The Dialectics of Secularization In Krytyka, No. 1-2 (135-136), 2009, pp. 10-13.

This article is a translation of a text by Jürgen Habermas, published on eurozine.com. It is based on a talk given by the author on 15 March 2007 at the Nexus Institute of the Tilburg University (Netherlands).

In his article, Habermas argues against the claim that modern society is completely secularised. In his opinion, society's perception of secularism is changing, particularly under the influence of how the media covers religious conflicts. Religion is increasingly returning to the national public sphere. This is also facilitated by labor immigration, which creates tensions between representatives of different religious traditions — and these contradictions influence how society perceives secularism.

In addition, the author raises the issue of balancing the preservation of cultural identity with the integration of people into a single civil society within the state.  Habermas concludes that in order to preserve the separation between church and state, it is necessary to constantly monitor which ideas and meanings pass from one sphere to another.