On the way home from the EASR 2024 Conference, I just ran into the latest issue of the German magazine Stern that showed Kamala Harris as an “Erlöserin” (literally, a “savioress” or female redemptor). The most interesting thing here is not that journalists use such bombastic religious language – for religion still has this rhetoric force in our allegedly secular societies – but that the illustration itself shows a double secularization of the religious:
Since the savioress, the new presidential candidate of the Democratic Party is here depicted in the guise of the Statue of Liberty (which was already a secular-religious symbol replacing the statues of old gods with that of a new goddess), one is inclined to say that the use of religious imagery is more than just a journalistic cliché. It rather expresses the constant migration of the holy from its traditional sources to our allegedly secular culture.
Today, I made my presentation at EASR 2024. Following the main topic of the conference, I demonstrated the “Ecology” chapter of my book. I was a little worried whether it would not offend some devout ecologists, but it was in fact very well received. We had a good conversation with a fairly large audience, and even my conclusion about the impossibility of defining religion (illustrated here by the case study of ecology as a secular religion) turned out to be less alarming than I’d expected. There were in fact many other scholars who seemed to be as skeptical about the religious-secular divide as I was. Most of them, however, preferred the terminology of “implicit religion”, which was a little surprise for me. Not because I hadn’t known the term before (or Edward Bailey, who coined it) but I didn’t realize how important it was for so many. If I’d known, I would have covered it more thoroughly in my own book, although I’m still not convinced that implicit religion is a less problematic concept than secular religion (or, for that matter, than “quasi”, “surrogate”, “intrinsic”, “remixed”, etc. religions). In any case, here is the short abstract of my presentation:
“While many religious traditions have (or can be re-interpreted as having) an ecological vision, there are also modern, secular forms of ecological thought and related movements which are sometimes described as ‘secular religions’, showing a substantive or functional analogy with their overtly religious counterparts. Such descriptions can be harshly critical, debunking the alleged “dogmatism” and “intolerance” of deep ecology, or ridiculing the ‘saints’ and ‘rituals’ of climate activism. On the other hand, there are some attempts which overtly declare that ecological thought should become something ‘like’ (even if not exactly as) a religion: an overarching code that requires a true conversion, with nature as a sacred entity at its center. Without such a basic transformation of human attitudes, the principles of ecology would remain shallow and without effect, especially when compared to the magnitude of the challenge.
The paper analyzes the discourse of these different approaches, using a concise set of examples from both scholarly literature and popular journalism from the 2010s to the present day. The scope of the investigation extends to mentions of ‘ecology’, ‘ecologism’, ‘environmentalism’, ‘climate activism’, ‘warmism’, and related topics such as ‘animal rights’, ‘vegetarianism’, and (ethical) ‘veganism’ in contemporary discourse, in connection with expressions like ‘secular religion’ and its synonyms (‘surrogate religion’, ‘secular faith’ or ‘cult’, etc.).
The prospective thesis is that both the negative and positive approaches – despite their different normative outlook – are right in suggesting that a radical ecological theory and practice is impossible without sharing some features of traditional religions: an idea of the sacred, a comprehensive worldview, a moral code, and at least some ritual and symbolic manifestations of commitment that bind the community together. What is more difficult to tell is whether the adjective ‘secular’ is needed at all in the discourse of such a ‘religion’. Or rather, whether the entire distinction between secular and genuine religions is not superfluous in the case of any sufficiently serious form of ecology.”
The conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion. This year the topic is “Nature, Ecology, and Religious Responses to Climate Change”, so I will present the “Ecology” part of my secular religions topic. But there will be other interesting presentations, for instance on implicit religions, which seem to be a surprisingly popular term here. For more information, see the conference homepage.
As you could see here, this book was very long in the making. I wrote a first attempt on political theologies back in 2018, which was published in Hungarian as Politikai teológiák: a demokráciától az ökológiáig(Political Theologies: from Democracy to Ecology). I’ve been never satisfied with the wording, however. Of course, you can say that “everything is politics”, so ecology – or, for that matter, capitalism – are also “political” ideologies that resemble theologies; but what about celebrity cults or AI? (Yes, I wrote about AI years before the craze about ChatGPT.) And what about the ritual and symbolic – not strictly speaking theological – aspects of such things? So I finally decided to change the terminology to “secular religions”; even though this is a nonsense word, meaning something that is religious and non-religious at the same time. But what I try to expose is exactly this: that dividing the world into two distinct spheres called “secular” and “religious” is nonsensical. So this book is already something like a journey “across the great divide” of modernity. If I ever write a popular (OK, an even more popular version than this, its title would be something like this. And I also love The Band, by the way.)
