Multiculturalism and the Post-secular: Dialogue and Translation

The notion of the post-secular has become increasingly used in a variety of ways to suggest how the place and importance of religion in society has shifted. Habermas’s much commented on rendering of the post-secular is notable not just for its importance in this area of scholarship, but also as part of a wider theoretical shift that has occurred in relation to secularism more generally; that is, a shift towards more accommodative positions in relation to public religion. An important aspect of this shift has been a greater recognition of multiculturalism, signalling how Western European states have become increasingly multicultural and multi-faith. Multiculturalist theorists have made notable contributions to scholarship in this area distinct from liberal thinkers, and this is perhaps most developed in the Bristol School of Multiculturalism. Yet, an under-developed area in multiculturalist thought is that which provides the main focus for Habermas’s famous article Religion in the Public Sphere (2006), namely the place of religious reason and language in public and political debate. This is a notable gap, not least as the issue of religious language and reason has been a significant aspect of other liberal accounts as well as those of political theologians. This contribution seeks to first suggest reasons for this gap in multiculturalist thinking, before turning to develop a multiculturalist account of the place of religious language and reason in public and political debate.