also believe in God or some kind of higher/deeper power(s). Their identity conflicts with the conventional identification of secularism with atheism, as do post-secular theologies, whose theological ideas reject traditional religion while adopting concepts of faith. Western feminism proved especially conducive to the development of post-secular theology. This study addresses both Israeli Judaism and feminist theology from a post-secular perspective. It analyses two academic fields of discourse—feminist Jewish theology and feminism in Israel—to determine whether, how and why they are developing a Jewish post-secular feminist theology. The study reveals that such theologies are rare and suggests that discursive field structure limits their development.

This paper draws on the results of ethnographic research on 'women's circles'; women-only spaces that celebrate sisterhood and the 'feminine', including the increasingly globally popular 'Red Tent'. Women's circles are non-institutionalized, often monthly gatherings, for women to come together and relax, meditate, share stories, partake in rituals, heal, nourish, and empower themselves. Based on fieldwork and in-depth interviews with founders and organizer-practitioners of women's circles in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, the study shows how they offer a growing number of women from diverse backgrounds a space that they find lacking in secular-liberal society, out of a desire to 're/connect' with each other, their bodies, their inner selves, and sometimes with the sacred. Women's circles are indicative of women's heightened participation in the realm of subjective wellbeing culture, including both elements of spirituality and more secular 'personal growth'. Against the presumption that circles would be merely expressive of neo-liberal individualist consumer culture or retrograde gender essentialism, the paper argues they can be viewed as sites of sisterhood, solidarity, and dissent, cultivating a new type of femininity grounded in both affirmative and more oppositional forms of emerging feminist consciousness. In response to the so-called 'post-secular turn in feminism' and the growing interest for religion and, more recently, spirituality in (secular) feminist theory, the paper pleads for a reconsideration of the rise of women's spirituality/wellbeing culture in the West as a form of post-secular agency.

This paper seeks to problematise and complexify scholarly
accounts of contemporary emotional repression in Western contexts
by presenting counterevidence in the form of two examples
of post-secular collective affectivity and their ritual expressions. It
argues that both narratives of emotional repression and expression
fail to capture the non-linear complexity of processes of
cultural transformation, which have resulted in the simultaneous
expression and repression of ritualistic affects that are products of
our evolutionary embodied history. Drawing on insights from
affect theory, this paper seeks to illustrate how contingent yet
nonetheless residual ritualistic affects have become repressed in
the nominally secular public sphere in modernity. This has presented
certain obstacles to the open communal display of religious
ritual, and, as a corollary, the expression of certain religious
affects, which have subsequently re-emerged in post-secular ritual
spaces that are both publically private and privately public, carved
by contemporary renewal movements. Two of these ‘formations of
the post-secular’ are explored here: the Sunday Assembly, a secular
church, and Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, an international
Pentecostal Deliverance church.

Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".

In their two hundred years of existence, the Chilean armed forces have had a close relationship with the Catholic faith, especially with a local version of the Virgin Mary (Virgen del Carmen), who is held as the patroness of the military. After its greatest tragedy in peacetime, when 44 soldiers-half of them Christian evangelicals-died buried in the snows of the Antuco volcano, the army and other branches of the military felt compelled to add Protestant chaplaincies to their repertoire of religious assistance, hitherto reserved for Catholics. This has been understood as a move towards a more egalitarian and inclusive understanding of religious freedom, but also as opposing exclusivist versions of liberal neutrality, in which the state fulfils its duty by taking religion out of the public sphere altogether. According to the times' intellectual climate, the Chilean authorities have been framing these developments-not only in the military, but elsewhere-as the embodiment of a post-secular strategy, in which religion (all religion) should be welcomed back into public life and state institutions. This article presents five concerns with this chosen strategy: (a) whether inclusive secularism is a practical impossibility, since there is no way to accommodate all religious and non-religious expressions; (b) whether a post-secular narrative is adequate for states that that have not gone through the previous (secular) phase; (c) whether post-secular institutional arrangements-which entail welcoming religion in the public sphere-are adequate in countries without religious pluralism; (d) whether post-secular institutional arrangements-which entail welcoming religion in the public sphere-are not actually disparaging for non-religious people; (e) whether sponsored religious expressions and practices within public institutions put undue pressure on dissenters. This way, I offer the case of the Chilean armed forces as a proxy to illuminate the normative problems that an incipient process of growing religious pluralism and a move towards religious egalitarianism, framed as a post-secular discourse, faces in hegemonically Catholic countries.

