Rethinking the secular: Critical Perspectives on Religion, Education, and Culture

Thematic focus

‘Once, there was no “secular”… the secular as a domain had to be instituted or imagined’. With these words, John Milbank’s influential Theology and Social Theory (1990) launched the idea of ‘the secular’ as a complex, unstable, contingent imaginative construction still steeped in religious languages, histories, and debates. Since then, a number of genealogies of secular modernity that trace its paradoxes and challenges back to much older theological debates have been added to the scholarly arsenal. This interdisciplinary working group probes the question of how and why ‘the secular’ was invented historically, as a basis for a critique of how this ideological construction influences contemporary cultural, social, and political debates.

Purpose and activities

NLA university college has an explicit value foundation with a Christian profile. A central question for the college is, therefore, the understandings of secularity in play in Norwegian society and internationally as these influence white papers, laws, public discourse, and cultural production. The research group Rethinking the Secular aims at becoming a hub for research projects, seminars, and workshops critically engaging with ideas and practices of secularity. 

The research group builds on already existing national and international networks and starts from three main fields: 

1. Literature and art

2. Religion and philosophy 

3. Religious education. 

Professor Erik Tonning is the coordinator for the whole research group and for the field of literature and art, while Professor Clemens Cavallin has responsibility for the field of religious education. Together they manage the field of religion and philosophy. 

The research group is positive toward cooperation with other research groups at NLA. Our hope is that its work will constitute a resource for a wider conversation at NLA and beyond.  

The research group will organize a series of open online seminars during 2023 on the theme of secularity. For participation email either erik.tonning@nla.no or clemens.cavallin@nla.no.