The rise, fall and rise again

of secularism
Julian Baggini
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Only a healthy political culture that insists on
the secular state at its core but that can capture
the deeply held beliefs that unite rather than
divide people can begin to re-enchant us.
Secularists and atheists since the enlightenment
have often adopted self-descriptions which
emphasise their commitment to the free
pursuit of truth and reason, all the better to
contrast with the supposed restricted pursuit of
falsity and superstition in religion. The British
publishers of New Humanist magazine are the
Rationalist Press Association; the major
humanist organisation in France is La Libre
Pense, and one of the premiere humanist
magazines in the USA is Free Inquiry.
One of the inevitable results of the march of
reason they led was supposed to be the demise
of God. The precise cause of death has varied.
According to Nietzsches mad man we killed
him (Neitzsche,1882). One hundred years
later, in Philip Pullmans allegorical His Dark
Materials trilogy, the terminally ill deity wanted
us to put him out of his misery (2000).
But rumours of Gods death have been
greatly exaggerated. Religion refuses to go away.
Those atheists who insist on talking about the
decline of religion as the inevitable result of
greater education and understanding now look
less and less like sober rationalists, and more
and more like blind ideologues, such as the
die-hard socialists who insist that capitalisms
last legs are simply longer than once thought,
or the apocalyptic millenarians who blame our
poor date-keeping for the failure of the world
to end.
The consequence has been a significant shift
in the front line of the war between belief and
disbelief. After years on the retreat, religion is
on the march again. The obituaries are not
being written for God, but atheism. A book like
Alister McGraths The Twilight of Atheism no
longer looks perversely contrarian, but a fair
reflection of social reality (McGrath, 2004).
This shift is much more than an interesting
footnote in the history of ideas: it has
potentially enormous political ramifications.
Most notably, it threatens the secularist
consensus of western Europe, where recent
history either reveals religion playing little or
no part in civic life, or gradually losing the
importance it once had. Frances lacit, where
religion is effectively banned from civic life, is
the clearest example of this.
In Europes more traditionally Catholic
countries, recent history has been one of the
decline of the Churchs power. The influence
of clerics in Ireland and Italy, for example, is
still much greater than is imaginable in most
European Protestant countries, yet much less
than it once was. In Spain, where the Church
is still tainted by its association with Franco,
we have even seen the legalisation of gay
marriage.
In Britain, where there is an established
church, the secular consensus is maintained
more subtly. When the UK Prime Ministers
spokesperson remarked in 2003 that we dont
do God what was striking was that until that
point it went without saying that politicians
dont overtly discuss religion. The need to rule
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god-talk out was a symptom that it was coming
back in.
On the political level the prophesiers of
religions withering away looked until recently
to have the evidence on their side. Why then is
religion making a comeback, and how far
should we allow divisive matters of faith to
enter into shared public and political life?
Atheisms illusory heyday
To answer these questions we first have to
realise why we were wrong to think religion
was ever on the way out in the first place. The
key mistake is reflected in McGraths The
Twilight of Atheism. He argues that atheisms
golden age measured roughly from the fall
of the Bastille in 1789 to the fall of the Berlin
wall two hundred years later is over.
Ironically, this diagnosis shares something in
common with the beliefs of those who think
religions days are numbered: both exaggerate
the extent to which godless worldviews ever
gained ascendancy.
The golden age of atheism cannot be over
because it never started. The number of people
who have actively rejected God, rather than lost
most of their interest in him, has never been
very large: the last UK census showed only 15.5
per cent of people with no religion and this
figure includes agnostics and Jedi Knights.
Avowed atheists probably make up less than
one in ten of the population and there is
simply no evidence to suggest it has ever been
significantly higher.
The belief that unbelief has been ruling the
roost is partly explained by a failure to properly
distinguish atheism and secularism. Atheism,
put negatively, is the belief that there are no
gods. However atheists are only defined as such
because their beliefs contrast most obviously
with those who believe in the divine. It is more
accurate to say that the non-existence of God is
simply one corollary of the core belief system
of atheists, which is centred on the idea that we
are part of a natural world, limited by our own
mortality, and in which we have to agree on
values and find purpose for ourselves. God is
simply one of the things this belief system does
not allow, along with ghosts, immortal souls,
angels and goblins.
