Religion und Säkularisierung

This textbook examines the relationship between religion and secularization. Exploring both socio-historical and linguistic-discursive transformations from late antiquity to the present day, the chapters cover topics such as concepts of world and eternity, the transfer of church property to state control, formations of church and state, the decline in piety, and forms of secular religion. In these contexts, the breakthroughs that led to and occurred with modernity appear to be encoded in multiple religious ways: as liberation from the paternalism of religious institutions; as regret over the disappearance of religious lifestyles; and as emergence of new religious practices. The book’s methodological approach is multi-faceted, cutting across various conceptual, metaphorical, social, and late modern religious history lines.