Secular religions and the religious/secular divide

Tamás Nyirkos

doi:10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.09

Published: 2021-08-27

No. 25 (2021)

Secular religions and the religious/secular divide

Tamás Nyirkos

Christianity-World-Politics

Section: Miscellanea

https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.09

Abstract

Since Carl Schmitt first described some modern political ideologies as the secular analogues of religious belief systems, it has become something of a fashion to find further examples of such political theologies, or – in a broader sense – political or secular religions. All these attempts simultaneously maintain that political and secular theologies and religions are not “real” theologies and religions, only “this-worldly”, “immanent”, “pseudo”, “quasi”, or “ersatz” versions of the latter. However, a brief overview of the topic’s literature may nevertheless raise doubts about the very possibility of making a clear distinction: the People in democratic thought, the Proletariat in communism, the State in civil religion, the Market or Money in certain schools of economics, or Mother Nature in deep ecology (just to mention a few) seem no more empirical entities than the transcendent Absolute of several “genuine” religions. Speaking of “secular” – at least in these cases – therefore obscures more than it reveals – especially the fact that such ideologies can be rivals to traditional religions precisely because they belong to the same category. To call them secular will only help them to distinguish themselves as more “objective”, “realistic”, or “scientific” than traditional belief systems, which is most likely not the case.

Keywords:

political religions, civil religions, secularization

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Nyirkos, T. (2021). Secular religions and the religious/secular divide. Christianity-World-Politics, (25). https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.09

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