scholarly journals Religion in the public sphere: What can public theology learn from Habermas’s latest work?

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco S. Dreyer ◽  
Hennie J.C. Pieterse
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Public ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

The complex and problematic role of religion in the public sphere in modern, democratic societies raises many questions for a public theology. The aim of this article is to contribute to the ongoing debate about the task and methods of public theology by asking what we can learn from the ideas of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas was a leading participant in the thinking process on the secularisation thesis in Western societies. His view was that religion will eventually disappear from the public scene due to the rationalisation of society. In recent years he seems to have changed this view in the light of new developments in the world. He now maintains that religion has something important to offer in the public sphere. Religion could thus participate in this public discussion, provided that it satisfies strict conditions. We argue that public theology can learn from Habermas’s recent ideas regarding religion in the public sphere: attention should be paid to the cognitive potential of religion, especially regarding the importance of the lifeworld and the role of religion in social solidarity with the needy and vulnerable; hermeneutical self-reflection is important; a distinction should be made between the role of religion in faith communities and in public life; we have to accept that we live in a secular state; and we have to learn the possibilities and impossibilities of translating from religious vocabulary into a secular vocabulary in order to be able to participate in the discussions in the public sphere.

Politicizing Solidarity in Times of Crisis: The Politics of Alternative Action Organizations in Greece, Italy, and Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 796-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Zamponi ◽  
Lorenzo Bosi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Alternative Action ◽  
Visible Effect ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual

Alternative action organizations (AAOs) are collective bodies engaged in carrying out alternatives to dominant socioeconomic and cultural practices through actions that aim to provide people with alternative ways of enduring day-to-day difficulties and challenges in hard economic times. They are often interpreted as merely “philanthropic” actors, although it is not rare to see them go beyond the provision of direct services to people in need and end up pursuing political goals through political means. This article focuses on the process of politicization, that is, the transition of issues from the private to the public sphere and thus the use of public forms of contention (e.g., protest) proposing public solutions at the collective level instead of private solutions at the individual level. We argue for the role of the crisis in the politicization of AAOs. In particular, we show that the appropriation of the context as a context of economic crisis in the discourse of AAOs has a visible effect on their politicization, in terms of both repertoire of actions and goals. Furthermore, we show that social solidarity organizations, those that are not inherently politicized, are the main protagonists of this crisis-triggered transition. The article draws on statistical analysis of the data collected through the coding of AAOs’ websites in Greece, Italy, and Spain.

Law and Religion in a Secular World: A European Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secular World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

This article examines two interpretations of the process of secularisation that can be traced back through European legal and political thought, and a more recent trend that challenges both of them. It does this through the prism of the public sphere, because in today's Europe one of the most debated issues is the place and role of religion in this sphere, understood as the space where decisions concerning questions of general interest are discussed. The article concludes, first, that the paradigm through which relations between the secular and the religious have been interpreted is shifting and, second, that this change is going to have an impact on the notion of religious freedom and, consequently, on the recognised position of religions in the public sphere.1

Religion in Latin America’s Public Sphere

2021 ◽  
pp. 152-172
Author(s):  
Gustavo S.J. Morello
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

This chapter investigates the role of religion in Latin America’s public sphere. For respondents, religion and politics share the space where power is traded. The privileged position is to challenge the economic order and to generate peaceful relations among the peoples and defend human dignity. Respondents dislike the use of that power to pursue a partisan agenda and to have a privileged voice over other persons. At odds with the laïcité project, respondents welcome religion in the public sphere when it challenges modernity to include the poor, and advocates for human dignity. Religion is cheered as a countercultural force. However, this acceptance of religion’s presence in the public sphere does not mean a resacralization of it. Respondents prefer to keep the differentiation of social functions.

Moral Universalism at a Time of Political Regression: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas about the Present and His Life’s Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Claudia Czingon ◽  
Aletta Diefenbach ◽  
Victor Kempf
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Communicative Rationality ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact

In the present interview, Jürgen Habermas answers questions about his wide-ranging work in philosophy and social theory, as well as concerning current social and political developments to whose understanding he has made important theoretical contributions. Among the aspects of his work addressed are his conception of communicative rationality as a countervailing force to the colonization of the lifeworld by capitalism and his understanding of philosophy after Hegel as postmetaphysical thinking, for which he has recently provided a comprehensive historical grounding. The scope and relevance of his ideas can be seen from his reflections on current issues, ranging from the prospects of translational democracy at a time of resurgent nationalism and populism, to political developments in Germany since reunification, to the role of religion in the public sphere and the impact of the new social media on democratic discourse.

