Reflexive secularization? Concepts, processes and antagonisms of postsecularity

Abstract

This article deals with the concepts, processes, and antagonisms that are associated with the notion of postsecularity. In light of this article’s expanded interpretation of José Casanova on the secular and secularization, as well as thoughts on James A. Beckford’s take on public religions, five rubrics on the postsecular derived from critical theory and an understanding of ‘reflexive secularization’ are presented. This term focuses on secularization processes and how these practices unleash complementary as well as antagonistic tendencies, a confrontation of normativities and specific social-empirical challenges. From this basis it is argued that social-empirical analysis should focus on non-naturalistic relations between individuals occupying structurally equivalent positions in narrative networks. A plurality of normativities are seriously considered as ideas circulating through social relations where the critical competence of the participants of such communication processes are provoked to subvert anything – including any normative positionality – as taken for granted. Moves towards the decolonization of the secular/postsecular dyad are emphasized, with ramifications for thinking about the urban, which point to the universal and authentic foundations of the human condition that are brought into play.

Enlightened religion: The alphabetization of faith and the linguistification of freedom

“…Both boundaries, which create exclusions and inclusions, put Axial religions on the path to secularization. I would claim, along with Gauchet and Peterson, that Axial religions are by virtue of their alphabetization and literacy already self‐secularizing (Gauchet, 1997; Peterson, 2011, see Beaumont, Eder, &Mendieta, 2020). At their birth, Axial Religions, were already on the path to postsecularity, to put it more bluntly.…”

“…The demythologization of Christianity, to use Bultmann's language, is its rationalization and thus at the same time its secularization. I have somewhere else written about “reflexive secularization” to express this dynamic tension between faith and reason, religion and its praxis (Beaumont, Eder, & Mendieta, 2020). My contention, a contention that I also find inchoate in both Jaspers and Habermas, is that Axial Age religions are demythologizing and secularist religions, as I have tried to show thus far.…”

Leisure, religion and the (Infra)secular city: the Manchester and Salford Whit Walks

“…This call to attend to religion in the so-called secular city has highlighted a postsecular turn towards the acceptance of the social function of religion in modern society that has been argued to be useful to the conceptualisation of experiences (Moberg et al, 2012). Consequently, the city cannot be examined as a space in which religion plays no role; the blurring of religious and secular boundaries needs to be accounted for reflexively in any analysis of urban life (Beaumont, Eder, & Mendieta, 2020). Habermas (2008), for example, has suggested that the notion of the postsecular society most readily applies to affluent western nation states where, he argues, there has been a shift to secularisation as higher standards of living have, 'increased existential security ' (ibid, p. 18).…”

Reflexivity through positionality meetings: religion, muslims and ‘non-religious’ researchers

“…This renewed interest in religion is often approached through post-secular theory. Beaumont et al (2018) introduce the term 'reflexive secularisation' as an approach to understand post-secularity away from the 'secular/religious schism'. They argue religion and the secular are always interdependent and entangled.…”

“…When the meetings evolved, it underlined that our attitudes and positions could not be divided into a religious-secular schism, but rather emerge in the differences between the two. Religion and the secular are entangled (Beaumont et al, 2018). In the process of self-reflexivity, we had already realised our knowledge was partial and embodied, and data is interpreted and communicated through our 'filters' (Cook, 2005;Haraway, 1988;Rose, 1997).…”