The apparent triumph of godlessness is an
illusion created by the success, not of atheism,
but secularism. Secularism is not a doctrine of
unbelief, but of state neutrality towards matters
of belief. Secularism allows freedom of
religious belief, but does not privilege any one
form of belief or non-belief. A secular state is
not necessarily a godless one. Frances lacit,
for example, is so strict that the government is
not allowed to collect data on peoples
religious affiliations. Still, even the most liberal
estimates put the proportion of atheists at
around one quarter of the population, while
more sober assessments leave them in line with
the UK.
In a secular state, religion becomes invisible
at the political level, even when still prevalent
at the personal level. Secular governments and
politicians do not invoke scriptures or religious
authorities to defend their policies. Instead
they speak to principles and concerns that all
the population can share irrespective of their
belief or non-belief.
Secularism certainly appeals to atheists. A
secular state is obviously preferable to a
theocratic one, but it is also superior to one in
which atheism is imposed on the population
by fiat. The atheist tradition respects the ability
and right of people to determine matters of
belief for themselves, and so the proper role for
the state in matters of religion is to stand back,
not to ban.
Secularism did not succeed primarily because
it suited atheists. Rather it suited believers,
because it allowed the state to be neutral with
regard to the merits of competing religious
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views and so allow many varieties of faith to
flourish. Originally, these were mostly
denominational and did not even involve more
than one religion. This is what explains the
apparent paradox of resolutely religious
Americas strictly secular division of religion
and state. The principle was established, not on
the assumption that religion was unimportant
to Americans, but on the exact opposite idea
that Christianity in particular was utterly
fundamental to them. Because there were many
different Christian denominations, for the state
to privilege one would have been unacceptable.
The state therefore stayed neutral to protect
faith, not to weaken it.
Secularisms flourishing therefore suited
atheists, but was not in any way a triumph for
them. However, the illusion of some kind of
victory was bolstered not only by the
disappearance of religion from civic life, but
its apparent loss of importance in private life.
Church attendance dwindled, and with it
most other signs that religion continued to
play an important role in the life of ordinary
people. Religion seemed to be dying not with
a bang, but a whimper, as it ceased to be
relevant.
Here again appearances were deceptive: a
BBC poll in the UK in the early 1990s showed
that most people were of vague belief
.1
While
it became true that people no longer signed up
to the tenets of the orthodox creeds, the vast
majority retained a broadly religious sensibility.
They believed in some higher power, a life of
some kind after death, and a source of values
and meaning outside of humanity. The stark
naturalism of the atheist was seen as extreme,
unappealing and counter-intuitive.
The true spiritual story of the last few hundred
years is not therefore one of the advance of
godlessness. The power of the church has
declined, both at the state and personal level. But
religious belief of some kind has always
remained the norm. The prevalence of secularism
was mistakenly seen as a sign of growing
godlessness when in reality, God was still
around, not dead, but sleeping.
The reawakening of faith
And when God woke up, it was as shocking as
hearing a knocking on a coffin lid at a funeral.
Why is religion now back on the public agenda
when it has lived quietly off it for so many
years? Part of the answer explains why the
failures of secularism and atheism are seen to
be linked.
One complaint many believers are making
about secular societies is that by demoting
matters of religious belief to the purely
personal realm, secularism has denied the
importance of religion in society. Because it
was not acceptable to couch political debate in
religious terms, religious viewpoints were
expressed less and less, and so as a result, they
came to seem stranger and less widely held
than was actually the case.
Of course, secular neutrality applies as much
to atheists as believers. Just as it is not
acceptable to premise a political policy
argument on the teachings of the Bible or the
Koran, so it is unacceptable to argue for a
public policy on the basis of Gods non-
existence. Nevertheless, religious vocabulary
has been absent from public discourse in a way
in which atheist vocabulary has not. A secular
discussion of human rights, for example, is
couched in terms which both the religious and
non-religious can accept. However, there are
few distinctly atheist beliefs or concepts this
discourse must omit, while there are rather
1 Joan Bakewell, Belief, p8 (London: Duckworth, 2005)
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more religious ones it cannot include. So
although secular discourse is not the same
thing as atheist discourse, it is closer to the
natural mode of expression of atheism than to
that of religion.