This chapter attempted to do three things:
1) Discuss the idea of secularism in the exemplary works of three scholars having diverse onto-epistemologies
2) Distinguish between "secular" and "secularism"
3) Introduce the concept of Green Secularism

Somewhere in some activity or condition lies a fullness and richness. In that place (activity or condition) life is fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be. 1 Innovation is a contemporary buzzword, used in a great number of situations.

This chapter contrasts the evolution of secular models in two post-Ottoman Muslim-majority countries in Europe –Turkey and Albania. Both countries, and their respective secular models, have historically developed under the dominant influence of European ideas of modernity, and similar concerns to ‘secure’ the new states in a lukewarm European context. The secular arrangements, established during the founding moment of independent states in the early 20th century, resulted out of new state’s engagement with modern European concepts such as nation- and state-building, central-state authority and rational separation between state and religion. Yet, they also reflected the urge of these new states in the making to secure their European statehood by downplaying and controlling the contested role of Islam in the new European geopolitical sphere. What kind of secular models did Turkey and Albania, two predominantly Muslim states, develop within such a historical context? How do these models relate to European secular ideals? How do they discipline and control the role of Islam? And how have Islamic actors operates within these models –adapted, contested but also benefited from existing institutional frameworks?

How have anthropologists related to extraordinary or supernatural phenomena (the transcendent) in disciplinary definitions of religion and in the practice of social analysis? This text argues that the discipline's engagement with alterities that dispute our ontological secular conceptions makes evident its form of knowledge production. The central claim is that anthropology's secularity is not fixed and should be discussed as part of a historical process. I propose to analyse two modalities of secularity, which I term 'extinction' and 'captivity'. A second claim is that despite their differences, both modalities (re)produce to its academic and Euro-American audience anthropology's own secularity as a natural human condition. A third claim is that by recognising the characteristics of our discipline's secularity we may start to speak of a plurality of secular ontologies as a way to register the multiplicity of 'worldliness' that traditions and individuals may assume or call for.

Rooted in the postsecular turn of the study of religion and society, postsecular theology is conceptualized in this article as an umbrella term for theologies offering hybrid interpretations of religiosity and spirituality within a framework that adopts numerous ostensibly secular values and perceptions. In this article, I apply postsecular theological reading to two pairs of thinkers: post-Christian feminist theologians Mary Daly and Daphne Hampson and non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers A. D. Gordon and Martin Buber. Assessing the similarities between them, I sketch the details of their common ''postsecular'' ground, aiming at enrichment of our understanding of postsecular theology. I then discuss differences between the theologians from a feminist perspective, suggesting that Daly's and Hampson's feminist sensitivity exposes Buber's and Gordon's gender blindness, while Buber and Gordon introduce Jewish-oriented ideas that may enrich the Christian-dominated field of postsecular feminist theology.

This article offers an interpretation of late modern social imaginaries and their relationship to religion and violence. I hypothesize that the transition from the "secular age" to a so-called "post-secular constellation" calls on us to critically reconsider the modern trope that all too unambiguously ties religion and violence together. Discussing the fault lines of a secularist modernity spinning out of control today on various fronts, I argue that the narrative semantics of the so-called "return of religion" is frequently adopted as an imaginative catalyst for confronting these contemporary discontents-for better and worse. In linking recent work on "social imaginaries" with Paul Ricoeur's discussion of the productive role of imagination in social life, I then explore the transformative potential of religious imagination in its inherent ambiguity. In conclusion I demonstrate that this quality involves a poietic license to start all over, one which can be used to expose both the violence of our beloved political ideals of freedom and sovereignty, as well as their repercussions on religious practice.

