ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the broad outlines of the paradigm. It shows that ultramodernity is a secularised modernity, that is to say a new stage of secularisation in the spheres of work, politics and family. The chapter examines the societal situation of religion in ultramodernity. It argues that ultramodernity is really a process that secularises modernity and demythologises the secular ideals in the very name of which modernity previously helped to secularise religion. Political ultramodernity, which makes it more difficult to exercise any kind of collective sovereignty, leads to the reconfiguration of relations between religions and politics. Groups based on convictions, which is what religions are, portray themselves as bearers of a certain vision of man and society in relation to politics. The chapter underlines the fact that the order of ultramodernity amounts to a societal situation that ought to be an invitation for sociologists of religion to re-think the classical model of relations between religions and modernity.
