Figures de la religion dans les sociétés contemporaines. Quatre thèses philosophiques sur le sens et les issues de la sécularisation

In front of what is referred as a return of religion and the strong presence of religion in public life, the author, openly contrasting with those who speak about the end of secularization, propose to continue to use the theoretical framework of secularization, by valuing the elements of transformation induced by the situation we face. For this purpose, he offers four approches based on an analysis of the consequences of secularization. Afeter having highlighted the multiple meanings of the term, the author emphazises that secularization is a lenghty process, produced by various historical ruptures, irreducible to the dissolution of religious contents and to a conflictual relationship between religion and modernity. For such a reduction forbid to understand that it is secularization itself, which, far from producing a loss of importance of religious questions, products the pluralization of options in matters of faith. It is the secularization thus which creates the conditions for the investement of public sapce by religions, so their protagonist role in this space. This role is based on the vacuum created by the axiological neutralizing of the political sphere, which was created to oppose its invesion by religions. In front of this essential part, acknowledge it, but it is necessary to define to define the limits and boundaries that religions must agree to act in the public sphere.