Search Results (99)

This research explores how Chinese youth, most of whom lack formal religious beliefs or affiliations, engage with digital non-traditional religious music, such as electronic adaptations of the Great Compassion Mantra chant, on platforms such as Bilibili. A total of 15 interviews and one year of digital ethnography were conducted to examine how various music mediators, such as music, technology, the environment, and the cultural context, shape youth’s affective states, namely their states of tranquility, trance, and transcendence. This study reinserts musicality into the social and cultural studies of religious music and identifies more fluid, contingent, and processual forms of associations and articulations between different mediators, along with the more emergent and ambient affective states brought about by such mediators, their networks, and related mediation processes. In addition, this study reveals Chinese youth’s hybridized and idiosyncratic practices that combine alternative spiritual elements with secular experiences, highlighting the context-specific ways in which Chinese youth navigate spirituality in the post-secular age. Full article

In an age in which the post-secular condition and digital capitalism are increasingly interwoven, the question of what role religion ought to play in the public sphere—and how it might regain critical and constructive force amid deepening crises of meaning—has become urgent. Contemporary digital capitalism, characterized by the pseudo-sacralization of algorithmic logic, generates a persistent absorptive power marked by ecstatic effects. This elevates technological rationality and market logic to a level of pseudo-sacral authority, exercising a form of symbolic and spiritual domination. Returning to Paul Tillich’s thought, this article reconstructs his vision of religious socialism not as a historical artifact, but as a critical public theology capable of resisting this form of demonic domination. Tillich’s central insight is that the crisis of capitalism is not merely economic but ontological: its culture of “autonomy” severs itself from its religious ground, allowing finite forms—now amplified by digital technology—to elevate themselves into ultimate meaning and thereby consolidate into self-absolutizing, demonic structures. Against this background, the article argues that Tillich’s religious socialism is not a proposal for institutional replacement, but a public theological practice rooted in “ultimate concern.” Its task is to expose the structures of usurpation operative within digital capitalism and to reconfigure the order of meaning through the symbolic vision of theonomy. Through this symbolic practice, religion is recovered as a deep dimension of culture capable of critically piercing the regimes of meaning-occlusion. Moreover, it is precisely the unfinished and open-ended characteristic of religious socialism that enables it to regain theoretical and symbolic vitality in the post-secular present. Full article

In post-Soviet Georgia, the renewed visibility of religion in the public sphere has generated ambivalent effects, fostering both social cohesion and identity-based exclusion. This article focuses on the work I Am the Way by Georgian Orthodox thinker Zurab Kiknadze to explore how a non-instrumental, ethics-based conception of public religion can be sociologically conceptualized. Drawing on a qualitative, hermeneutic-narrative method, the analysis identifies two core motifs in Kiknadze’s thought—“spiritual journey” and “silent witness”—and interprets them through the lenses of public religion theory (Casanova), lived religion paradigms (McGuire, Ammerman), and post-secular debates (Habermas). The findings indicate that Kiknadze understands faith not as a marker of dogmatic or ethno-political belonging but as a practice contributing to ethical continuity and the reconstruction of social trust. Within this framework, “silent witness” is defined as a form of faith grounded in consistency, humility, and action-oriented conviction; it is proposed as a transferable sociological mechanism that supports trust, reconciliation, and inclusive citizenship in transitional societies. Centering on the Georgian case, this article offers a conceptual contribution to rethinking the public role of religion in post-authoritarian contexts within an ethical framework. Full article

This paper examines postsecularism, magic and disenchantment in the West with an emphasis on Wicca. Following a discussion of postsecularism, it provides a critical overview of the Weberian notion of disenchantment which describes the decline in magic in modernity. Magic, far from disappearing in the postsecular, has been transformed through a process of psychologization. While there is substantial evidence for the persistence of magic in modernity, the question is how it persists. The notion of participatory consciousness is deployed to account for its persistence. Participatory consciousness allows us to understand the ways that everyday life blends secular, spiritual, and religious aspects—a central theme of the postsecular condition. This paper deploys secondary ethnographic data pertaining to phenomenological studies of Wiccan rituals. Wiccans demonstrate an interest in spirituality that aligns with nature. There is a complex relationship between secular and religious ideas with a blending of spiritual practices with modern technology and individualized spiritual paths. Through the performance of rituals, practitioners transition from an ‘ordinary’ to a ‘magical’ worldview—a form of participatory consciousness involving analogical thinking, imagination, meaning and affect associated with an holistic and enchanted worldview where there are meaningful connections between people, events, and objects. Full article

