oa [The Sacred Domain. Toward a new Relationship between the Private, the Public, and the Sacred, Het sacrale domein. Aanzetten tot een nieuwe verhouding tussen het private, het publieke en het sacrale]

Current discussions about religion and the pre-political foundations of liberal democracies tend to distinguish only between the private and the public realm. In order to do more justice to the meaning of religion, a plea is held to discern and explore a dimension beyond the private and the public: the domain of the sacred. Inspired by the work of Rudolf Otto and Eric Voegelin, the relevance of the sacred for both the private and the public spheres is analyzed. Only by distinguishing between these three domains can totalitarianism (sacralization of the public) and sectarianism (sacralization of the private) be avoided.