During secularization, says Klaus Eder, religion did not disappear completely. It only became invisible to the public sphere. In Europe, this was a result of the two dominant Christian religions – Protestantism and Catholicism – which drove other religious beliefs into the private sphere. He terms the recent return of religion to the public sphere post-secularism.
Klaus Eder
(b.1946) studied sociology at Frankfurt University and the University of Constance. In 1984 he took his Habilitation at the University of Düsseldorf, where he was Privatdozent from 1985 onwards; he was also Heisenberg Fellow and research director of the study group for social science research, Munich. He is now professor of sociology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
