three - The radical secularization of moral space

Summary

Thinking about moral order means immediately also thinking about religion. Not that there are no moral viewpoints without reference to a God, but because historically and culturally religion dominates the moral space. All big cultures in history have had some kind of religious base, with many Gods or only one, with big narratives that are cruel and benign at the same time, with rituals, masses and services. I am talking about religion as giving direction, binding communities together in reference to a higher power.

This dominance has changed over the last half-century, especially in European countries and in the former British colonies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. For many people in the West, living in a society without a ruling God is self-evident. Most of the population does not attend a church, mosque, temple, synagogue or other place of worship. Religion plays a minor role in politics, and people's religious experiences remain largely invisible.

Nevertheless, many people consider themselves as more or less religious. ‘Spiritual’ is a commonly used word to describe one's relation to higher matters, and that can have many sides. We see a lot of variance, for example around weddings, births and funerals. Sometimes the rituals are ancient. But in many cases, people give their own twist to their marriage or the departure of a beloved person. The sense of fullness (Taylor's term for our moral or spiritual feelings; 2007: 6-7) seems to have gone underground and pops up only occasionally. We find it difficult to talk about religion. The Western farewell to God is surrounded by ambivalence, and so is its history.

This history is long and has known many struggles. In a penetrating way, Nietzsche (1892) announced the death of God at the end of the 19th century. The social impact of the secularization process only really became visible in the 1960s. After the earlier separation of church and state, religion in the West also pulled back on a societal level. Historically and culturally that is quite a unique situation, about which the last word has not yet been said. Many churches emptied, but attention to religion is everywhere. Is this because of Islam? How should we relate to religion and its new visibility? I consider secularization since the 1960s as a large-scale field experiment with morality.