The Failure of Secularism

Abstract

Though secularism is growing, we are beginning to see disenchantment with it. In 2006, Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan published Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. In the book, several scholars tried to come to terms with a new political and religious reality—that the Enlightenment effort to relegate religion to the private sphere seems to have ground to a halt. The same recognition constituted the shared starting point for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the German political philosopher Jürgen Habermas in their 2004 debate concerning the moral foundations of the liberal state. My own book American Religious Democracy is also part of this growing recognition of a need for religion in public life.KeywordsStem Cell ResearchFree SpeechPublic LifeReligious BelieverNews OrganizationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.