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When the Gods Fall: Varieties of Post-Secularization in a Small, Secularized State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Clayton Fordahl  and
Berglind Ragnarsdóttir
Clayton Fordahl*
Affiliation:
University of Memphis
Berglind Ragnarsdóttir
Affiliation:
University of Akureyri
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Clayton Fordahl, Sociology Department, University of Memphis, Clement Hall, Memphis, TN 38152. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Lengthy debates over the process of secularization in the West have concluded. In many ways, secularization theorists appear to have “won” the debate: traditional measures of religious vitality reveal a decline in religion. Yet, recent events, especially those involving politics and national identity, have encouraged scholars and members of the public to reconsider the ways in which something like religion might endure and influence public life in secularized Western nations. This paper uses the “exceptional-typical” case of Iceland—a modern, Western, secularized country of comparatively small population size—to observe and conceptualize a variety of processes which are here collectively named “post-secularization.” Its findings suggest that processes which may appear as unrelated or opposing forces—the emergence of new religious movements, the transformation of traditional religious symbols into profane branding, far right nationalist movements—may be part of a single, post-secularization process. Secularization, having fissured the sacred, leaves religion a pliable cultural tool.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 362 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

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