INTRODUCTION

The concept of ‘secularization’ was introduced at the turn of the nineteenth century—in the wake of many heated debates, some of which are described and discussed in this volume—into the general Western discourse on the relationship between religion, the state, and society at large. In the course of the twentieth century it became the most prominent paradigm not only for describing, but also for regulating the societal dynamics of religion (Krech): In many parts of the world the constitutional separation of state and church, of a secular and a religious sphere, has been recognised as one of the