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Secularism: The Basics: The Basics
The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to confusing and contradictory public discussions of secularism across the globe. “Secularism” must be the most confused and convoluted term in the entire global political lexicon. From New York to Paris, to Istanbul, to Addis Ababa, to New Delhi, to Montevideo, there are countless examples of politicians, religious leaders and journalists, invoking the S-word in heated debates about public education, gender, sex, national symbols, and artistic freedom. In this lively and lucid book, Jacques Berlinerblau addresses why secularism is defined in so many ways and why it so ignites people’s passions. In so doing, he explores the following important What does secularism mean? Why should we care about this idea? What are the different types of secularism and what are their histories? What are the basic principles of political secularisms? Why are secularism and Atheism often confused? What is the relationship between secularism and LGBTQ rights? What opposition are secularisms up against? What does the future hold for a concept millennia in the making, but only really operationalized in the twentieth century? With a glossary of key terms, case studies, informative tables, and suggestions for further reading throughout, the book considers key philosophical, religious, anti-religious, post-modern and post-colonial arguments around secularism. This book is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a readable introduction to the often-conflicting interpretations of one of our era’s most complex and controversial ideas.
210 pages, Hardcover
Published December 31, 2021
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About the author
Jacques Berlinerblau
24 books13 followersJACQUES BERLINERBLAU, is a professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. He possesses separate doctorates in ancient languages and literatures and theoretical sociology. He has published 10 books. Berlinerblau toggles between “pure” academic writing and more public-facing endeavors. In terms of the latter, he has written for, appeared on, or had his work discussed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Salon, The Guardian, The New Republic, The Nation, NPR, Tablet, Commentary, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Canadian Broadcast Network, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Al-Jazeera, PBS, MSNBC, CBS, CBC, TF1, AFP, and CNN.
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March 27, 2023
Any undergraduate course on modern politics and modern religion would benefit tremendously from the inclusion of this accessible and well-researched introduction to the definitions and principles at play in secularism—its processes of development and its flashpoints across the globe.
February 7, 2024
3.5/5
CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION:
What is secularism? What is a secular government?
THESIS or THESES:
To demonstrate that the ten principles of secularism are neither atheist nor modern, but a means for governing forces to grant citizens freedom from religion and freedom of religion.
METHODS:
Intellectual and political history; religious studies; comparative political history; theoretical sociology.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT(S):
Like many books on secularism and its cognates, Berlinerblau begins Secularism with an acknowledgement of the multifaceted meanings that people attribute to secularism. He addresses this popular and academic vagueness of secularism by offering his own definition political secularism, which is defined below. After noting that religious minorities of many stripes are more likely to support a secular state, Berlinerblau demonstrates how issues such as art, education, and gender are impacted by the power and institutions of a secular state.
This brings Berlinerblau to the core part of his argument: the ten principles of political secularism. Though these principles only recently became operational, Berlinerblau argues that they developed over the course of two millennia. Equally important, the development of political secularism, for Berlinerblau, was not spearheaded by atheists and the areligious, but by religious people addressing religious problems. The first principle is that of equality, a principle which regards all humans as equal. The division of two powers, namely, the church and the state, is Berlinerblau’s second principle. Tracing this division or binary back to antiquity and through the Middle Ages, Berlinerblau illustrates how struggles over what is the domain of God and the domain of earthly rulers bequeathed our current idea of secularism.
This division of powers allows Berlinerblau to expound on the third principle of state supremacy. Succinctly put, state supremacy is the principle that the state is ‘on top’ and has power to enforce laws over and against the will of religious and non-religious citizens. Perhaps counter intuitively, Luther and his reading of Augustine are developed as Berlinerblau’s headwaters of this state supremacy. Like the earlier principle, the principle of internal constraint, also with Luther at its historical vanguard, acts as a type of checks and balances on princely authority. Such internal constraint correlates to how Luther revered freedom of thought, which acts as the fifth principle of a secular state. This freedom of conscience is permissible insofar as it does not impede on the rights of others or break the law; in other words, it is permissible if it does not violate the secular state’s sixth principle of order.
