To the surprise of many readers, Jürgen Habermas has recentlymade religion a major theme of his work. Emphasizing bothreligion's prominence in the contemporary public sphere and itspotential contributions to critical thought, Habermas's engagementwith religion has been controversial and exciting, putting much ofhis own work in fresh perspective and engaging key themes inphilosophy, politics and social theory.Habermas argues that the once widely accepted hypothesis ofprogressive secularization fails to account for the multipletrajectories of modernization in the contemporary world. He callsattention to the contemporary significance of "postmetaphysical"thought and "postsecular" consciousness - even in Western societiesthat have embraced a rationalistic understanding of publicreason.Habermas and Religion presents a series of original andsustained engagements with Habermas's writing on religion in thepublic sphere, featuring new work and critical reflections fromleading philosophers, social and political theorists, andanthropologists. Contributors to the volume respond both toHabermas's ambitious and well-developed philosophical project andto his most recent work on religion. The book closes with anextended response from Habermas - itself a major statement from oneof today's most important thinkers.

List of Abbreviations viiEditors' Introduction 1Part I Rationalization, Secularisms, and Modernities1 Exploring the Postsecular: Three Meanings of "theSecular" and Their Possible Transcendence 27José Casanova2 The Anxiety of Contingency: Religion in a Secular Age 49María Herrera Líma3 Is the Postsecular a Return to Political Theology? 72María Pía Lara4 An Engagement with Jurgen Habermas on PostmetaphysicalPhilosophy, Religion, and Political Dialogue 92Nicholas WolterstorffPart II The Critique of Reason and the Unfinished Project ofEnlightenment5 The Burdens of Modernized Faith and Postmetaphysical Reason inHabermas's "Unfinished Project ofEnlightenment" 115Thomas McCarthy6 Having One's Cake and Eating It Too: Habermas'sGenealogy of Postsecular Reason 132Amy Allen7 Forgetting Isaac: Faith and the Philosophical Impossibility ofa Postsecular Society 154J. M. BernsteinPart III World Society, Global Public Sphere, and DemocraticDeliberation8 A Postsecular Global Order? The Pluralism of Forms of Life andCommunicative Freedom 179James Bohman9 Global Religion and the Postsecular Challenge 203Hent de Vries10 Religion and the Public Sphere: What are the DeliberativeObligations of Democratic Citizenship? 230Cristina Lafont11 Violating Neutrality? Religious Validity Claims andDemocratic Legitimacy 249Maeve CookePart IV Translating Religion, Communicative Freedom, andSolidarity12 Sources of Morality in Habermas's Recent Work onReligion and Freedom 277Matthias Fritsch13 Solidarity with the Past and the Work of Translation:Reflections on Memory Politics and the Postsecular 301Max Pensky14 What Lacks is Feeling: Hume versus Kant and Habermas322John MilbankReply to My Critics 347Jürgen Habermas (Translated by Ciaran Cronin)Appendix: Religion in Habermas's Work 391Eduardo MendietaNotes and References 408Bibliography of Works by Jürgen Habermas 465Index 471