Sensing a 'second coming': An overview of new concepts in Sociology, Philosophy, Law and Theology on the re-emerging religious in private and public life

Christo J.S Lombaard

doi:10.4102/ve.v37i1.1488

Abstract

In a number of academic disciplines, expression has been given to the recently rising awareness that the category of the religious has not disappeared from public life. What the �masters of suspicion� � Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim and Freud � had sensed was the intellectual spirit of their times and not the dawning of a broadly post-religious phase in Western/ised humanity. In different academic disciplines, this new awareness has been given expression to by means of a series of newly developed concepts. In this contribution, these developments are briefly tracked as they relate to one another. Although these formulations and discussions in some ways correspond to one another, it has not yet been undertaken to relate them to one another, which is the contribution of this article: these developments reflect, as largely parallel expressions, the recently rising awareness that the category of the religious is currently present in private and public life more so than in previous decades.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article traces recent developments in Sociology, Philosophy, Law and Theology on the unfolding place of religion in the world currently, as a first step to bringing these disciplines into discussion with one another on this matter.Keywords: Religiosity; Post-secularism; Sociology; Philisophy; Law; Theology

Highlights

Sensing a ‘second coming’: An overview of new concepts in Sociology, Philosophy, Law and Theology on the re-emerging religious in private and public life
In a number of academic disciplines, expression has been given to the recently rising awareness that the category of the religious has not disappeared from public life
This new awareness has been given expression to by means of a series of newly developed concepts. These developments are briefly tracked as they relate to one another. These formulations and discussions in some ways correspond to one another, it has not yet been undertaken to relate them to one another, which is the contribution of this article: these developments reflect, as largely parallel expressions, the recently rising awareness that the category of the religious is currently present in private and public life more so than in previous decades

Summary

Original Research

Sensing a ‘second coming’: An overview of new concepts in Sociology, Philosophy, Law and Theology on the re-emerging religious in private and public life. 8–9, 23–25, 35–36, 100), he is at this specific point correct: for us, mysticism is always written This ‘God is not-t/here-yet-t/here’ (Lombaard 2015a:92), Praesentia Dei – Deus Absconditus, tension, inherent in any religion that is reliant on a revelatory aspect (cf Berkhof 2007:43–115), has found its expression in Western history too, in a broadly parallel way: the God who had always been just there, indubitably so, departed from everyday life in the modern era. Perhaps this may be called ‘God’s disappearing trick’.

Open Access

Come again?

The Law of God