Many believe this desacrilised discourse is
not up to the job of explaining value and
meaning. Its resources seem too thin. Primarily,
this is a criticism of atheism. It is often made
in a casual way by people who simply cant
conceive of a universe without an ultimate
purpose or creator. It is also made much more
subtly by people who know the obvious
ripostes, as well as many less obvious ones, and
are still not convinced. John Cottingham and
David Cooper have both made thoughtful cases
for the inadequacy of raw atheism (Cooper,
2002 and Cottingham, 2003).
I think their criticisms are answerable and
that, philosophically speaking, there is nothing
incomplete or insufficient about the atheist
worldview. But it is nonetheless true that this
case has not been made in ways most people
find convincing. From a political point of view,
theres no point in claiming that your case is
rock solid if you cannot convince people of it.
This has a knock-on effect for the esteem of
secularism. The atheist worldview is seen as
deficient; secular discourse is de facto restricted
to the atheists terms; therefore secular
discourse is also seen as deficient. To remedy
that deficiency, the clamour is building to let
religion back into the political sphere.
A further driver here is that Islam has forced
religion into the political arena. Where
Christianity placidly fell silent, complicit with
secularisms relegation of religion to the private
realm, Islam has demanded public respect and
recognition. This is not necessarily because
Islam is a particularly aggressive religion, but
is much more to do with cultural
contingencies. British Muslims, like many
minorities before them, are not prepared to be
second-class citizens and in this particular case,
religion more than race or skin colour is
how the minority defines itself, and so respect
for their religion has to be part of fully
respecting the minority. Of course, Christians,
Jews, Hindus and others are not going to be
happy to see Islam be given a public
recognition that their religion lacks. So the
political need to recognise Islam has been the
catalyst for a wider call to recognise all faiths.
This dynamic has a more unpleasant side.
The debate in the EU about whether or not its
constitution should make any reference to
Europes distinctively Christian heritage has
been a big issue partly because Turkey is
seeking to become a member of the EU. There
are many who have openly worried that its
Islamic heritage makes it somehow
incompatible with the rest of Europe. Fear of
Islam has made people more eager to reassert
the faiths they were once happy to have only as
part of their cultural background.
Making room for religion
The demand is certainly increasing for the
traditionally secular west to find more room
for religion in public life and not to leave it
entirely in the private sphere. How do we do
this? One influential line of argument is
perhaps most fully and rigorously articulated
by Bhikhu Parekh (2000). A key theme in his
writing is an insistence that mere toleration of
diverse beliefs is not enough. Toleration means
putting up with peoples views, no matter how
strange or different they may seem. But
toleration is not the same as, or as good as,
genuine acceptance. Excluding religion from
the public sphere fails to fully respect religious
beliefs and their importance in peoples lives.
Furthermore, it privileges a certain atheistic,
liberal worldview which is not widely shared.
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Secularism is not, as it is claimed to be, neutral
with regards to belief. Rather, it robs the
genuinely religious of the right to publicly
assert their belief and it therefore privileges
godless liberalism over other belief systems. It
is not neutral to ideology but is just another
ideology being imposed.
Traditional secularism therefore has to go. In
its place must be a public domain in which
religion is allowed back in. The idea is not to
create conflicts of belief, but to allow
disagreements to be resolved openly, without
people feeling the need to deny the differences
in the fundamental convictions that shape their
views. The secret of a harmonious society in
which different religious and non-religious
beliefs are held is not for everyone to remain
silent on the things that divide us, but to
discuss differences openly and in a spirit of
mutual respect and understanding.
For atheists this is not an appealing prospect.
For years weve kept religion largely out of the
public realm. Indeed, things must have been
going largely our way if one of our biggest
gripes has been the persistence of a few, brief
partisan god slots on radio and television. The
prospect of religion being invoked in public
debate where previously it was absent looks
like a step in the wrong direction.
