Religion and the Making of Society

In this book a leading theologian provides an account and a critique of contemporary thinking on the function of religion in society. Davis begins with the thesis that society is a product of human agency, which raises immediately the questions of the meaning of modernity and of the function of religion in that context. The linguistic and pragmatic orientation of modern philosophy and social theory lead to a discussion of religious language and of praxis, with a stress upon the importance of narrative and of social practice as vehicles of meaning. A connection is made here with Alasdair MacIntyre's analysis and defence of the rationality of tradition. Whether modernity is an incomplete project, as Habermas would have it, or a mistaken universalism, as the post-moderns maintain, is debated under the heading of human identity, both individual and collective, and in as examination of the formation of the modern self. The practical relevance of the theoretical analyses comes to the fore in a critique of Michael Novak's attempt to make 'democratic capitalism' into an ideal, and in an original attempt to ground religious hope in communicative rationality. The sub-title of the book in intended to indicate that one of the forms of social theory is a theology that takes its starting-point from social and political life. Paradoxically enough, as the author shows, the post-modern rejection of secularity can be interpreted as a return from the secular to the supernatural.