Abstract:
In pre-democratic – also pre-modern – times, religion had been at the centre of much of human
life, filling the private as well as the public realm of people’s daily existence. However, with the
change to democratic rule in major countries in the modern world (see, most influentially, Article
1 of the French Constitution after the French Revolution and the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, influencing all other democracies in their wake), religion has for
the most part reflexively been sidelined from public life. Or has it? Does religion not still hold a
special place in law in democratic societies, but now in reverse? Firstly, whereas matters of
religious faith had throughout the greater part of human history been included in matters of
politics, it is now as a matter of course of law excluded, purposely so. Religion is thus still a
‘special case’, a unique aspect of humanity when compared to all other matters, in law as much
as in politics and other aspects of public life. Secondly, in the post-secular cultural climate dawning
across the world, matters of faith (religion, spirituality) are no longer as stringently excluded from
public life, which impacts directly on how religion is touched upon in law, sociology, philosophy,
music and other academic disciplines too. Our dawning post-secular age is bringing something
new. Two scholars, who have been doing foundational work in this regard, have done so fully in
parallel, not taking cognisance of the mutualities in their academic contributions. Otto in Munich,
Germany, has been combining his two areas of expertise, the Pentateuch in the Hebrew Bible and
the sociologist Max Weber, to indicate the trajectory through history of democratic impulses from
Ancient Near Eastern founding documents into the current era. Benson in Sydney, Australia, has
on his part been drawing on his expertise in law as practised in Canada and taught in Europe,
South Africa and Australia to indicate how, in inclusively liberal democracies, law cannot
justifiably be used to exclude religion from the public domain, as has been the usual modern case.
Drawing together these parallel contributions, Lombaard places these initiatives within the
emerging post-secular climate, which augurs a different way of being religious or non-religious,
publicly as much as privately, in democratic societies in our time.