For the most part atheists are too dismissive
of the claims of religion to take this challenge
seriously. Many leading public atheists, like
Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, persist with
the line that religion is manifest and pernicious
nonsense which would never have survived so
long if it werent for social structures, and
perhaps also for human stupidity.
2
To even
contemplate an enhancement of the status of
religion is unthinkably idiotic. This is head in
the sand stuff. The faults of modern atheism
and secularism are very similar. Both have
become too wary and dismissive of religion.
Both rightly fear what we crudely call
fundamentalism, because it is an obstacle to all
forms of reasoned debate, political, social or
academic. Both also underestimate the extent
to which religion of a less bone-headed variety
has an enduring appeal which cannot be
dismissed as a mere vestige of a less
sophisticated past.
If the kind of pluralism that Parekh
advocates is not attractive we have to explain
why and make the case that secularism is up to
the task of granting the respect and recognition
believers are demanding. Both these cases can
be made but we are hampered by a lack of
imagination about what secularism means and
how in practice it might work. Critics and
defenders of secularism alike have tended to
think of the status quo as being
quintessentially secularist, when in fact, it is
just one secular model among many. A few
examples should show why this is so.
How should secular states view the
expression of personal religious beliefs in the
public sphere? In France, the line has been to
ban all such symbolic expressions, as the recent
furore over the hijab suggests. Once again, it
seems that it is the emergence of a confident
Islam which has created this hardline: you can
be certain that generations of French people
had previously ornamented themselves with
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2 Two more or less random examples of how Dawkins and Grayling write about religion. "To fill a world with religion, or
religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used."
Richard Dawkins, the Guardian, 15 September 2001. "All religions are such that if they are pushed to their logical
conclusions, or if their founding literatures and early traditions are accepted literally, they will take the form of their
respective fundamentalisms. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Taliban are not aberrations, but unadulterated and
unconstrained expressions of their respective faiths" AC Grayling, the Observer, 12 August 2001
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crosses without ever being told this contradicts
the principles of lacit.
In the UK, lines have also hardened. Back in
1970 the Metropolitan police allowed Sikh
policemen to wear turbans (explicit indications
of their religious faith). Now, we worry about
the hijab, and the desire to accommodate is not
being replicated in the case of Muslim dress.
So we have two secular countries at two
different times reacting to public expressions of
personal faith in very different ways. Some
secularists have been open to the wearing of
religious symbols, others have thought it
intolerable.
The fundamental principles of secularism
tell us that the state needs to be neutral
towards matters of personal belief in order to
create an inclusive, non-partisan civic space. It
is not at all obvious why suppressing all
mention of religion is the right way to go
about creating this space, and nor is this in
general how our secular state works. Every
Christmas, we read about some over-zealous
local authority or employer which has banned
all mention of the word and decreed the
holiday a winterval or some such instead.
Not only are these stories usually grossly
exaggerated, they are also rare exceptions to
the norm, which is that Christmas is
celebrated openly all over the country. Other
religions are not accommodated by
suppressing Christianity but by allowing them
to express themselves too.
What people really object to is not
secularism as such but a certain kind of
theophobia it seems to have bred. The desire to
preserve secular neutrality has led to an over-
zealous purge of religious symbols, language
and practice from the public sphere. The result
is that people feel their beliefs are not being
granted the respect that they deserve. This is
counter to secularisms own tenets since the
whole purpose of secularism is to allow each
their own beliefs, not to erase them.
Right problem, wrong solution
Secularism is not therefore fundamentally
flawed, but it has taken a wrong turn. Such is
the diagnosis, but what is the cure? Not, I
would argue, the kind of pluralism advocated
by Parekh, even though his account of
secularisms failings echoes many of the main
points here. There is a line pluralists want to
cross that I think they should not. We need to
allow more expression of religious beliefs, but
the civic sphere of politics and government has
to be kept religiously neutral.
To see why, we need to remind ourselves of
secularisms greatest strength. The late Stuart
Hampshire captured an important truth about
politics in the title of his last book: Justice is
Conflict (1999). The political exists because the
interests, needs and desires of people and
groups within societies conflict. Politics is thus
essentially a matter of conflict resolution and a
just society is one which does this fairly and,
hopefully, peacefully.