Under den såkalte europeiske flyktningekrisen i 2015 var Norge vitne til noen av de mest intense verbale konfrontasjonene mellom biskoper i Den norske kirke og statsråder i den norske regjering i nyere tid. Artikkelen forsøker å vise hvordan de retoriske praksisene i denne konflikten gjenspeiler to ulike modeller for det politiske i offentligheten: Jürgen Habermas' deliberative demokrati og Chantal Mouffes agonistiske demokrati. Fra et teologisk ståsted kan Habermas' ideal om oversettelse av et religiøst språk til et sekulaert sies å begrense kirkens politiske engasjement. Men Mouffes modell kan gi større rom for teologiens praktiske, lidenskapelige og imaginaere dimensjoner. During the so-called " European Migrant Crisis " in 2015 Norway witnessed some of the most intense verbal confrontations between the bishops in the Church of Norway and ministers in the Norwegian government in recent history. The article aims at demonstrating how rhetorical practices within this conflict reflect two different models for the political in the public square: Jürgen Habermas' model of deliberative democracy and Chantal Mouffe's model of agonistic democracy. From a theological point of view, Habermas' ideal of translating the religious language into a secular one restricts the public intervention of the Church. Moreover, Mouffe's model allows the practical, passionate and imaginary dimensions of theology to come more to the fore. I det følgende vil jeg kort gjengi hovedtrekkene i en strid mellom Den norske kirkes biskoper og den norske regjeringen og plassere den i en bredere norsk kontekst. I denne striden mener jeg å finne likheter med to ulike modeller for politikk, hvorav begge er fremtredende innenfor debatter i politisk teori: Jürgen Habermas' deliberative modell og Chantal Mouffes agonistiske modell. Begge modellene har implikasjoner for religiøst språk i en moderne offentlighet og for hva slags politisk teologi som er virksom i kirkens politiske engasjement. Artikkelen vil peke på noen muligheter og begrensninger for kirkens politiske rolle med utgangspunkt i det som kan betegnes som teologiens fire kognitive former: den imaginaere, lidenskapelige, praktiske og intellektuelle.

Following the work of Bhargava, as well as Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini,  in this volume, the editors take as a point of departure the fact that secularism is plural, that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world, and that secularism takes on different social and cultural meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. At the same time, however, we acknowledge the hegemonic desiderata of secularism’s universalizing claims. That is, we see the importance of recognizing secularism as an Enlightenment legacy that exhibits universalizing ambitions. Thus, it is necessary to keep in mind both the doctrinal claims of secularism – its supposed difference from religion(s), its association with “progress” and modernity, its assertions of rationality and neutrality, its claims of exclusivity in connection with public life – as well as how this doctrinal logic unfolds in various contexts. Given this conception of secularism as both universalizing doctrine and particular instantiation, the essays in this volume provide numerous points of contact between theoretical/historical reflection and empirical case studies on secularisms in context. Recognizing that secular traditions have developed differently around the world and that this multiplicity must necessarily inform and complicate the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine delivered wholesale from the Enlightenment, we have sought to gain clearer and more nuanced appreciations of the complexities of the concept of secularism from empirical case studies. Analyses of different regions, we believe, enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity, while adding dimension to our understanding of regional conditions and conflicts themselves. We maintain that theoretical and historical reflections over the meanings of secularism benefit from such empirical studies, serving to illustrate theories while also challenging traditional understandings that otherwise may remain unchallenged from within the more or less purely theoretical debates. At the same time, theoretical/historical treatments of secularism, we believe, help to inform our understanding of secularisms in context, enabling us to discern the principles at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity and/or religiosity globally. Theoretical and historical accounts help us to refine, contextualize, and revise our understandings of contemporary empirical findings.

