Are we living in a ‘post-secular age’, and can phenomenology help us better understand the discontents of secularism? From Habermas’ claim that the secular hypothesis has failed for democratic reasons to the fact that religion, far from its predicted dwindling, is as strong as ever (or even stronger than before), some have concluded that secularism as we know it is over. Others have questioned whether we have ever truly been secular, if the concept applies only to European societies, or whether the very notion of religiosity is merely a weapon of pacification in the hands of Western universalism. The post-secular notion thus lingers between sociological fact and philosophical theory, and it is the latter that we need to investigate if we want to confront the challenges that any ‘return of religion’ entails. Although phenomenology has furnished manifold devices to rethink religious experience in a post-metaphysical way, its investigations often remain individualistic and beholden to unproductive dichotomies. This volume assembles investigations into secularism’s discontents by addressing religion’s role in forming the fabric of contemporary societies and unveiling new constellations of faith and reason beyond many beloved modernist dichotomies (e.g. theism/atheism, myth/Enlightenment, fundamentalism/tolerance) that often go under-investigated. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

Gregg Lambert examines two facets of the return to religion in the 21st century: the resurgence of overtly religious themes in contemporary philosophy and the global 'post-secular' turn that has been taking place since 9/11. He asks how these two 'returns to religion' can be taking place simultaneously, and explores the relationship between them. Lambert reflects on statements of these returns from contemporary philosophers including Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. He discovers a unique - and forboding - sense of the term 'religion' that belongs exclusively to our contemporary perspective.

Reading Religious Ritual with Ricoeur: Between Fragility and Hope creates a dialogue between Ricœur’s hermeneutic philosophy and the interpretation of human ritual practices, especially as such practices are manifested within the context of Christian liturgy. In the first part of the book, Christina M. Gschwandtner shows that Ricœur’s account of religion would be deepened if it were to take into account not only the biblical texts but also forms of liturgical expression and ritual actions. She challenges Ricœur’s early reading of the symbol and second naïveté, broadens his interpretation of biblical texts and faith to consider religious actions more fully, and suggests that ritual can enhance human capacities. The second part of the book employs Ricœur’s hermeneutics in order to shed light on the analysis of liturgy, demonstrating that his accounts of truth, of the world of the text, of religious language, of the imagination, and of the formation of identity are all eminently applicable to liturgical experience. Reading Religious Ritual with Ricoeur shows that one of the most significant themes in Ricœur’s work—the tension between fragility and hope—is especially helpful for understanding what liturgy does and how it functions. Seeing how liturgy and ritual configure fragility and hope also enriches Ricœur’s account of the role and function of religion in human experience.

Even in the twenty-first century, critical and creative engagement with modern and postmodern philosophy is a rarity in Orthodox circles. The collection of essays presented here by Christoph Schneider makes a significant contribution to overcoming this deficit. Eight scholars from six different countries, working on the intersection between Orthodox thought and philosophy, present their research in short and accessible form. The topics covered range from political philosophy to phenomenology, metaphysics, philosophy of self, logic, ethics, and philosophy of language. The authors do not all promote one particular approach to the relationship between Orthodox theology and philosophy. Nevertheless, taken together, their work demonstrates that Orthodox scholarship is not confined to historical research about the Byzantine era, but can contribute to, and enrich, contemporary intellectual debates.

Phenomenology of Religion is designed to be a practical introduction to the discipline of acquiring an understanding of the art of communication, including religious communication, from a phenomenological perspective. It is an exploration of the meaning of specific expressions of religious life in a manner that does them justice, a manner that is emphatically sensitive to the viewpoint of the participants as well as appropriately objective. Out of the wide variety of themes covered by Husserl's phenomenology and later developed by Heidegger, Merleau Ponty, and others in different possible directions, the present work is an attempt at indicating the few features of the method which derives from Edmund Husserl's basic themes of the phenomenological movement and its methodology. It is an attempt at exploring the manner in which this method has been applied to the study of art and religion by other phenomenologists and accordingly to state and introduce the problem of this profound bulk--namely, the phenomenological apporach to religion--mostly in their terms. The present work seeks to provide insights into J. N. Mohanty's vision of phenomenology and of Husserl's ideas in particular, and contains discussion of some of the central issues which form the foundation of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. Phenomenology of Religion will be of immense relevance to those who wish to pursue phenomenology from a cross-cultural perspective.

Undaunted Hope in a Post-Christian World We live in a post-Christian world. Contemporary thought—claiming to be “progressive” and “liberating”—attempts to place human beings in God’s role as creator, lawgiver, and savior. But these post-Christian ways of thinking and living are running into dead ends and fatal contradictions. This timely book demonstrates how the Christian worldview stands firm in a world dedicated to constructing its own knowledge, morality, and truth. Gene Edward Veith Jr. points out the problems with how today’s culture views humanity, God, and even reality itself. He offers hope-filled, practical ways believers can live out their faith in a secularist society as a way to recover reality, rebuild culture, and revive faith.

Continental philosophers of religion have been engaging with theological issues, concepts and questions for several decades, blurring the borders between the domains of philosophy and theology. Yet when Emmanuel Falque proclaims that both theologians and philosophers need not be afraid of crossing the Rubicon – the point of no return – between these often artificially separated disciplines, he scandalised both camps. Despite the scholarly reservations, the theological turn in French phenomenology has decisively happened. The challenge is now to interpret what this given fact of creative encounters between philosophy and theology means for these disciplines. In this collection, written by both theologians and philosophers, the question “Must we cross the Rubicon?” is central. However, rather than simply opposing or subscribing to Falque’s position, the individual chapters of this book interrogate and critically reflect on the relationship between theology and philosophy, offering novel perspectives and redrawing the outlines of their borderlands.