This sounds like a somewhat adversarial view
of politics, but it is no more than realistic. We
dont think of the political sphere as being all
about conflict precisely because in western
democracies we have found a way of dealing
with these conflicts in generally civilised and
peaceful ways. Overt or violent conflict rarely
breaks out in public although we can see
examples of it on a small scale all the time. In
the UK, the Countryside Alliance became
dissatisfied with the way in which Parliament
was dealing with hunting with hounds and
staged public protests to highlight the nature of
its conflict with what it portrayed as an
ignorant urban elite. Fuel protesters brought
several British roads to a standstill in 2000
when conflicts emerged over the needs of
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consumers, the exchequer, oil firms and,
arguably, the environment. In France, recent
riots have provided a stark example of what
happens when states fail to address the needs
of certain segments of society in ways which
are and/or seem fair.
Dealing with these conflicts fairly and
peacefully is a tremendous achievement, and
our secular tradition deserves most of the
credit. Secularism is the most powerful bulwark
against sectarianism we have. Because it
demands that we only discuss in the civic
sphere what we share and leave out the
personal beliefs that divide us, it forces us to
the common ground. Crucially for the current
debate about religion, it does not require us to
just leave behind our personal convictions to
do so: everyone brings their personal beliefs to
the secular table. The trick is that we find a way
of expressing them in universalist and not
particularist terms. Take debates about
abortion. A devout Catholic is obviously going
to be strongly influenced by her religious
beliefs on the subject, and when speaking in a
civic forum, such as Parliament, these beliefs
will come through. But, vitally, she must find
some way of expressing them in terms that
everyone can understand and appreciate. If she
says, we should not allow abortion because it
is against the teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church she has failed to make an argument
that has any purchase beyond her own faith. If
she argues for the sanctity of human life in
terms which are not specific to the tenets of
Roman Catholicism, then she is making a
contribution to the secular debate, even though
at root her basic commitments are grounded in
religion.
Secularism does not deny people the right to
be motivated by and to live by their religious
beliefs. Nor does it even prohibit them from
bringing these commitments to the secular
sphere. All it prohibits is that the debate itself is
couched in sectarian terms. As the political
philosopher John Rawls put it: [R]easonable
comprehensive doctrines, religious or non-
religious, may be introduced in public political
discussion at any time, provided that in due
course proper political reasons and not
reasons given solely by comprehensive doctrines
are presented that are sufficient to support
whatever the comprehensive doctrines are said
to support (1997). Remove the in due course
clause from this formulation and its about right.
Now consider the pluralist alternative. On
this view, traditional secularism forces us to
disguise our religious beliefs, or pretend they
dont exist, and that devalues them in some
way. What we should allow is for people to
speak in their own authentic voices. If
Catholicism does indeed lie at the root of
someones opposition to abortion, let them say
so. As long as we can all speak freely in this
way, we can still resolve conflicts, but in an
honest and respectful way.
This looks like an appealing way forward.
But the danger is clear: instead of a somewhat
artificially neutral secular discourse we have
one in which arguments are made in
sectarian terms, not shared ones. The idea
that we are nonetheless all mature and open-
minded enough to come to agreement seems
to me far too optimistic. Rather, we are likely
to end up more divided than ever. The extent
to which agreement is possible will become
much less obvious, as we focus on what
divides rather than what unites. Politicians
will no longer be speaking as citizens, but as
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists
and whatever else. People will also be more
likely to vote on sectarian lines, because if
people will be speaking from specific
ideological viewpoints, we will want our own
to be represented.
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This would be a disaster for civic life. The
intention to fully respect the diversity of
beliefs and not to impose a homogenous,
blurred-out secularism is a noble one. But the
way to do this is not to scrap secularism and
let a cacophony of different belief systems
fight it out instead. The way forward is to
reform existing secularism much more
modestly and to rid it of its theophobia. There
is no need for a secular society to pretend
religion doesnt matter to people. Nor should
it prohibit people from expressing their
religious view publicly.
