The Horizon of Postreligion

Abstract

The 'end of religion' is an old theme in the Humanities. It is a theme to which I return tonight from an unexpected direction as I apply constructive history to the horizon of postreligion. My lecture develops in stages. First, I note that religion is currently enjoying a positive re­-evaluation which contrasts with the widespread eighteenth and nineteenth century expectation that religion would die out. Secondly, I clarify what is at stake by reconsidering Hegel's philosophy of religion, which, on a certain reading, implied that the end of 'religion' had already occurred, in principle, if not in empirical reality. Third, I argue that constructive history necessarily disaggregates and complicates Western generic notions of religion, and, because it does so, makes possible new and productive ways of studying religious materials found in the historical record. Fourth, I apply the techniques of constructive history to the consideration of three religious or esoteric movements which, in my estimation, are of interest for attempts to think about the end of religion. Fifth, on the basis of these and other case studies I have carried out, I set out a prospection about postreligion as a set of horizonal organisational possibilities which we should debate and discuss in order to raise the level of rationality and historical sensitivity with which we approach the question of the end of religion. Finally, I consider some objections to my procedure before summarising what the lecture has achieved.