At the recent Telos Conference in New York City, Telos Editor Russell A. Berman discussed the themes of the upcoming issues of the journal. Telos 166 (Spring 2014), which is now available, is entitled “After Faith” and addresses the endurance of religion despite the movement toward secularization. Telos 167, coming this summer, takes the related question “Are We Post-Secular” as its theme, and brings together a variety of contributions from around the world.
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Greg Melleuish and Susanna Rizzo’s “From Secular Temporality to Post-Secular Timelessness: Trekking the Past’s Future and Future’s Past” appears in Telos 163 (Summer 2013). Read the full version online at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our store. The following paper was presented at the Seventh Annual Telos Conference, held on February 15–17, 2013, in New York City. Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was certainly sudden but not altogether unexpected. During the pontificate of his predecessor, the then Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have advised the long-suffering Pope John Paul II to renounce the Petrine office. Crucially, in mid-2010 Benedict gave a strong indication that he was considering abdicating. On April 29, 2009, he left his pallium—the sign of Episcopal authority—on the tomb of Pope Celestine V in the Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio, in L’Aquila. In the same location Celestine had been crowned pontiff on August 29, 1294—an event that is commemorated as the festival of Perdonanza Celestinana in the earthquake-stricken city every August 28–29. It is unlikely that Benedict’s highly symbolic gesture was a random act. Clearly he felt a deep spiritual connection with the studious monk-pope Celestine, who abdicated in 1295. Yaacov Yadgar’s “A Post-Secular Look at Tradition: Toward a Definition of ‘Traditionism'” appears in Telos 156 (Fall 2011). Read the full version online at the TELOS Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue here. |
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This essay is built on the assumption that History is as much about the future as it is about the past and that there is a “politics of history” that determines the relationship of the past to the present and the future. The secularization thesis created a model of history in which human beings passed from a condition in which they were religious, primitive, and querulous to one in which they were moving toward a world that would be not only secular but also peaceful. At the same time, the end of History can be understood in eschatological terms in which we are always at the end of days waiting for the purging that will allow the purpose of History to be fulfilled. The return of religion destroys this narrative and allows others to return, including History as irony and the possibility of the story as a denial of History. Post-secular History reflects both the crumbling of this once certain narrative and the legitimacy of the modern state that was built on that narrative. It is a crisis of authority, as can be seen in the proliferation of views and ideas that can be found on the world wide web, and the seeming erosion of the capacity of historians to control History and structure its narratives. 
The philosopher John Caputo starts off his review of Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank’s debate book, The Monstrosity of Christ, by claiming that “Materialism just isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays everyone wants to be a materialist, even the theologians, while the materialists want to look like they lead a spiritual life.”[1] Caputo goes on to claim that today’s battle is “no longer between materialism and idealism, or hard-nosed Newtonians and far out spirit-seers, but between ‘materialist materialism’ and ‘theological materialism’,” and he continues and qualifies, “between crude soulless materialism and materialism with spirit.”[2] 
Building on the “post-secular” turn in the interdisciplinary study of society, culture, history, and religion, this essay aims at refocusing the investigative gaze at tradition and the attitudes toward it. Originating from an interest in Israeli-Jews who decline to self-identify as either “secular” or “religious” and instead choose “masorti” (deriving from masoret, Hebrew for tradition) as the label of their religious identity, the essay attempts to present an interpretative, phenomenological discussion of tradition, traditionalism, and what is suggested here as the proper translation of masorti-ness, “traditionism.” The essay first reconstructs an understanding of tradition that stresses its constitutive, dialogical, dynamic, and contemporary nature. Building on this understanding of tradition the paper then investigates what academic literature often refers to as “traditionalism,” commonly understood to be marking a rigid, ultra-conservative, and totalizing view of tradition’s authority over the individual’s as well as the community’s life. Contrasting “traditionism” with this traditionalist ultra-conservatism, the essay suggests an outline for interpreting and understanding traditionism as a (late-) modern, self-reflective, practical, critical, and selective adherence to tradition. The essay argues that traditionism thus offers a viable post-secular alternative to the predominant notion of an inherent antinomy between modernity and tradition. 
