Zwischen Entgrenzung und Re-Nationalisierung Die Ambivalenz religiöser Überzeugungen in der postsäkularen Öffentlichkeit europäischer Gesellschaften

This text analyses the potentials and dangers of a publicly present religion in a postsecular society. On the one hand, religions offer essential resources of motivation to engage in public policy and are critical voices in public discourse. On the other hand, they are at constant risk of becoming instruments of exclusion and of collapsing into a nationalistic insularity. This ambivalence of religion can be overcome by identifying a narrow political sphere, in which the public justification of collectively binding norms takes place, and a broad sphere of civil society, which is open for a comprehensive orientation of society. This solution aims at acknowledging religious communities and individuals as important and highly relevant public agents while at the same time insisting on the liberality and neutrality of a pluralist constitutional state