Abstract

1. We Are Not Postsecular Because We Have Never Been Secular This journal issue is entitled “Are We Postsecular?” and therefore—as always with these “postisms”—we face a certain measure of ambiguity from the outset. The term “postsecular” was made popular among scholars by Jürgen Habermas some years ago.1 Being “postsecular” now implies having been “secular” previously. The term is normally used to refer to countries, beginning with those of Western Europe, in which religious ties have been supposed to have collapsed over recent centuries, thus progressively debarring religion from the public sphere. Postsecularism 's central idea should thus be the return….