Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 6:19AM | in Governance Secular states need religion
Jürgen HabermasJürgen Habermas, doyen of democratic thought, weighs in on the debate about the role of religion in the public sphere. He is responding to a critique of his ideas from a secularist perspective, to which he says:
Those who are secularist strike a polemical pose towards the public influence of religious doctrines. In their eyes, religious doctrines are discredited because they are scientifically unfounded. In the Anglo-Saxon world, secularism today invokes a hard naturalism which claims that the natural sciences should enjoy a monopoly of societally-accepted knowledge about the world. I think of this scientism as pure ideology.
Habermas argues that secular states require religions to express themselves in the public sphere if the society is to withstand the moral assault of capitalism. He calls religions 'interpretive communities' that promote deliberation over essential questions of human purpose, social values, and the public good:
Our hyper-capitalist societies - which reward only the exclusive focus on one's own success - are less and less sensitive to societal pathologies, to the failure of individual life plans, and to the deformation of life worlds. ...When it comes to clashes of values which have to be regulated politically, our religiously and ethically pluralistic societies are increasingly divided. This is why interpretative communities, which are at least still able to provide articulate contributions to repressed questions about a way to live together in solidarity, can resonate so strongly in them... Concerning vulnerable areas of social life, religious traditions have the force convincingly to articulate moral intuitions in their own language.
The challenge for religions, notes Habermas, is to translate their internal discourse -- based on the recognition of a shared spiritual authority -- into a public discourse, which has universal resonance.
Surely, this is a challenge that religions must face together: to engage in a shared discourse about the needs of our communities. Insularity and obscurantism, to which some religions seem to be prone, only breeds suspicion. Plural and democratic societies provide both the challenge and opportunity for religious communities to engage openly and critically with public concerns.
*Photo credit: Wolfram Huke
Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 6:19AM | in Governance 
Reader Comments (3)
Surely there are other ways of increasing the relevance of religion to "hyper-capitalist" societies beyond just acting as a moral sounding block? Wouldn't this, that is increased social relevance, be the challenge they face in addition to "shared discourse"?
Oh sure. Of course social relevance is important. But I think that religions have more to offer than social action. As Habermas points out, they promote a critical discourse about our place in the world (as individuals and communities). We create our world through both words and actions -- both are necessary.
This is one of the most important recent posts on Jeune Street. What I'd like to discuss is how the translation of internal discourse, based on 'the recognition of shared spiritual authority' - or to use just one word, belief - is possible without that very particular algorithm, faith.
S.