This essay considers the notion of private selfhood as articulated in Emerson’s and Hawthorne’s writing about beauty. Though _Nature’s_ infamous “transparent Eye-ball” is frequently cited as evidence of his secular intellectual bent, the 1836 treatise borrows heavily from Jonathan Edwards’s aesthetics. Seen in this light, the early Emerson displays far more reliance on his Congregationalist Christian influences than is typically supposed, promoting a vision of the soul that resembles more than refigures colonial New England’s predominant configuration of homogenous interiority. Hawthorne’s writing about the beautiful, on the other hand, offers art as a vehicle for transcending humankind’s inherent isolation. While art rarely attains the status of true beauty, it does so when bringing particulars of the artist’s innermost self into meaningful contact with his community. Thus Hawthorne’s selfhood resonates with modern discourses of individualism more so than does Emerson’s.

Increasingly religion is recognised within public debate, as realising the post-secular according to Habermas. Furthermore for Habermas citizen participation is possible via publics that are literary which operate within the public sphere that is in turn open to all citizens. On the other hand when individuals, while being religious, are educated in so called closed Islamic educational institutions, it has been argued that they retreat from public life. In effect this would mean that although Muslims may be citizens with access to the public sphere, when they choose to be educated in Islamic institutions participation in debate is inhibited. Institutions of Islamic education for women, where secular education is regarded to have less importance, are especially noted to eschew participation in national life. Learners and parents at institutions of Islamic education are however shown to desire involvement in a broader social life, but also maintain their Islamic values and principles. This thesis thus asks if Islamic education for women can allow for the expression of post-secular citizenship.
The secularisation theory, deprivatisation, as well as the post-secular construct as defined in this thesis are unable to explain how individuals, while they are religious, may be able to participate in public life. Weber‟s thesis in the Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism illustrates how individuals while they are religious can direct public debate. Protestants were able to do so due to the fact that their rational religious ethic altered their behaviour according to a particular set of patterned actions. A catalyst to patterned action premised on religion, according to Weber, is doctrinal development – the systematising of religious concepts within religious texts – in particular canonical and dogmatic texts or writing. In addition, vernacular writings are also established as an element of doctrinal development, specifically its ability to communicate a set pattern of behaviour to the laity. In the process of developing a doctrine, individuals also constitute a literary public because both require similar activities – writing texts and then reading as well as discussing them. The thesis then contends that one way to assess whether Islamic education can allow for post-secular citizenship is to determine whether it contributes to doctrinal development. In this way those who are educated in Islamic education institutions could participation in the public sphere and express post-secular citizenship. The Deobandi education movement, demonstrated to be a dominant Islamic doctrine in South Africa in relation to public participation, is then found to be involved in doctrinal development. An effect of doctrinal development, the rationalisation of religion, realises a set pattern of action. Doctrinal development can thus also spawn Muslim publics – those who act according to an interpretation of Islam in a public space. The thesis relates, from literature on women‟s Deobandi institutions, that patterned behaviour intent on engendering a particular interpretation of Islamic womanhood can be seen as reflected in the public sphere. Further research at Deobandi Islamic education institutions for women is thus advocated to explore the phenomenon.
Data were gathered at an institution of Islamic education for adolescent women, Warda Madrasa (WM), finding a strong association with the Deobandi education movement. In addition a set pattern of action or behaviour is endorsed at WM via a particular corpus of texts. Findings from the data presented that was gathered at WM strongly tie the institution to the development of a doctrine, Muslim public and literary public. Moreover the findings point to an additional element in doctrinal development, through patterned action – specifically purdah, engendered at institutions such as WM. Purdah allows the body to be read like a book; to become a bodily text and thus bringing an interpretation of Islam into a public space and directing debate in the public sphere. As such, the thesis concludes, Islamic education for women in South Africa can allow for the expression of post-secular citizenship.

