12

An intrinsic part of being “a religious” is a certain degree of radicality. While embedded in a culture, adherents of a faith tradition belong to another place, one that is “here and yet to come”, as Christians believe. If the quest for radicality now appears to us in a new light, more alive or visible, the reason is that it expresses a transformation, a shift, a reconfiguration of the religious. The purpose of this reflection is thus to keep two types of questions in tension: the question of what in the social and cultural context provokes a quest for radicality, while seeking to understand what this quest for the radical tells us about society and culture. While presenting itself as countercultural, in reaction or on the margins, radicality as we observe it is the product of the dominant imaginary that is specific to consumer societies.