The first authoritative mention of the word “postmodern” belongs to the historian Arnold Toynbee in 1947.  It meant the end of Modernity, that is, the supremacy of the West, “after the West.”  It was later used in art to describe new trends in literature.  However, the word became more widespread in 1979 by Jean-François Lyotard’s “Postmodernist Situation. After the publication of the book “Report on Knowledge”, where the concept of “postmodern” spread from culture to societies.

The postmodern is the definition of the result of the logic of the development of late capitalism; it encompasses the whole socio-cultural reality, where religion is no exception.

In the postmodern age, “truth” is relative, authorities are ridiculed, and this can not be conducive to a religion based on authority, claiming absolute truth, which must be unconditionally pursued.  However, strange as it may seem, the exact opposite is happening in this period, and religious activity is growing all over the world.

In the modern era, the critique of religion was based on the authority of science; it was considered that the possibilities of scientific cognition were limitless.  In our time, with the loss of confidence in science, the foundations of that critique, which can only be scientific, are lost.  With the collapse of the communist world based on atheistic ideology, atheism was discredited.

Religion is back, but it is not a tradition-based pre-modern religion, but a religious quest for postmodern diversity, the most popular movement of which is the New Age.  The ritual side of religion is still irrelevant, but many have decided to find the soul hidden in the distance or in the depths. This is the phenomenon of “post-religion”.

In the postmodern era, the identity of individual groups is being redefined, and the “politics of identities” is gaining priority.

Identity, like many concepts, has an author, a context of origin and prevalence, a history, which, of course, is important for understanding and applying it accurately.

Let us remind that the idea of identity was founded in the 50s of the last century and put into circulation by psychoanalyst Eric Eriksson, who introduced the concept of “identity crisis”.  As a teenager, he linked the construction of his identity to a “public culture” that helped bring this concept to the group level.  Note that identity is impossible to understand without the theory of “decentralized subject” of psychoanalysis — without the understanding that it is being constructed, not given.

The concept of identity was conceived in American society in the context of the interaction of psychoanalysis, sociology, and politics.  The term Identity transcended psychoanalysis, and in the 1960s, thanks to the African-American movement, got into politics.  It was then used and spread due to other sexual, ethnic, and other minority movements.  It is noteworthy that the term first gained political recognition in the United States.  After World War II, the United States began to view its society and culture as post-European.

Social or political movements, such as workers’ or anti-colonial, are “majoritarian” in their nature.  The “minority” – the capitalists, the colonizers – oppress the “majority” – the workers, the natives, etc.  A new type of collective movement, the movement of identities, has emerged since the 1960s.  They are diverse and contain two additional requirements.

1. the protection of the interests of groups whose rights they believe are limited by the prejudices of the majority of society;

2. symbolic recognition by a significant other, the “majority”.

The identity movement can defend the worldview and values of ethnic or racial, sexual groups, their language, or in some cases religion and beliefs.

In this sense, religious identity can be both “majoritarian” and “minoritarian”.  In Armenia, for example, the Armenian Apostolic identity is “majoritarian” and the Protestant denominations are “minoritarian”.  But not everything is so simple.

The basic tenet of “modernity” is secularization, based on freedom of religion.  Religion is in the private sphere, religion is removed from the public sphere.  From this point of view, individuals can be believers, skeptics or unbelievers.  Obviously not in the postmodern era.  Individuals differ in their religious identities, but group identities are already a public phenomenon.  Religious identity does not require a person to be a believer, but to show a certain group solidarity.  A person may not attend church at all, but may have an Armenian Apostolic identity.

Thus, religious identity not only does not contradict secularism, but is a continuation of secularization, when religious belief is replaced by identity, group solidarity.  Figuratively speaking, where the god was, is now occupied by a group, such as a nation or a group mobilized on another identity.

In contrast to “modernity”, religion and science could not deprive religion of the sacredness of the halo.  Postmodernism, through the politics of identity, deprives religion of its sacred halo, but with that it disappears from public space.  In the postmodern situation, it becomes “diffusive”, expressing itself in mass culture through art and literature.

The Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia seems to many to have lost its sacred halo, to be immersed in the secular corrupt world, to have been materialized and oligarchized.  The opposition to the denationalization process is noticeable.  On the one hand, we see radical clergy, secularists united around it, who seek to restore the mythical purity of the Armenian Apostolic Church, on the other hand, we see in the church as a useless institution that has become defunct.

The “identityfication” of religion is specific not only to Armenia, but to Europe in general.  Many theologians consider it impossible to consider Europe as another Christian civilization.

According to the writer-theologian Olivier Roy, “this is a development of already existing trends.”  Already the German theologian Dietrich Bonhöffer (1906-1945) introduced the concept of “Christianity free of religion”, seeing in secularism a new manifestation of the divine essence – a new way of communicating with the world.  In other words, secularization was seen not as a threat but as an invitation to renew the church.  This is the adaptation of religion to a secular society, it has come so far that even now it is not necessary to believe in God.

The postmodernist tendencies of religion are especially noticeable in northern Europe.  “In the Danish example, we see that it is not so much a matter of faith as it is a matter of belonging.  The church is a unique cultural, ethnic club.  You are Lutheran because you are Danish, you go to church to listen to psalms because it reminds you of your childhood, ” says Olivier Roy.  The situation is reminiscent of Armenia, except that the Danes regained their identity due to the presence of an Islamic minority.

“If you go to church, you will be told that you are against immigration. If you are a leftist or a liberal, then you should not go to church because it is considered too conservative and reactionary.  Politics kills religion.  It is similar to the Iranian situation.  The Islamic Revolution in Iran killed the Shiite faith.  If you go to a traditional mosque, it means that you support the regime.  It means you have to look for something else,” says Roy. And he also adds: “The point is that after becoming an identity, Christianity ceases to be a religion.”

Postmodernism makes religion comfortable, but it also gives birth to the opposite.  The number of Christians in Europe is declining, but they are becoming more Christian, more radical in defending their faith.  They are already a minority in Europe, but they are more consistent Christians than before.

Postmodernism deepened secularization through the politics of identity, but it did not solve the problem of the Christian faith: civilizational issue.