Until then, here is the book “Secular Religions: The Key Concepts“, published today. Don’t let the title mislead you: it was just the publisher’s suggestion to promote it as part of an already well-known book series. But it is in fact more like a mini-encyclopedia containing more than a hundred entries. This is exactly why it was impossible to write as a traditional monograph (you know, in ten to twelve chapters). And that is why it took so long, for I myself experimented for years with different formats, until I returned to the original idea, a sort of collection or vocabulary. Which also means that I consciously avoided inventing “new” secular religions. (Although with some routine in the genre, you can easily describe any political, social, or cultural phenomenon as a form of religiosity.) In this book, there are only examples taken from the literature. Yes, there are more than a hundred, and my list keeps on growing since I finished the manuscript. So much for our “secular age”.
I also received my own copies yesterday. The hardcover is simple but expensive, but the paperback looks beautiful. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to choose a unique cover, and yes, it is part of the game that the reader can guess what the picture is about.
Although I’m still waiting the proofs, and the proposed date of publication is late August this year, “Secular Religions: The Key Concepts” is already there on Amazon:
“Secular Religions: The Key Concepts provides a concise guide to those ideologies, worldviews, and social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena that are most often described as the modern counterparts of traditional religions.
Although there are many other terms in use (quasi, pseudo, ersatz, political, civil, etc.), it is ‘secular religion’ that best expresses the problematic nature of all such descriptions which maintain that modern belief systems and practices are secular on the one hand and religious on the other. Today, the topic is as popular as ever, and secular religions are discovered far and wide. Hence, a critical summary is urgently necessary. The juxtaposed title is itself an expression of ironic distance. The book emphasizes inherent tensions of relevant literature in a critical and informative fashion. The author provides over 100 entries, from abortion to wokeness, as well as a detailed introduction, which gives an overview of the different definitions of ‘religion’ and ‘secular religion’ as well as the history of secular–religious comparisons. The main text reconstructs the argument of several key works on each given topic, while lists of sources for further reading are provided at the end of each entry.
This book provides a clear introduction to ‘secular religions’ and will appeal to researchers and students of religious studies, political philosophy, political theology, the history of ideologies, and cultural studies.”
Would you believe I have more than 100 entries? (And I discovered others since I finished the manuscript…)
We’re getting closer to the publication of my book on “Secular Religions: The KeyConcepts.” (That will be the final title, it seems.) Yesterday I received the possible covers, so it will look something like this:
Quiz: does anyone recognize the building on the cover photo and what it has to do with “secular religions”?
Our research group “Rethinking the Secular” had a great workshop at Edinburgh University. Since I have to complete my manuscript in just two weeks, I asked some final advice from my colleagues. Or rather, I didn’t even have to ask; the first pieces of advice I received already in the taxi on our way to the meeting.
(The discussion itself was mainly about the introduction to my upcoming book on secular religions.)
We’ve had a great conference at the Ludovika University of Public Service. It was beyond expectations (at least my expectations as an organizer, but I’m well known for my pessimism and cynicism; as Italo Calvino would say, “Sono uno che per principio non s’aspetta piú niente da niente.”)
A great thank you to all our participants: Rusty Reno, William Cavanaugh, Steven Hayward, and Linda Denno from the United States; Carolina Armenteros from the Dominican Republic; Michal Gierycz from Poland; Hans Otto Seitschek from Germany; and of course the Hungarian section: András Máté-Tóth, Róbert Papp, Ferenc Hörcher, Kálmán Tóth, Ádám Smrcz, Ádám Darabos, András Jancsó and me .
This October, the University of Public Service organizes an international conference on Christianity and Politics. The topic seems a little too broad (or ambitious, if you like), but there will be some interesting speakers.
There is still some time left for applications. The cfp can be found here:
(I wonder if anyone can figure out what this picture is about and how it is related to Christianity and politics. Please send solutions in a private message.)
And now I am in Belfast (at least virtually), talkin’ about the secular religion of the nation. As the Hungarian prime minister felt it necessary to repeat no less than three times in a short passage (in 2018):
”In these elections we must demonstrate that there is an alternative to liberal democracy: it is called Christian democracy. And we must show that the liberal elite can be replaced with a Christian democratic elite. Of course in Central Europe there are many misconceptions related to Christianity and politics, and so here I must make an incidental observation. Christian democracy is not about defending religious articles of faith – in this case Christian religious articles of faith. Neither states nor governments have competence on questions of damnation or salvation. Christian democratic politics means that the ways of life springing from Christian culture must be protected. Our duty is not to defend the articles of faith, but the forms of being that have grown from them. These include human dignity, the family and the nation – because Christianity does not seek to attain universality through the abolition of nations, but through the preservation of nations. Other forms which must be protected and strengthened include our faith communities. This – and not the protection of religious articles of faith – is the duty of Christian democracy.”
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