Contemporary religiosity is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by postsecular and postmodern dynamics. Amid global declines in institutional affiliation, religious and spiritual tourism has emerged as a salient expression of evolving faith. Poland exemplifies this paradox: witnessing one of the world’s steepest declines in youth religiosity, even as Catholicism retains symbolic centrality. Drawing on survey data from 510 Polish young adults (Generation Z), this study examines how religiosity, faith-based travel, and social attitudes intersect within a postsecular framework. Findings reveal a dual trajectory: while religious tourism reinforces institutional belonging and traditional values, spiritual tourism aligns with individualized, fluid religiosity and looser ties to religious institutions. The study introduces a novel conceptual model mapping the interdependencies between religiosity, mobility, and identity among youth in postsecular societies. This framework demonstrates how faith-based travel actively mediates social attitudes and reconfigures religious engagement, positioning mobility as a generative force in shaping contemporary belief. Rather than following a linear path of secularization, Generation Z selectively blends inherited Catholic traditions with personalized, experience-driven spirituality. These findings advance sociological debates on secularization, postsecularism, and the transformation of religious identity through mobility. Full article

What happens when the church no longer speaks to the soul, yet the soul keeps searching? Across post-religious Europe, a new kind of spirituality is rising: fluid, fragmented, and deeply personal. It offers comfort where doctrine no longer resonates, and healing where institutions feel distant. As mental health struggles grow, these alternative spiritualities flourish, reflecting the emotional landscape of late modernity, while institutional religion struggles to respond in meaningful, preventive ways. This article first explores the philosophical and cultural shifts that have led from church pews to yoga mats and mindfulness apps. Then it presents new data from some of Europe’s most secular countries, examining the relationship between faith, spirituality, and psychological well-being. Finally, it proposes a renewed form of Christian spirituality—one that is emotionally attuned, Spirit-led, and culturally rooted in the liquid realities of our time. Full article

In the past few decades, a growing body of literature focused on the ‘return of religion’ has added important nuance to the discussion of pluralism, religion, and violence. This paper explores these postsecular critiques through the ancient parable of the Blind People and the Elephant. It argues that secularism maintains an ontology that assumes violence which forecloses the possibility of pluralism. Recent reappraisals of mysticism are at pains to highlight its ethical and political implications. This paper puts these bodies of literature in conversation to offer a mystical basis for pluralist ethics. To this end, a particular western Christian mystic, Nicholas of Cusa, in his work The Vision of God (1453) is shown to provide a theoretical and ethical basis for pluralism. The decision to focus on his mystical work The Vision of God is because the metatheoretical question of pluralism is addressed here in how unity with the divine means unity between the members of a community, which is worked out in an ethical practice of dialogue. By engaging Cusa’s mysticism in the context of postsecular critical theory, an alternate basis for pluralism is offered that sharply contrasts with that offered by secularism. Full article

This paper critically interrogates the French model of secularism (laïcité) and its implications for Muslim women’s rights in contemporary France, particularly within post-colonial and post-secular contexts. It explores how historical legacies of colonial governance continue to inform current regulatory frameworks around religious expression, especially regarding the wearing of Islamic veils in public institutions. While laïcité is officially presented as a principle of neutrality and universalism, its practical enforcement often targets Muslim women, functioning as a mechanism of exclusion that conflates religiosity with political threat. Drawing on intersectional feminist theory and recent debates on post-secularism, the paper examines how dominant feminist movements in France have struggled to incorporate the lived experiences and agency of pious Muslim women, frequently aligning with state-led narratives that instrumentalises gender equality in service of national identity and securitisation. Drawing upon the concept of intersectional post-secularity as discussed in recent scholarship, this article offers a new contextualised framework from within the French system of laïcité for analysing how secular governance, feminist discourse, and colonial legacies converge to regulate Muslim women’s visibility and subjectivity. This approach moves beyond binaries of secularism versus religion and emancipation versus subjugation, offering new insights into the entangled politics of faith, gender, and national identity. Ultimately, the paper calls for feminist and civic discourse that upholds democratic inclusivity, accommodates religious diversity, and resists the racialised governance of Muslim women’s bodies in the name of laïcité. Full article

(1) Background: From a post-secular perspective, the relationship between religions in the public sphere is conceived as an exchange in which religious beliefs, when formulated as rational arguments, contribute to building a shared public culture and foster a democratic transformation of interreligious relations. This article critiques this approach, highlighting its neglect of the lived experience of religion and, in particular, the situated and situational nature of processes of religious identity and religious difference formation. (2) Methods: Ethnographic observation of a performance held in a sacred art museum in Tuscany by immigrants from different religious backgrounds, four semi-structured interviews with performers, and one interview with the museum director were conducted. (3) Results: Personal and religious narratives, along with face-to-face interactions, generate dynamics of identification, differentiation, and situated identity redefinition. Interaction with the artwork, framed as a shared space, facilitates shifts in religious self and other positioning. It also reconfigures the boundaries between “us” and “them.” The artwork acts as a symbolic device that enables multiple interpretations and unexpected forms of recognition. (4) Conclusions: Relations of identification and distinction among religious identities are transformed not through abstract rational deliberation but through concrete, discursive, and performative practices. Full article

