Étienne Balibar's 'Saeculum' Rethinks Religion and Ideology

In his book 'Saeculum', philosopher Étienne Balibar addresses the theologico-political problem, arguing that its contemporary limits are less national than cosmopolitical. He contends that the word 'religion' is untranslatable outside its Roman origins, rendering traditional local solutions obsolete. Using the French headscarf affair as an example, Balibar shows how the law, by reviving forms of power sacralization, exacerbates the problem. He proposes reframing culture and religion within a third term: ideology. For Balibar, ideology opposes the fictional isolation of 'community' and maintains a constitutive 'outside' where no stable answers to essential questions exist. It allows an 'evanescent mediator' to disrupt religious certainties without diverting them from their own pursuit of truth and justice. This is essential to avoid Max Weber's 'war of the gods'. The book's merit, according to reviewer Michel Vignard, is to calmly embrace the inevitable path of peace, even if utopian. Published by Galilée.