Hans Joas

Relations between faith and the fabric – whether political, social, economic, cultural or moral – of communities, societies and the global world are increasingly studied in many disciplines, not primarily because of the popular claim that religion is back and the fact that the so-called secularization theory is today rejected by many, but rather since many scholars increasingly recognize the public role of faith, not in the sense of religious convictions, communities and traditions, but in the sense of basic axioms and values, core beliefs and commitments (Taylor), cardinal convictions (Huber), notions of the sacred (Joas), in short, the faith of the faithless (Critchley).

In 2005/2006 the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin hosted an inter-disciplinary research project on secular modernity in which world-renowned Fellows like Hans Joas (German sociologist at the Freiburh Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), professor of the University of Chicago), who led the project, Charles Taylor (Canadian philosopher) and Jose Casanova (sociologist of religion from New York), amongst others, studied the nature of secularisation and the presence and role or religion in different so-called modern societies.