SECULARIZATION AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM TOWARDS A GENEALOGY OF PUBLIC SPACE

This paper presents the situation of postmodern religion as an important consequence of secularization process that marked the appearance and the development of modernity. The problem is that postmodern religion is in fact the name given to the 'return of the Gods' and the re-entering of religion in the public space, after the exhaustion of the theoretical and political resources of the laicite. Thus, postmodern religion means in fact the post-secular form of religion, the dialectical form of the latter. The consequences drawn from that concern the constitution of the new public arena, that in which religion gets to play an important role: secularization is seen as a double-sided process, which: (1) prepares religion for the dialogical, communicative form of rationality, specific to public space and (2) opens the public space to the recognition of the 'need for religion as a resource of significations and link to the life-world. The conclusion of the present paper is that the process of secularization - on the one side and the constitution of the public space - on the other - find a common point in the pluralization of religious traditions and practices, the main element defining the postmodern religion.