Jean-Pierre Hiernaux

La “Religion Invisible” En Belgique: Questions De Visibilité

“Visible religion” in Belgium takes the form it takes in many other Western European countries: classic forms of practices, beliefs, and identifications can be distinguished, but the gap between these and traditional religious forms is increasing. However, this gap does not keep the “visible religion” from seeking fundamental meaning, or producing and celebrating the same. Quite the contrary, as concerns practices and beliefs relative to death, for example, older forms do not simply disappear, but are replaced by new arrangements. These new arrangements are self-produced and self-maintained, but they do not give rise to an increase in individualization in a context of dissolution of forms. It may be that still newer forms will rise upon the ashes of these forms. Should they not be described as “religious”? And in order to transcend their relative “invisibility”, must the sociology of religion not also break with its history of colonization by prior forms?