Yet, order, peace, and thus the worshipping of God, cannot persist, pace Berlinerblau, if tolerance, our seventh principle, is not respected and practiced. Not unlike the practice of tolerance so emphatically demanded by Locke, the secular state insists that its citizens delineate between belief and act. That is, if what someone does violates your beliefs, then you should not act and demand they change their practices; rather, you accept, this being the eighth principle, that a violation of belief by other citizens is part of life in a secular state. Continuing to build on Locke’s writing, Berlinerblau states that the ninth principle of disestablishment/neutrality, or, the process in which the state divests itself of partiality for any given religion, is crucial to a functioning secular society. Even when the majority of state’s populous desire religious hegemony, the state is to override the intolerance of the majority. The final principle is that of reason, of governing based on science and data rather than holy books and religious revelation.
Berlinerblau moves on to discussing secular frameworks, which he understands as the ways secular states engage in the pragmatics of statecraft. The first framework is that of separationism, which Berlinerblau associates with the United States. Distinguishable from the principle of disestablishment, this framework entails that there is a dividing wall, an impregnable barrier between religion and government. Of course, Berlinerblau notes it can be quite difficult to maintain such separation. The second framework for upholding these principles is that of French secularism, or, the laïcité framework. Though the peculiarity of the laïcité framework is rooted in France’s unique anti-clerical and materialist religious and political history, Berlinerblau emphasizes that the laïcité framework places a premium on state supremacy and order while (hopefully) not denigrating its citizens of faith. Unlike the aforementioned framework, the Indian styled accommodationist framework presumes that it is in the state’s interest to promote religion. In other words, “supporting religion is good for the people and hence good for the state” (76). This framework is a mixture of British pseudo-secularism (if one can use a term that presumes ‘pure secularism’ exists) and earlier Indian Buddhist and Muslim traditions. Shifting directions into a commentary on the significance of the Bradlaugh and Holyoake debate, Berlinerblau argues that Bradlaugh’s conceptualization of secularism as atheism marks a significant break with previous ideas of the secular. Such commentary on their debate better contextualizes Berlinerblau’s discourse on the Soviet (atheist) framework for secular statecraft. What makes Soviet secularism different from laïcité is that the former espoused an extreme anti-clericalism and scientific atheism. This original style of secularism, though brutal, brought with it a new secular principle: freedom from religion.
Berlinerblau, true to his spirit of embracing complexity, highlights how Turkey, Ethiopia, and China introduce new frameworks that preserve and abolish old frameworks. In the case of Turkey, interesting questions regarding how the state should respond to a religious majority are raised. On the other hand, Ethiopia, with its deep connections between ethnicity and religion, demonstrates how complete separation of religion and the state is impossible. Meanwhile, China, with a religious and political history quite different than the West, demands that the scholar, citizen, and politician alike must be weary of too much state supremacy.
Prior to concluding his book with a study on lifestyle secularisms, I want to focus on how Berlinerblau examines the anti-secularisms of the left and the right. Berlinerblau argues that there are similarities between a variety of anti-secularisms. Conservative religious anti-secularisms (CRAS), for Berlinerblau, epitomize the wish for religious supremacy, a theocracy in which the state is subservient to religion. Suspicious of how POMOFOCO groups (an acronym Berlinerblau uses to designate anti-secularisms on the left) supposedly do not pay sufficient theoretical attention to CRAS groups, Berlinerblau demonstrates how a critique of secularism could pave the way for CRAS theocracies. While Berlinerblau concludes his book with a brief description of the New Atheists, who we know all too well, and a lesser-known contingent of ‘non-atheist secularists,’ the core of his argument remains that we have no other viable option than a liberal secular state. In doing so, Berlinerblau restates his argument: the core aim of political secularism is the achievement of religious freedom and freedom from religion.
SCHOLARS THE AUTHOR IS IN CONVERSATION WITH:
Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Locke, John Calvin, Charles Bradlaugh, George Holyoake, Talal Asad, Michel Foucault.
