Sacred Symbols and Practices Across the Religious-Secular Divide
Keywords:
Modern, Politics, Profane, Public Sphere, Religion, Sacred, Secular, SymbolismAbstract
There is no unanimity of opinion among scholars on what is considered as sacred. While there are scholars who argue that religion has the exclusive control over the sacred, there are also others who argue that the process of secularization has taken the sacred outside the control of organized religion. This paper is an attempt to challenge the polarity between religious and secular in the context of the discussion of the sacred. By drawing examples from the arena of modern politics I will try to show how the solemn in modern societies is closely associated with or resemble the sacred in religion. The political symbolisms, rituals and practices of modern nation states get their sanctity and solemnity by being associated with or by resembling religious symbols, rituals and practices. I argue that the idea of solemn in modern societies is neither restricted to the obviously religious nor to those cases where religion and politics mix but is also found in outwardly non-religious or secular contexts, thus prompting us to take a relook at the so-called secular.
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