This article addresses the epistemic and political problem of self-referentiality in theology within the context of post-secular societies as a demand for public relevance of faculties of theology within the 21st-century university. It focuses on the epistemological emergence of public theology as a distinct knowledge, such as human rights, and ecological thinking, contributing to the public mission of knowledge production and interdisciplinary engagement. This study applies Michel Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods in dialogue with Michel de Certeau’s insights into the archaeology of religious practices through a multi-layered analytical approach, including archaeology of knowledge, apparatuses of power, pastoral government, and spirituality as a genealogy of ethics. As a result of the analysis, it examines the historical conditions of possibility for the emergence of a public theology and how it needs to be thought synchronously with other formations of knowledge, allowing theology to move beyond its self-referential model of approaching dogma and the social practices derived from it. This article concludes programmatically that the development of public theology requires an epistemological reconfiguration to displace its self-referentiality through critical engagement with a public rationality framework as an essential task for the public relevance and contribution of theology within contemporary universities and plural societies. Full article

This paper analyses the religious experience of young people in contexts of digitalisation. The secularisation thesis has not been imposed. Youth, who are more open to the porosity of social and cultural boundaries, live outside of dogma and the church, with the signs of transcendence as a fundamental part of their personal narrative. Religiosity, a contingent temporality, and youth socialised in the unknown lay the foundations for this reflection. Full article

The process of secularization was long considered irreversible and characteristic of all contemporary culture. Nonetheless, more recent approaches view it as strictly linked to Western religiosity and in relation to a process of de-secularization and post-secular orientations regarding the sacred. For Romanian Orthodox theologians, secularization represents more of a trial than a danger. The current article presents the results of qualitative research regarding the religiosity of future graduates of Orthodox vocational theological high schools in Romania. The students enrolled in the research were asked to graphically represent God and briefly explain their drawings. The data were theoretically coded and compared with the canonical attributes of God as acknowledged by Orthodox theology. The results indicated the canonical correctness of students’ representations of divinity. Orthodox vocational high school education proves to be effective in imposing the Christian dogmatic line to the detriment of popular religiosity characterized by old pre-Christian beliefs and practices. Full article

There are many different perspectives on what the spiritual aspect of education entails, as well as how it should be addressed in a professional context. Spirituality has been defined as a central aspect of children’s overall development in Denmark since the Primary School Act of 1993, but at the same time public schools in Denmark are secular institutions not affiliated with any particular faith and a non-confessional spiritual education. This article addresses the concept of spiritual education of children in a Danish post-secular context by presenting and discussing different studies, knowledge, and definitions on children’s spirituality, as well as spiritual education of children and spiritual care for children. We point to the importance of the concept of “dannelse” or “bildung”, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s concept of “the basic movement of spirit”, and Hannah Arendt’s concepts related to “the life of the mind”, and thus what is meant by spiritual education. We conclude how educators, parents, and healthcare professionals should facilitate spiritual education through the perspective of “dannelse”, and we present a model for doing so through spiritual dialogue and relationships. Full article

This paper analyzes the Hindu concept of sevā—selfless service—as a theo-ethical practice that reconfigures the relationship between religion and economy, offering a snapshot of an Indian perspective on the convergence between postsecularism and postcapitalist discourses. Rather than being reducible to acts of charity, sevā integrates spiritual, ethical, and social dimensions that challenge the neoliberal emphasis on individual self-interest and material accumulation. Rooted in the pursuit of liberation and relational well-being, sevā frames economic and moral agency in terms of embeddedness, reciprocity, and care. To illustrate sevā’s unique attributes, the paper engages with two case studies. The first explores Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, where sevā is articulated through a non-anthropocentric ethic of nonviolence (ahiṃsā), obliging the reconstruction of eco-economic mechanisms and environmental responsibility. The second examines contemporary guru-bhakti communities in Delhi’s urban peripheries, where sevā functions as spiritual discipline (sādhana), a means for communal uplifting, and the expression of kalyāṇ—holistic well-being that transcends individual boundaries. In both contexts, sevā emerges as a practice that intervenes in and reshapes socio-economic life. By foregrounding sevā as a lived practice, the paper situates Indian religious traditions as a distinctive contribution to broader postcapitalist and postsecular debates. It argues that sevā offers an alternative model of personhood and ethical intentionality—one that contests dominant binaries of spiritual/material, secular/religious, and human/nature, and reimagines human flourishing through the lens of relational ontology and collective responsibility. Full article

This article explores the dynamic interplay between theological and secular paradigms in shaping contemporary political movements and social justice discourse, with a particular focus on the Culture War surrounding reproductive rights and gender identity. It examines the historical transition from the Judeo–Christian tradition to modern secular frameworks, highlighting how core theological concepts—such as imago Dei, the sanctity of life, and divine sovereignty—have been reinterpreted and secularized. In the context of an increasingly secular world and the resurgence of religion in a post-secular society, the article leverages Eric Voegelin’s philosophical framework to deepen the dialogue on the Culture War and secularization. The analysis argues that modern social justice movements and ideology can be seen as immanentizing the eschaton and moral order, where transcendent values are reconfigured as temporal, political, and cultural constructs for ultimate justice and redemption. By tracing modern concepts of social justice back to their theological roots, this article aims to enrich debates on secularization and the ideological divisions fueling the Culture War, fostering pathways toward a more cohesive and less polarized political landscape. Full article