Secular Society and Potential Mediators of the Religious Experience. A Theoretical-Methodological Proposal for the Study of Contemporary Religion

According to extant literature on secularization and post-secular societies, religious experience is increasingly separated from the institutional framework in which was usually embedded in the past. By reworking the contributions of Charles Taylor and Peter Berger, the essay elaborates a theoretical and methodological approach for studying such metamorphosis of religion. In particular, the approach suggests to refocus on the lived experience of social actors and their meaning in order to identify potential mediators of religious experience through which searching for religious signs in uncharted territories. The essay then shows how this approach has been applied to study the public communication of science, discovering how scientists raise ultimate questions that place science closer than is usually done to religion.