Debate: Art and Religion

For a long time, religion and spirituality – or the mystical – played key roles in the creative process. Today, faced with what some perceive as a repressive infringement and a reactionary religious morality in our modern societies, artists intentionally question and stigmatize the prudery and conservatism of religious institutions. Elsewhere, precious ancient heritage is destroyed in the name of religion in order to start with a clean slate, since culture is seen as the enemy of religion and the sacred. Is there a fundamental incompatibility between culture, creative freedom and religion? Shouldn’t the experience of culture be ' beyond ' the religious?

Flagey, Le Soir, Université Libre de Bruxelles, l’Observatoire des Religions et de la Laïcité, CEFRELCO