CRITICISM:
This book is devoid of a substantive analysis of how secular states and political institutions came into power. Imagining that Luther inherited Augustine, Locke inherited Luther, Bradlaugh inherited Locke, and then you have political secularism is not satisfying. This is not to say that Berlinerblau makes no mention of historical events; however, he offers an intellectual history of secularism that has, with rare exception regarding the wars of religion and the French revolution, been expunged of an analysis of race, capitalism, and imperialism. Even his comments on British colonialism, which take the shape of a ‘no true Scotsman argument,’ presumed that the British were not in actuality secular. Indeed, in his critique of POMOFOCO, he says “we do not know about how secularism came into being; POMOFOCO scholars would do well to exhibit less certainty and more curiosity about this subject.” Well, I do know how Berlinerblau’s secularism came into being and in each instance, it follows a logic of primitive accumulation and the slow development of Western hegemony. In other words, I’m unsure how one could write three chapters on Locke’s ideas of tolerance and the secular while failing to account for any possible political or economic motives behind Locke’s understanding of tolerance and secularism.
I imagine that Berlinerblau capitulates his own style of writing and inquiry as one which does not have a style, as one which is straight-talking and not the repugnant style of Asad and company. There are many ways to write prose and I grant that Berlinerblau is a clear writer, indeed, there is nothing wrong with being a clear writer. However, when he says that “POMOFOCO theorists write exclusively for other scholars. A characteristic of this school is the complexity of its prose. Without an advanced degree in a related field, it is difficult to comprehend their arguments,” (141) I cannot help but ask, who are you projecting? There is no baseline reading level that all writers must assume of their audience. If you need a dictionary to figure out a paragraph, then use a dictionary. And is it really the case that this style is why such thought has ‘rarely penetrated political, policy, or media circles?’ Or is it the case that Locke-loving, MSNBS-writing liberals such as Berlinerblau have for three centuries had a monopoly on the spheres of politics, policy, and media? Barring that people should not write to confuse or obscure, if you cannot read a text or a tradition without being confused, then perhaps study harder and not be a Philistine preaching about style.
I note that Berlinerblau regards POMOFOCO as ‘interesting and important,’ but he is in many instances wrong in his critique of POMOFOCO. Asad, for instance, does not regard “secularism’s rise as swift, frictionless, and very sudden,” as he, in multiple publications, pays closely traces how the development of Christian doctrine and law in the medieval era gave way to political secularism. And the POMOFOCO that Berlinerblau critiques have routinely written on CRAS discourses and have often theorized about what a post-secular state would entail.
Also, why does Berlinerblau not cite scholars? He often uses quotation marks, but does not attribute the quote to any writer. Is this a publishing house style?
PRAISE:
Berlinerblau does a nice job attending to the difficulties encountered by a secular state. Similarly, he sharply does not create a monolith out of secular states or people and demonstrates the great heterogeneity within the tradition.
OPEN QUESTIONS AND PATHS FORWARD:
How can one offer a history of secularism that is attendant to its political and economic motives? How would such a history agree with and contradict Berlinerblau’s work? According to the POMOFOCO who Berlinerblau decries, what would post-secularism look like?
AUTHOR’S UNDERSTANDING OF “Secular, Secularism, Secularization, or Secularity”:
For Berlinerblau political secularism “refers to legally binding actions of the secular state that seek to regulate the relationship between itself and religious citizens, and between religious citizens themselves” (5). However, Berlinerblau, both historically and conceptually, distinguishes between the secular and secularism. Whereas the secular has an intellectual history that precedes secularism, secularism, as Berlinerblau rightly notes, did not develop as a form of statecraft until the 20th century.
CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION:
What is secularism? What is a secular government?
THESIS or THESES:
To demonstrate that the ten principles of secularism are neither atheist nor modern, but a means for governing forces to grant citizens freedom from religion and freedom of religion.
METHODS:
Intellectual and political history; religious studies; comparative political history; theoretical sociology.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT(S):
Like many books on secularism and its cognates, Berlinerblau begins Secularism with an acknowledgement of the multifaceted meanings that people attribute to secularism. He addresses this popular and academic vagueness of secularism by offering his own definition political secularism, which is defined below. After noting that religious minorities of many stripes are more likely to support a secular state, Berlinerblau demonstrates how issues such as art, education, and gender are impacted by the power and institutions of a secular state.
This brings Berlinerblau to the core part of his argument: the ten principles of political secularism. Though these principles only recently became operational, Berlinerblau argues that they developed over the course of two millennia. Equally important, the development of political secularism, for Berlinerblau, was not spearheaded by atheists and the areligious, but by religious people addressing religious problems. The first principle is that of equality, a principle which regards all humans as equal. The division of two powers, namely, the church and the state, is Berlinerblau’s second principle. Tracing this division or binary back to antiquity and through the Middle Ages, Berlinerblau illustrates how struggles over what is the domain of God and the domain of earthly rulers bequeathed our current idea of secularism.
