sociologist Jean Louis Schlegelspecializing in the sociology of religion and former director of the magazine ‘Esprit’, will be the main protagonist of the closing ceremony of the 2021-2022 academic year Joan Maragall Foundation. The presentation, entitled ‘The empty Temple: cultural and spiritual secularization‘ will take place Tuesday, June 14 at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Faculty of Communication and International Relations Blanquerna, in Barcelona (Valldonzella street, 12).
The Schlegel conference will revolve around the concept of “emptiness” in society, according to a statement. The author defends that we have entered “the era of the void”, both in the religious sense and in the personal and cultural sense. He will do it from three points:
The society of emptiness accentuated by the pandemic. Schlegel will describe some aspects of the emptiness revealed by the pandemic: social, psychological, historical, political emptiness, end of ideologies, commitments to the community, end of transcendence, individualism, self-concern, narcissism… “This emptiness is not it is recent: it was established during the second half, or during the last decades of the 20th century & rdquor ;, says Schlegel. You will wonder why and how.
Discussion: the author will discuss whether we are really facing the “empty” or, on the contrary, the fear of emptiness. “Aren’t we facing the challenge of a plurality of possibilities and an explosion of options, which lead to exhaustion of being oneself and depression…?”, plans the conference.
Situation of the Church and Christianity
The Church, and Christianity in general: reactions to the pandemic, and beyond, in the “Temple (increasingly) empty & rdquor; of European Christianity, to a secularization not only of society, but of individual consciences. You will end up questioning what was lost, what to say and what to do.
Related news
These themes relate toPandemic Triptych” of the Joan Maragall Foundation, dedicated to the reflections of the Board of Trustees on “Death in solitude, the empty temple, nature overflowing“.
The reflections from last year were published in Notebook 125 of the FJM entitled “Reflections on failure, death and hope” and it is planned to publish in a new Notebook with the reflections of this course on the theme of the empty temple in the context of the difficulties of the religious, humanistic and civic transmission and of the new investigations of spirituality.
Sociologist Jean-Louis Schlegel will close the Fundació Joan Maragall course this Tuesday