The ethics of citizenship after secularism: Habermas, religion, and the public sphere

This thesis seeks to understand if and how religious believers may be fully incorporated into the liberal democratic politics of modern pluralistic societies. This is done through an examination of Jurgen Habermas's recent work on the problem of religion in the public sphere. The first section reviews important sociological discussions concerning religion's recent rise to prominence in global politics and the problem that this poses to secularist political thought. The second section discusses Habermas's own theory of the relation between religion and liberal politics and some of the well-known theories and arguments to which it responds. The third and final section is a critical evaluation of Habermas's theory which identifies major flaws and puts forward a different, though still deeply Habermasian, proposal for a democratic politics which, though thoroughly liberal, does not require believers to check their religious identity at the town hall door.