ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the dimensions of innovationism and the ways in which it is used in a collective search for meaning, or quest for certainty, in three national settings, the United States, Finland, and Japan. It discusses the post-secular connecting ways in which the religious domain is present in subsystems that might appear to be secular. One of the main propositions of the post-secularity debate states that because of the growing public visibility of religion and religious phenomena, theories of secularization are no longer able to explain social conditions in contemporary developed societies. In discussing the dimensions of innovationism as a worldview, the chapter elucidates how innovationism works, first of all, in organizing and maintaining core values. And secondly, in managing hope and threat in those post-secular societies in which religion is a matter of choice. The set of values is institutionalized through the constant circulation of innovationism in different contexts and conjunctures.
