ABSTRACT
Jürgen Habermas was not the first scholar to address the idea of a postsecular condition. I remember that I myself stumbled upon this concept in the title of a book that was published in 1990 (Franck et al. 1990). This volume did not primarily follow from recognition of an increasing coupling of religion with global or other societal public conflicts in a Habermasian sense (Habermas 2008). Instead, many of the authors seemed to envisage a new era that meant a break with the earlier dichotomy between ‘knowledge and belief’ that was understood to be problematic. The concept of the postsecular is here comprehended in a more epistemological way against the backdrop of secularism and how reason, in contrast to religion, had become central to the Enlightenment narrative and thus a vehicle of progression and emancipation. This resembles Richard John Neuhaus claim from 1982 where he states ‘We are witnessing the collapse of the 200-year old hegemony of the secular Enlightenment over public discourse’ (Neuhaus 1982: 309).
