Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands. At best (and at most), according to Habermas, “the encounter with theology,” like an encounter at a cocktail party, “can remind a self-forgetful secular reason of its origins” in the same “revolutions in worldviews” that gave us monotheism. (One God and one reason stem from the same historical source.)
This sounds remarkably like the evolution of the Erastian bargain in Great Britain. While officially religious, with the Queen both head of state and head of the Church of England, in fact, religion in Britain - outside pockets of nonconformity including Methodists, Baptists, Rastas, Roman Catholics, and Jews who are observant - exists mostly as the conductor of certain life-rituals: baptism, marriage, and funeral services. For the most part, the C of E and the British public rarely encounter one another. In order to maintain a certain social peace, the established Church accepts its position in society while never demanding of its members more than titular adherence to that membership.
Overall, this seems to me to be akin to Habermas' understanding of the role in what he calls a "post-secular" society. In fact, that hyphenated phrase is quite meaningless, because I can't even imagine what it might mean. His explanation seems to me to reflect a kind of European acceptance of post-Christian Erastianism.
Unless, of course, I'm missing something, or Fish left something out. . .
