Recent theories of secularization and perspectives of secular-religious dialogue

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines the current philosophical debates about the relationship between secular and religious worldviews. The article outlines recent forms of postsecularization as the continued existence of religious communities in a continually secularizing environment, identifying its main dimensions: the deinstitutionalization of the religious lifestyle, the individualization of faith, and the development of new social forms in the religious fi eld. Theoretical analysis. The central premise of the study is that existing approaches are not only controversial, but have their limitations to describing perspectives of secular-religious dialogue in a constructive way. On the basis of the discursive approach rational-discursive and relativistic-conventional strategies of secular-religious dialogue are identified and discussed. In this context, J. Habermas suggests that religion and secular worldviews have to learn from each other, and religion has to be “translated” into the rational language of secular culture, neutralizing its most dangerous components. At the same time, J.Milbank fi nds the essentialization of secular reason problematic. In conclusion, perspectives of secular-religious dialogue in the context of Russian culture are discussed. The essence of this model consists in the search for a compromise between the extremes of dogmatic faith and secular reason.

Keywords

• religion
• discourse analysis
• dialogue
• secularism
• postsecular society
• theology