From the "War on Terror" initiated during the Bush administration to the European conflict over the right to wear Islamic headscarves, the return of religion is a central challenge to international law and policy in the post-Cold War. The legitimacy of international law is based on the claim that the normative foundations of modern sovereignty are agnostic to transcendental truth and political agendas. A sensibility of disenchantment, in other words, sustains the promise of international law's emancipatory character. This article challenges the disenchantment thesis within international law through a historical and discursive analysis that draws upon diverse literature from legal theory, sociopolitical history, and theology. First, the article provides a revisionist history to the mainstream characterization that international law is a liberal cosmopolitan scheme of governance born through the slow divorce from a natural law and/or Christian orientation (e.g., the secularization thesis). Second, the article analyzes how the disenchantment thesis structures the options within international legal argument today, and in doing so, seeks to demonstrate that these options represent a set of false distinctions that hide the distinctly Christian core of modern international law. In conclusion, the article raises and considers the possibilities and limits of emancipation through international law in relation to its Christian orientation.

Mary holds the Christ child in the traditional formula, but unexpectedly, angels appear above bearing not good news, but a cross, spear and sponge - tidings of Christ’s future torment. This is the Virgin of the Passion icon. Due to its enormous proliferation by papal command, it has been called perhaps the most popular religious icon of the twentieth century. But despite an abundance of recent studies on the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, there has been little investigation into what first spurred this iconographical
innovation. This dissertation pursues this question by exploring four themes related to the Virgin of the Passion in Byzantium: Power, painting, priesthood, and predestination.

My first two chapters explore what the Virgin of the Passion is not. “Power” has been a pervasive scholarly theme in the humanities in recent decades, and Byzantine art history is no exception. Yet a vague concept of power does little to illuminate the original context of the first known Virgin of the Passion, which dates to 1192 on the island of Cyprus. Instead, the image conveys an iconography of political defeat, which was possible because the cult of the Virgin in Byzantium preceded imperial sponsorship, and could consequently transcend and outlast that sponsorship as well. Another obstacle to understanding the Virgin of the Passion comes from traditional accounts of the history of painting, suggesting Byzantine stasis and Renaissance innovation. Tracing the image to the creative milieu of Komnenian Constantinople, I argue that the history of the Virgin of the Passion type illustrates the reverse – Byzantine dynamism, followed by relatively homogenous mass production in the Renaissance and beyond.

My third and fourth chapters offer a new interpretation of the type. By connecting the icon to a twelfth-century Eucharistic controversy, I make the case that the original Virgin of the Passion is Eucharistic, which consequently associates Mary with priesthood. To contextualize this observation, I point to a surprising series of texts and images in the Byzantine world that also refer to Mary as priest. Finally, I offer a new interpretation of the instruments of the Passion borne by the angels above Mary and Christ. I relate them to the “Prepared Throne” imagery, a popular Byzantine motif most often interpreted as a throne “prepared” for Judgment. Instead, I make the case that it is the throne “prepared” from the foundation of the world. The result is that the Virgin of the Passion – a work of visual theology – treads on the verbally contested terrain of predestination.

PIERRE LEROUX AND THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY: A POST-SECULAR CONCEPT IN THE 19th CENTURY?

The aim of the article is to show, using the example of Pierre Leroux, that the extension of the post-secular perspective to Romanticism is not only possible, but even desirable. Leroux’s work contains in this context two fundamental aspects: first, a philosophical reflection on humanity, its true tradition and eternal life; secondly, a socio-political reflection on the necessity of establishing a civil religion. Some threads that are present in Leroux’s thought, referring to Joachimism, seem to make him closer to the views of contemporary post-secular and post-modern authors.

This paper explores issues of contemporary sexual and religious identity and orientation through an exploration of the unexpected compatibility of post-secular and queer theories. It brings together work by theologians and queer theorists including Ahmed, Althaus-Reid, Butler, and Žižek to suggest that the two concepts of agape and ecstasy may signal ways of thinking beyond the resurgent foundationalisms, both religious and scientific, that have distinguished the early twentyfold-first century.

