„Wir sind nie säkular gewesen“: Politische Theologie und die Geographien des Religiösen

Abstract

Abstract. In these afterthoughts to a themed issue on the „Geographies of Post-Secularity“, I critically interrogate the analytical purchase of the terminology of post-secularism. I suggest that the concept of the post-secular is ill-suited to provide a vocabulary for multi-religious societies in the West as much as elsewhere. Instead, I suggest that the vocabulary of a descriptive political theology (Assmann) better helps us grasp the continuing negotiation of the dialectic relations between the secular and the religious. I illustrate this conceptual vocabulary for the study of religion and politics in the postcolonial world, first, in the political-normative debates on Indian secularism, and second, in the everyday struggles of religious actors in the violent politics of Sri Lanka's civil war, to then return to debates on (post-) secularity. I conclude that, indeed, we have never been secular – that the dialectic relations between the secular and the religious are bound to remain, and to become further complicated in increasingly multi-religious societies.