This division of powers allows Berlinerblau to expound on the third principle of state supremacy. Succinctly put, state supremacy is the principle that the state is ‘on top’ and has power to enforce laws over and against the will of religious and non-religious citizens. Perhaps counter intuitively, Luther and his reading of Augustine are developed as Berlinerblau’s headwaters of this state supremacy. Like the earlier principle, the principle of internal constraint, also with Luther at its historical vanguard, acts as a type of checks and balances on princely authority. Such internal constraint correlates to how Luther revered freedom of thought, which acts as the fifth principle of a secular state. This freedom of conscience is permissible insofar as it does not impede on the rights of others or break the law; in other words, it is permissible if it does not violate the secular state’s sixth principle of order.
Yet, order, peace, and thus the worshipping of God, cannot persist, pace Berlinerblau, if tolerance, our seventh principle, is not respected and practiced. Not unlike the practice of tolerance so emphatically demanded by Locke, the secular state insists that its citizens delineate between belief and act. That is, if what someone does violates your beliefs, then you should not act and demand they change their practices; rather, you accept, this being the eighth principle, that a violation of belief by other citizens is part of life in a secular state. Continuing to build on Locke’s writing, Berlinerblau states that the ninth principle of disestablishment/neutrality, or, the process in which the state divests itself of partiality for any given religion, is crucial to a functioning secular society. Even when the majority of state’s populous desire religious hegemony, the state is to override the intolerance of the majority. The final principle is that of reason, of governing based on science and data rather than holy books and religious revelation.
Berlinerblau moves on to discussing secular frameworks, which he understands as the ways secular states engage in the pragmatics of statecraft. The first framework is that of separationism, which Berlinerblau associates with the United States. Distinguishable from the principle of disestablishment, this framework entails that there is a dividing wall, an impregnable barrier between religion and government. Of course, Berlinerblau notes it can be quite difficult to maintain such separation. The second framework for upholding these principles is that of French secularism, or, the laïcité framework. Though the peculiarity of the laïcité framework is rooted in France’s unique anti-clerical and materialist religious and political history, Berlinerblau emphasizes that the laïcité framework places a premium on state supremacy and order while (hopefully) not denigrating its citizens of faith. Unlike the aforementioned framework, the Indian styled accommodationist framework presumes that it is in the state’s interest to promote religion. In other words, “supporting religion is good for the people and hence good for the state” (76). This framework is a mixture of British pseudo-secularism (if one can use a term that presumes ‘pure secularism’ exists) and earlier Indian Buddhist and Muslim traditions. Shifting directions into a commentary on the significance of the Bradlaugh and Holyoake debate, Berlinerblau argues that Bradlaugh’s conceptualization of secularism as atheism marks a significant break with previous ideas of the secular. Such commentary on their debate better contextualizes Berlinerblau’s discourse on the Soviet (atheist) framework for secular statecraft. What makes Soviet secularism different from laïcité is that the former espoused an extreme anti-clericalism and scientific atheism. This original style of secularism, though brutal, brought with it a new secular principle: freedom from religion.
Berlinerblau, true to his spirit of embracing complexity, highlights how Turkey, Ethiopia, and China introduce new frameworks that preserve and abolish old frameworks. In the case of Turkey, interesting questions regarding how the state should respond to a religious majority are raised. On the other hand, Ethiopia, with its deep connections between ethnicity and religion, demonstrates how complete separation of religion and the state is impossible. Meanwhile, China, with a religious and political history quite different than the West, demands that the scholar, citizen, and politician alike must be weary of too much state supremacy.
Prior to concluding his book with a study on lifestyle secularisms, I want to focus on how Berlinerblau examines the anti-secularisms of the left and the right. Berlinerblau argues that there are similarities between a variety of anti-secularisms. Conservative religious anti-secularisms (CRAS), for Berlinerblau, epitomize the wish for religious supremacy, a theocracy in which the state is subservient to religion. Suspicious of how POMOFOCO groups (an acronym Berlinerblau uses to designate anti-secularisms on the left) supposedly do not pay sufficient theoretical attention to CRAS groups, Berlinerblau demonstrates how a critique of secularism could pave the way for CRAS theocracies. While Berlinerblau concludes his book with a brief description of the New Atheists, who we know all too well, and a lesser-known contingent of ‘non-atheist secularists,’ the core of his argument remains that we have no other viable option than a liberal secular state. In doing so, Berlinerblau restates his argument: the core aim of political secularism is the achievement of religious freedom and freedom from religion.
