The crisis of meaning and the new arrangements of faith: theoretical approaches from Daniele Hervieu-Léger

Abstract

Today's society is going through a crisis of legitimation and, consequently, of meaning, or what is conventionally called the unique meaning of existence. The individual is now faced with a plurality of offers of meaning, on which he has to make choices and build a meaning for his existence, running all the risks that the choice brings with it. Modernity has also generated rationalization processes that provoke secularization, in its multiple processes, leading to a deep crisis of legitimation of the religious sphere. In this new scenario, a variety of ways of believing can be observed, characterized by the centrality of the individual, as the measure and end of their relationships and the universe, based on a logic of thinking for oneself. The French sociologist Daniele Hervieu-Léger presents two models of religious sociability in this context: the religious in motion (Pilgrim), who breaks with the regular ordering of time and practical observances, and the figure of the practitioner (Converted), who tends to be governed by the institution. Both, in this process of secularization, manage their own way of believing. The objective of this study is to reflect on the crisis of meaning, reflected in religious mobility, which is, in part, a symptom of this crisis, with bricolage as a striking feature of new ways of believing and, consequently, of building meaning for existence.