Abstract
How to analyse the changing significance of religion in (post-) modern societies is one of the most prominent subjects of the Study of Religion in the last decades. The article points out that this theoretical discussion on secularisation and pluralisation is coined by antipodes and mutually exclusive diagnoses—each of which declares a general trend and marks divergent developments as deviant. Based on empirical findings from projects about Interreligious Dialogue Groups in Germany, Anti-Atheism in the United States, and Salafism in Europe, the authors show that these contradictions are not just the result of the focus on different regions or religions, but stem from contradicting developments within religion itself. We argue that these developments, frictions and counter-reactions of religious behaviour are indeed inherent to the field of religion. Drawing on Cultural Studies approaches which consider frictions as key to understanding the hybridity of postmodern subjects and fields helps to understand and theorise contemporary trends of religion and religiosity. At the same time, the empirical results from the presented research show that hybrid and subversive identities are not to be equated with a liberation from power structures, but create new power structures.
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Notes
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See for an elaboration of different aspects of secularisation Casanova (1994). He also shows that religion in modernity not always legitimates and stabilises traditional rules of society but at times has been a critical force in society (e.g. Solidarność in Poland 1980 till 1989).
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For an elaboration on the project, its concept, hypotheses and empirical approach see Neumaier, Klinkhammer (Forthcoming).
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Word-repetitions and fill words have been deleted from the transcript.
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My thanks go especially to Till Peters for providing the data as well as to Habiba Rode for supporting the research.
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The prophet Muhammad’s traditional behaviour and statements.
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All interviewees are anonymised.
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As we mentioned above, Berger nevertheless holds on to the idea that secularity will inscribe itself into religion time by time. However, e.g. Charles Taylor (2007) has shown that religion in a Secular Age will neither be less defended nor less prevailed as absolute, since the believers’ convictions were proven and apologetically secured on their own subjectively felt authenticity .
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Klinkhammer, G., Klug, P., Neumaier, A. (2019). Religion Beyond Secularisation Theories: Contradictional Findings of the Study of Religion in a (Post-)Modern World. In: Lossau, J., Schmidt-Brücken, D., Warnke, I. (eds) Spaces of Dissension. Contradiction Studies. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-25990-7_7
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