SCHOLARS THE AUTHOR IS IN CONVERSATION WITH:
Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Locke, John Calvin, Charles Bradlaugh, George Holyoake, Talal Asad, Michel Foucault.
CRITICISM:
This book is devoid of a substantive analysis of how secular states and political institutions came into power. Imagining that Luther inherited Augustine, Locke inherited Luther, Bradlaugh inherited Locke, and then you have political secularism is not satisfying. This is not to say that Berlinerblau makes no mention of historical events; however, he offers an intellectual history of secularism that has, with rare exception regarding the wars of religion and the French revolution, been expunged of an analysis of race, capitalism, and imperialism. Even his comments on British colonialism, which take the shape of a ‘no true Scotsman argument,’ presumed that the British were not in actuality secular. Indeed, in his critique of POMOFOCO, he says “we do not know about how secularism came into being; POMOFOCO scholars would do well to exhibit less certainty and more curiosity about this subject.” Well, I do know how Berlinerblau’s secularism came into being and in each instance, it follows a logic of primitive accumulation and the slow development of Western hegemony. In other words, I’m unsure how one could write three chapters on Locke’s ideas of tolerance and the secular while failing to account for any possible political or economic motives behind Locke’s understanding of tolerance and secularism.
I imagine that Berlinerblau capitulates his own style of writing and inquiry as one which does not have a style, as one which is straight-talking and not the repugnant style of Asad and company. There are many ways to write prose and I grant that Berlinerblau is a clear writer, indeed, there is nothing wrong with being a clear writer. However, when he says that “POMOFOCO theorists write exclusively for other scholars. A characteristic of this school is the complexity of its prose. Without an advanced degree in a related field, it is difficult to comprehend their arguments,” (141) I cannot help but ask, who are you projecting? There is no baseline reading level that all writers must assume of their audience. If you need a dictionary to figure out a paragraph, then use a dictionary. And is it really the case that this style is why such thought has ‘rarely penetrated political, policy, or media circles?’ Or is it the case that Locke-loving, MSNBS-writing liberals such as Berlinerblau have for three centuries had a monopoly on the spheres of politics, policy, and media? Barring that people should not write to confuse or obscure, if you cannot read a text or a tradition without being confused, then perhaps study harder and not be a Philistine preaching about style.
I note that Berlinerblau regards POMOFOCO as ‘interesting and important,’ but he is in many instances wrong in his critique of POMOFOCO. Asad, for instance, does not regard “secularism’s rise as swift, frictionless, and very sudden,” as he, in multiple publications, pays closely traces how the development of Christian doctrine and law in the medieval era gave way to political secularism. And the POMOFOCO that Berlinerblau critiques have routinely written on CRAS discourses and have often theorized about what a post-secular state would entail.
Also, why does Berlinerblau not cite scholars? He often uses quotation marks, but does not attribute the quote to any writer. Is this a publishing house style?
PRAISE:
Berlinerblau does a nice job attending to the difficulties encountered by a secular state. Similarly, he sharply does not create a monolith out of secular states or people and demonstrates the great heterogeneity within the tradition.
OPEN QUESTIONS AND PATHS FORWARD:
How can one offer a history of secularism that is attendant to its political and economic motives? How would such a history agree with and contradict Berlinerblau’s work? According to the POMOFOCO who Berlinerblau decries, what would post-secularism look like?
AUTHOR’S UNDERSTANDING OF “Secular, Secularism, Secularization, or Secularity”:
For Berlinerblau political secularism “refers to legally binding actions of the secular state that seek to regulate the relationship between itself and religious citizens, and between religious citizens themselves” (5). However, Berlinerblau, both historically and conceptually, distinguishes between the secular and secularism. Whereas the secular has an intellectual history that precedes secularism, secularism, as Berlinerblau rightly notes, did not develop as a form of statecraft until the 20th century.
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