The purpose of this article is to explore how the contemporary academic discourse on religion is, on the whole, beginning to resonate with the broader vision of reli- gion provided by the Bahá’í Writings. Toward this end, I argue that the contemporary academic discourse on religion pivots around seven narrative frameworks, which I describe respectively as the (1) subtraction, (2) renewal, (3) transsecular, (4) post-naturalist, (5) construct, (6) perennial, and (7) developmental narratives. Each of the narratives offers unique insights into the historical evolution of religion and the changing place of religion in the modern world, many of which align with the Bahá’í teachings. I endeavor to substantiate this claim in three steps. First, I discuss the theory of secularization and the nature of its recent disruption in order to elucidate the narrative problematic that lies at the heart of the contemporary academic discourse on religion. Second, I analyze the seven narrative frameworks and show how each resonates with certain aspects of Bahá’í teachings. And third, I conclude by considering how my typology of seven narratives could be used to frame further inquiry.

Dass die moderne Tendenz zur Entsakralisierung im Zuge ihrer Transformierung in universalistische Diskurse der „Rettung des Anderen“ selbst Züge eines unbedingten Anspruchs annimmt, der seine eigene Gewaltsamkeit im Zeichen der unverständlichen, oft religiös konnotierten Gewalt des Anderen ausblendet, zeigt Michael Staudigl in seiner Analyse der Diskurse über die Zerstörung der Buddha-Statuen im afghanischen Bamiyan.

The geography of choirs has seldom received attention in human geography and even less so in a Swedish context. This article analyses the geography of choirs in Sweden by focusing on choir members in the Church of Sweden. Sweden offers an interesting case of choral geography because of (1) the Church of Sweden's geographical presence, (2) the number of choir members, and (3) the role of religion in contemporary Swedish society. An intimation of the contemporary significance is that the Church of Sweden has 78,170 choir members in 2020 and is active in every municipality. The data consist of the Church of Sweden membership and choir members visualized in turn on maps. The qualitative analyses of the quantitative data reveal that there seem to be few youth-choir members in Sweden. There seem to be many children choir members in the larger cities but fewer in rural areas. The northern part of Sweden seems to have generally lower levels of choir members but higher membership in the Church of Sweden. Another finding is that high membership in the church does not necessarily mean a high number of choir memberships. For further studies, quantitative engagement with more datasets together with an engagement with post-secular theories is suggested.

While challenging the common view which sees postsecularism as a return to religion, this paper is an attempt to apply the main tenets of the postsecular thought to the literary criticism accompanying the Polish literature. After a brief presentation of several Polish poets whose works meet the proposed criteria of postsecularism (T. Karpowicz, K. Milobedzka, S. Baranczak and W. Wirpsza), the author sets forth the argument that it is the linguistic aspect of the poems that lets us read them as postsecular. The main part of the paper is a critical reading of Witold Wirpsza’s 1971 poem “Powrot w zamecie” (“A Return in Confusion”) which is interpreted as, on the one hand, an illustration of the idea of the society being forced into secularisation and, on the other hand, an effect of an intertextual play with Jan Kochanowski’s “Hymn”. Both aspects are crucial in identifying the postsecular rhetoric of the poem as they involve an unorthodox rendering of theological motifs and structures ...

Na publikację składają się trzy studia literaturoznawcze nad związkami literatury z nowoczesnym dyskursem nauk o życiu: od botaniki przez biologię ewolucyjną po biochemię. Analizy i refleksje autorów dotyczą tekstów pisanych w różnych częściach Europy od połowy wieku XIX do połowy wieku XX, włączając w swój zakres, z jednej strony, kulturowe oddziaływanie osiągnięć takich badaczy i myślicieli, jak Piotr Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, Charles Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Louis Pasteur i Henri Bergson, z drugiej zaś strony, modernistyczną prozę narracyjną, reprezentowaną tutaj przez Virginię Woolf i Brunona Schulza.

