The Political/Civil Role of Religion

This article introduces an empirical comprehension of secularization – disavowing Max Weber’s grasp – which is based on the premise that a structural similarity of symbols leads to their transmogrification. The structure of society remains the same in a secular society as well, in that consciousness is still affected by the same experiences. Following a brief remark on liberalism as privatizer of all highest goods, one of the consequences of secularization is exemplified. The European Union is such a liberal foundation whose self-understanding has found itself at a loss of political approval. Based on a political economy, namely on the benefit of some is the detriment of the other, the EU has overlooked that a society always shares a civil religion to which it is not possible to give up: Renouncing the sacred always denotes a profound political crisis. And a political crisis will always generate a new civil religion, of fundamental reactionary nature, and, therefore, incurring the inevitable form of an ideology

Civil society · Classical liberalism · Epistemology · Ideology · Law and economics · Liberalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Premise · Reactionary · Secularization · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development

• Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution

  Open Access•Ian Varcoe, S Ν Eisenstadt et al.•The Canadian Journal of Sociology•2001

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