Decrypting Secular Power

Modern secularism has not eliminated theology from public life, but rather reconfigured it through new forms of political and epistemic control.

With a particular focus on Latin America and its global resonances, this book offers a critical exploration of the entanglements between religion, politics, secularization, and power in contemporary societies. Nicolás Panotto uses the framework of “encryption” and “decryption” to analyze how categories such as religion, democracy, secularization, human rights, and development become mechanisms that conceal colonial and theological assumptions while presenting themselves as neutral and universal. Public discourse and political institutions thereby continue to reproduce exclusions, hierarchies, and forms of epistemic domination.

Panotto develops a public and political theology that challenges both conservative religious hegemonies and liberal secular orthodoxies. The book revisits Protestant theological traditions, explores debates around democracy, populism, spirituality, and human rights, and proposes a decolonial rethinking of the commons, public space, and collective life. Rather than offering a closed theological system, it invites readers to rethink theology as a critical and transformative practice capable of engaging the fractures of the contemporary world.

Bringing Latin American perspectives into global debates, this volume contributes to ongoing discussions in political theology, religious studies, decolonial thought, and critical theory, offering new conceptual tools for imagining alternative democratic and emancipatory futures.