scholarly journals Sanomalehdet uskonnollisen muutoksen edelläkävijöinä

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Niemelä
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan uskonnon näkyvyyttä ja sen muutosta pohjoismaisissa sanomalehdissä 1988, 1998 ja 2008. Analyysi pohjautuu 14 eri pohjoismaisessa sanomalehdessä julkaistuun, noin 5000 sanomalehtiartikkeliin, joita on tarkasteltu kvantitatiivisen sisällönerittelyn keinoin. Artikkeli linkittyy pohjoismaiseen tutkimushankkeeseen ”The role of religion in the public sphere” (Norel). Tulokset osoittavat viiden Pohjoismaan välillä niin huomattavia eroja kuin yhtäläisyyksiä. Luterilaista kirkkoa koskevat artikkelit ovat vähentyneet lähes kaikissa maissa, erityisen voimakkaasti Ruotsissa. Tutkimuksen perusteella Islanti ja Suomi ovat kuitenkin traditionaalisempia, ja luterilaisen kirkon näkyvyys lehdistössä on niissä suurempi kuin muissa Pohjoismaissa. Tanskassa, Ruotsissa ja Norjassa lehtien kuva uskonnosta on kirjavampi, ja erityisesti Tanskassa ja Ruotsissa luterilainen kirkko saa vain vähän palstatilaa lehdissä. Kokonaisuudessaan tutkimuksen tulokset antavat tukea uskonnollisen monimuotoisuuden vahvistuneelle asemalle ja näkyvyydelle sekä perinteisen uskonnollisuuden ja luterilaisen kirkon aseman heikentymiselle. Sanomalehdissä tämä muutos näkyy vielä korostetummin kuin esimerkiksi uskonnollisten yhteisöjen jäsentilastoissa.

scholarly journals The Theological Significance of the Secular

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-469
Author(s):  
Christoph Hübenthal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Ethical Principle ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
The Public ◽  
Relevant Concept ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article, the notion of the secular is defended as a meaningful and relevant concept in order to determine the role of theological reasoning in the public sphere. For this purpose, in the first section, it is shown that John Duns Scotus already developed a provisional account of the secular and, moreover, provided it with a theological justification. The second section starts off with a brief sketch of the secular’s main characteristics as they can be deduced from Scotus’s account. Building on Thomas Pröpper, it is demonstrated how a transcendental analysis of freedom as the basic rationale of the secular brings to the fore a fundamental ethical principle as well as an idea of the secular’s ultimate destination. Theological reasoning in the public sphere or public theology, so it will be argued, aims primarily at making visible the ethical implications and the ultimate destination of the secular.

scholarly journals Post-Sekularisme, Demokrasi, dan Peran Publik Agama

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Petrus Tan
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Role ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Relationship

<p><em>This article tries to elaborate the relationship between post-secularism, democracy and the public role of religion. The facts of religion’s global revival show the failure of secularization thesis about the disappearance of religion from the public sphere. In political philosophy and social sciences, this phenomenon is called post-secularism. In this article, post-secularism is understood as a phenomenon of religion’s revival in the public sphere or the legitimacy for public role of religion. This understanding is especially necessary  to encourage religion in addressing political, social and humanitarian issues. However, this understanding does not ignore the fact that religion often becomes a scandal and terror for democracy. Therefore, in this article, post-secularism also needs another understanding, namely as "awareness of a reciprocal learning process" between religion and secularity, religious and secular citizens, faith and reason, religious doctrine and public reason. The last model of post-secularism is urgently needed in Indonesia.</em><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong><em>: Post-secularism, secularization, religion, democracy.</em></p>

scholarly journals Imagens da população em situação de rua: A teologia pública na construção da cidadania

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Virgínia M. de S. Silva Eunice S. L. Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historia De Vida ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Analysis Of The Images

Resumo: Nosso objetivo é abordar a Teologia Pública numa perspectiva da construção da cidadania com a População em Situação de Rua em João Pessoa/PB. Tendo em vista a sociedade vigente ser plural, globalizada e secularizada, consideramos o papel da teologia na esfera pública para interagir com outros setores da sociedade visando romper as barreiras confessionais para contribuir com a justiça social e os direitos humanos. A pesquisa é descritiva e de campo; o instrumento foi a história de vida dos sujeitos e a análise das imagens e do discurso fundamentada na Teoria Geral do Imaginário de G. Durand. Palavras-chave: Imaginário. População em Situação de Rua. Teologia Pública. Abstract: We approach Public Theology from a perspective of citizenship construction in its relationship with Homeless People in João Pessoa/PB. Considering that the current society is pluralistic, globalized and secularized, we take into account the role of theology in the public sphere in order to interact with other sectors of society aiming at overcoming confessional barriers and contributing to social justice and Human Rights. The research is descriptive and based on field observation; the tool is the individuals' life story and the analysis of the images and speech based on G. Durand's general theory of the imaginary. Keywords: Imaginary. Homeless People. Public Theology.

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