2012/08/22 by Silvio Ferrari · 21 citations
Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Economics #Epistemology #Law #Perspective (graphical) #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Position (finance) #Positive economics #Prism #Private sphere #Public sphere #Religion and Society Interactions #Religious Freedom and Discrimination #Religious freedom #Secular education #Secular state #Secularism #Secularization #Sociology #Space (punctuation)
paper · doi:10.1017/s0956618x1200035x
published in Ecclesiastical Law Journal 14(3), 355-370 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2012/08/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
This article examines two interpretations of the process of secularisation that can be traced back through European legal and political thought, and a more recent trend that challenges both of them. It does this through the prism of the public sphere, because in today's Europe one of the most debated issues is the place and role of religion in this sphere, understood as the space where decisions concerning questions of general interest are discussed. The article concludes, first, that the paradigm through which relations between the secular and the religious have been interpreted is shifting and, second, that this change is going to have an impact on the notion of religious freedom and, consequently, on the recognised position of religions in the public sphere. 1