Sacralization of Secular Spheres in Modernity

Our proposal is aimed at analyzing a series of sacred forms that question that initial hallmark of the general theory of secularization which, based on a teleological conception, postulated a movement from the sacred to the profane, from the religious to the secular. These new sacred forms describe a different pattern that goes from the secular to the religious, as new forms of sacralization. In this sense, we analyze, first, the historical emergence of the grand narrative of secularization in Europe, which describes a unidirectional process from the religious to the secular. Second, we carry out a genealogical critique of the narrative of secularization. Third, we analyze the other direction in that dynamic tension that goes from the secular to the religious. Fourthly, we analyze new forms of sacralization that emerged in the French Revolution, in American “civil religion”, in post-war Europe, in the commemorations of Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day, in the Coronation Ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II, in the proto-event of 11 September 2001, in the sacralization of the person and in the sacralization of the child. “See to it that no one enslaves you through the vain fallacy of a philosophy, founded on human traditions, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ.” (Saint Paul, Epistle to the Colossians 2: 8); “In the imagination of the simple patriot, the nation is not a society but the Society. Although its values are relative, they appear, from his naive perspective, as absolute. The nation is always endowed with an aura of sacredness, which is the reason why religions, which claim universality, are so easily captured and domesticated by national sentiment, religion and patriotism converging in such a process.” (Reinhold Niebuhr); “Everyone can only choose for himself who for him is God and who is the devil because with respect to values, in fact, it is always and everywhere not only a matter of alternatives, but of an irreconcilable fight to the death, between ‘god’ and the ‘devil’.” (Max Weber).