Introduction

Postsecularism presents an opportunity – for a space in which religious and secular worldviews can co-exist and enter into dialogue (Gorski and Altinordu, 2008), a ‘rapprochement of ethical praxis’ (Cloke, 2011, p 381). In this chapter, we engage with postsecularism through the spatial lens of the city because we consider that a postsecular approach provides a useful set of tools for conceptualising the rich and diverse ground-level engagements occurring between religious and secular groups within the intensive urban environment.

We start by establishing our understanding of postsecularism before moving on to consider existing literatures on the postsecular city. The multi-scalar role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in urban spaces, their mobility and their performativity, is essential to our later discussion of what we call a postsecular ethics. A key contention of this section is that faith remains central despite the diversity in FBO responses to the challenges posed by neoliberal policies. We then consider some of these reactions from FBOs, which highlight the multiple and dynamic natures of postsecular spaces of engagement.

In the second half of the chapter, we introduce empirical examples that allow us to open up the political and ethical scope of postsecularism. The central aim of these sections is to develop the idea of a postsecular ethics, a highly contextual concept enacted through a dialogue, which ensures a performed virtue ethics based on a recognition of an intersubjective community. In order to construct our argument, we introduce this through reference to an oft-quoted example of postsecular engagement, London Citizens; this case establishes a certain lens, which offers a very particular way of interpreting other FBO cases. We found the vociferous discourse of an alternative to the neoliberal hegemony extremely useful in positioning postsecularism within the postpolitical, ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) condition that we take as this current, neoliberal moment. Understanding postsecularism as offering a revival of debate grounds our conceptualisation of a postsecular ethics on collaboration, praxis and an intersubjective sense of identity. The other empirical examples – Exodus Amsterdam and the Christian Aid and Resources Foundation (CARF) – offer lived cases through which the preceding theoretical discussion is explored. In these ways the empirical material weaves through the chapter's exploration of the political and ethical promise of FBOs in urban spaces, through their creation of collaborative and connected communities.