Habermas, Religion and the Post-Secular
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Jürgen Habermas is a preeminent philosopher and social theorist whose work explores the formation of the public sphere as well as how to invigorate participatory democracy. He is well known for his theory of communicative action, which claims that reason, or rationality, is the mechanism for emancipation from the social problems posed by modernity. In his earlier work, Habermas mostly ignored religion, contending that it was not rational enough to be included in public debate. But over the past decade, he has begun to reexamine religion in light of its persistence in the modern world, calling this a turn toward post-secular society. He argues that religion deserves a place in public debate, but that religious people need to translate their views into rational, secular language if they want to participate in the public sphere. This week’s podcast features Dusty Hoesly of the University of California at Santa Barbara speaking with Michelle Dillon, Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, at the 2013 SSSR Conference in Boston.
While Dillon embraces Habermas’ turn toward religion and his recognition of its emancipatory potential, she critiques his post-secular theorizing, arguing that Habermas ignores the rational contestation of ideas within religions; marginalizes the centrality of emotion, tradition, and spirituality to religion; and fails to recognize religion’s intertwining with the secular.
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It is interesting that the Catholic Church in Ireland during debates about divorce used secular or non-theological arguments to support their position, whereas gay and feminist Catholics in America are using theological arguments to support their positions. This shows that translation does not (or should not) go in one direction only as Habermas prescribes–that is, from a religious language into a neutral/secular one–but also the other way around.