Modern Religious Themes

This chapter sketches dominant themes in the modern sacred cosmos. They all bestow something like a sacred status upon the individual by articulating his “autonomy.” Self-expression and self-realization are prominent themes. They are expressed in the current mobility ethos and views on sexuality as a form of expression and fulfilment. Another major element is familism. In all this, the modern sacred cosmos symbolizes the social-historical phenomenon of individualism and that it bestows, in various articulations, “ultimate” significance upon the structurally determined phenomenon of the “private sphere.”