The rise, fall and rise again of secularism

Julian Baggini

public

policy

research

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.
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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

The rise, fall and rise again of secularism 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? 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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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
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206 public policy research December 2005February 2006 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
1 Joan Bakewell, Belief, p8 (London: Duckworth, 2005)

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 nonexistence. 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

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The rise, fall and rise again of secularism 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.

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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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208 public policy research December 2005February 2006 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
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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

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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The rise, fall and rise again of secularism 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 overzealous 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.

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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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210 public policy research December 2005February 2006 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 nonreligious, 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 openminded 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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The rise, fall and rise again of secularism 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
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211 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-godslots 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

See interview with Badiou at www.rebelion.org/cultura/040426ln.htm, 26 April 2004. (In Spanish, accessed 7 December 2005)

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212 public policy research December 2005February 2006 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 nonreligious 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 fullyobservant 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 it already is by religious beliefs. This, surely, is in the interests of everyone, believers and nonbelievers. If you believe in a compassionate God who values humanitys ability to choose beliefs for itself, then the conclusion should be obvious: God would be a secularist too.

Cooper D (2002), The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility, and Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press Cottingham J (2003), On The Meaning of Life. London: Routledge. Hampshire S (1999) Justice is Conflict. London: Duckworth Humanist Philosophers Group, Religious Schools: The case against (London: British Humanist Association, 2001) McGrath A (2004), The Twilight of Atheism: The rise and fall of disbelief in the modern world. London: Rider & Co. Nietzsche, F (1882), The Gay Science. Cambridge Parekh B (2000), Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan and (2000), The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. London: Profile. Pullman P (2000), The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Rawls J (1997), The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, in The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 64, Summer 1997, no. 3, p.783.

Alain Badiou, "Behind the Scarfed Law, There is Fear", Le Monde, 22 February 2004, Translated for IslamOnLine by Norman Madarasz. (www.islamonline.net/English/in_depth/hijab/2004-03/article_04.shtml, accessed 7 December 2005)

Jrgen Habermas, "Religion in the public sphere," Speech at the University of San Diego, USA, March 4, 2005

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