Modernity has inaugurated a new stage in the relationship between ecclesiastical and secular power. On the one hand, the extinction of religions was  thought  of  as  an  inevitable  future;  on  the  other,  the  emergence  of  religious orthodoxies on a global scale brought to light the complexity of a new political arrangement, in which religious and non-religious citizens vie  for  the  establishment  of  their  agendas.  At  a  time  when  secularized  societies experience the religious revival in the public sphere, the concept of  “secularism”  takes  on  new  shapes  and  can  no  longer  mean  a  simple  movement to combat religious presence in these spaces or a mere institu-tional arrangement of separation between State and Church. In this arti-cle we seek to investigate to what extent Habermas’ proposal that religion can no longer be fought as an evil to be expelled and imprisoned in the intimate sphere of individuals, and must adapt its presence in the public space through legitimate contributions to the deliberative process, cons-titutes an adequate model to the Brazilian reality, verifying its limits and possibilities. In view of the above, the present article intends to examine the  Habermasian  model  of  “post-secular  state”  as  an  alternative  to  the  current model based on laicism, through bibliographic research and using the hypothetical-deductive method. To this end, we propose a review of the main concepts formulated by Habermas, from the publication of the “Theory of Communicative Action” to the most recent texts and essays. In addition, it will also seek to answer some criticisms and formulate other questions, to delimit the viability of the Habermasian paradigm, above all, considering the Brazilian reality. In this sense, we present an outline of the arguments raised by Habermas in defense of religious participation in the public space and the parameters endorsed by him as a way of gua-ranteeing state neutrality. Finally, we confront his theses with the position of Brazilian authors and conclude by recognizing some weaknesses in his theoretical model, stressing, however, the importance of his contributions to the composition of a plural public space and a democracy attentive to the voices of all citizens.

The text deals with a question whether Hannah Arendt was influenced by Franz Rosenzweig’s "Der Stern der Erlösung" (1921) before writing "Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin" (1929). Instead of building general analogies, I studied two very specific topics – the world and birth – to demonstrate that Arendt repeated almost verbatim Rosenzweig’s whole peculiar argumentation, which played the notions of God and nature against each other to combat their overwhelming power and to make a space for the contingency of the world and the novelty of each birth.

Facing the helplessness of a philosophy which ignored mortality, Rosenzweig cried out the lament of the finite being. Philosophy, with its predilection for totality, lost adequate proportions to reflect on life. Arendt revived this paradigmatic reorientation, but with a significant twist: for her, birth and the world meant more than God for Rosenzweig. Both thinkers projected a language between philosophy and theology, inciting two idioms to a fruitful debate.

This article is aimed at pointing out the messianic dimension of Clarice Lispector’s writings. We intend to describe the post-secular vision of the collective redemption embedded in her work as essentially opposed to the vulgarized notion of political messianism. Its core element is the establishment of a new kind of justice, one that would overcome the essential hypocrisy deeply rooted in the ontological system based on individual identities. Giorgio Agamben’s and Agata Bielik-Robson’s ideas are evoked in order to analyze the meaning of the chronicle “Mineirinho” (1962) and its relations with other canonic texts by the Brazilian author.

The article begins with arguments for the importance of popular culture studies. The author then refers to Jane Feuer's cautionary notes on precipitate conclusions about supposed correlations between observed changes in representations of certain narrative elements in television shows and the assumed " needs of the audience ". The second part of the article contains an analysis of Dead Like Me (2003–2004), a Showtime network dark comedy created by Bryan Fuller and showrunned by John Masius. Religious motifs represented in the show are interpreted through the lens of the theory of secularization.

Secular and religious thinking, both, have tended to privilege acting on principle over responding to circumstances. This has allowed proponents for the separation of Church and State to argue that one can surrender matters of outward conduct in public to the State without compromising one’s “inner” beliefs. Yet, this secular conception of belief, isolated from broader social commitments, can also lead to radical expressions of faith. It is worth questioning, then, whether secularism’s configuration of belief as a free-floating mental state does not, in the long run, prove more dangerous than did culture-bound religious differences. Anti-humanism need to look beyond the secular-religious configuration of belief to embrace conceptions of the good based on practice.

‘A Tale of Two Speeches: Secularism and Primacy in Contemporary Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy’ ed. John Chryssavgis, Primacy in the Church: The Office of Primate and the Authority of the Councils, Volume 2: Contemporary and Contextual Perspectives (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016), pp.807-837.