Postsecular punk: Evangelical Christianity and the overlapping consensus of the underground

Abstract

Abstract Utilizing interviews and fieldwork with Evangelical Christians involved in the punk scenes of Australia, Britain, South Africa and the United States, this article brings the study of the punk subculture into dialogue with key political theorists of the regulation of religiously diverse societies. Focusing on the work of the late American political philosopher John Rawls, furnished with more recent work by Jürgen Habermas, this article examines the processes of negotiated inclusion undertaken by Evangelical Christians in local punk scenes. Closely analyzing the acceptance of the contestability of religious claims, ‘translation’ between religious and secular discourses and modalities, and an ‘overlapping consensus’ on the desirability of diversity within the punk scene, it is argued that the negotiated inclusion of religiously diverse social actors in punk scenes can inform ongoing debates about diversity and inclusion in punk scenes’ ‘postsecular’ parent societies.