As one example of how this nevertheless
respects different beliefs, consider the debate
over religious schools. I was the co-author of a
pamphlet written by a group of humanist
philosophers making the case against religious
schools (2001). We did not disguise our own
non-religious views, which obviously
influenced how we argued. But we did attempt
to make our case in terms everyone could
accept. Most obviously, we never used the
alleged falsity of religion as a reason not to
have religious schools. Rather, we argued on
the basis of factors such as the autonomy of the
child and social cohesion, in terms which
included rather than excluded the religious.
The principle behind this was classically
secular: we need to make a case that the
religious could agree with too.
The case for religious schools needs to be
made in the same way, and indeed it usually is.
There may be theological reasons for having
religious schools, but they are irrelevant to the
political debate. Rather, we need to debate
issues of parental freedom, equity of treatment
of people of different faiths and so on. None of
this involves a ruthless purging of all mention
of religion, and thats because true secularism
never involves this.
Secularism renewed
What in practice does this all mean? Ideally, it
would mean a tighter, smaller civic core where
secular neutrality is required, and a loosening
of restrictions on religious expression outside
of this.
First, the tighter core. Disestablishing the
Church of England and abolishing with it the
automatic right of senior bishops to sit in the
Lords is an obvious first step: we cannot hope
to persuade people of other faiths and none
that all are equal in the eyes of the state when
one denomination has a privileged place. All
democratic institutions should be similarly
fully neutralised with regards to belief.
But outside of this, we need to be more
relaxed about letting the religious express
themselves. There is no reason why civil
weddings, for example, should not include
religious songs or words at the request of
couples. There is no reason why someone
should not wear symbols of their religious
faith. There is no reason why there should not
be god-slots on public television. (There
should, though, also be specifically non-god-
slots in which atheists can be allowed the same
opportunities to utter unedited propaganda of
their own and irritate believers as much as their
thoughts and prayers for the day irritate them.)
There is not even any reason why a senior
politician shouldnt acknowledge the
importance of her religious faith, although she
would need to be very careful not to invoke
these beliefs as justifications for where they
stand on policy.
Some secularists are beginning to accept that
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3 See interview with Badiou at www.rebelion.org/cultura/040426ln.htm, 26 April 2004. (In Spanish, accessed
7 December 2005)
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there needs to be an opening up of civil society
to allow more religious expression. The French
philosopher Alain Badiou, for example, talks of
Europe needing to choose between an open or a
closed ideal, and a need to create a new space in
which immigrants and minorities can be
accepted.
3
Connected with this is a recognition
that the official secular line is not always the
most defensible one. For example, he has written
scathingly of French attempts to ban the hijab,
attacking arguments that claim such a law is
needed to protect lacit or indeed women.
4
Jrgen Habermas is another secular liberal
who has acknowledged a need to be less
dismissive of religion. In a recent speech he
said, [T]he liberal state has an interest of its
own in unleashing religious voices in the
political public sphere, for it cannot know
whether secular society would not otherwise
cut itself off from key resources for the creation
of meaning and identity.
5
Habermas also
insists on the requirement for such
contributions from the religious to be made in
a generally accessible language, preserving
something, if not all, of secularisms traditional
neutral mode of public discourse. However, he
also places some responsibility on the non-
religious to make this translation.
Of course there are difficulties in unleashing
religious voices. The right to free religious
expression does not entail the right to do
anything you believe your religion requires of
you. Halal slaughter that fails to meet animal
welfare standards is unacceptable, for example.
The right to believe does not necessarily entail
the right to educate your children in sectarian
institutions. The right to wear religious dress
does not entail the right to wear a burkha in
places where it is necessary to see a full face for
security reasons. But these difficult cases are
not typical. On the whole, you can live a fully-
observant religious life without threatening
secular principles.
If religion is allowed to reassert itself in those
domains where secularism should properly
allow it to assert itself, I hope that the impetus
to bring religion into the properly secular
political sphere will disappear. And that would
be a very good thing. For secular neutrality
with regards to belief is what stands between us
and a society which is divided even more than
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