Secularism
Secularism is a philosophical and political principle advocating the separation of religious institutions from governmental and public affairs, ensuring state neutrality toward all religious beliefs while prioritizing rational, evidence-based approaches to human welfare and governance. Coined by British freethinker George Jacob Holyoake in 1851, it emphasizes promoting societal well-being through material and utilitarian means, independent of supernatural doctrines or ecclesiastical authority, and views service to others as a duty grounded in observable realities rather than faith.[1][2] Emerging amid 19th-century Enlightenment influences and industrialization in Europe, secularism sought to counter the dominance of established churches in law, education, and policy, fostering individual freedoms of conscience and expression without state-imposed religious conformity.[3] Its implementation has yielded notable advancements, such as the establishment of secular education systems that prioritize empirical inquiry, contributing to scientific progress, and legal frameworks protecting diverse beliefs from majoritarian religious pressures in pluralistic societies.[4] However, secularism has sparked controversies, including charges of inherent bias against religion—evident in historical state atheism under communist regimes—and modern tensions where strict neutrality policies clash with cultural religious practices, sometimes exacerbating social divisions rather than resolving them, as empirical studies of European multiculturalism reveal correlations between aggressive laïcité and heightened identity-based conflicts.[5][6] Defining characteristics include contextual variations, from France's exclusionary model banning religious symbols in public spaces to more inclusive Anglo-American accommodations, underscoring debates over whether true secularism demands active disbelief or mere institutional disestablishment.[7][8]Definition and Principles
Etymology and Core Concepts
The term "secular" derives from the Latin saeculum, denoting a generation, an age, or the temporal world, contrasting with eternal or spiritual realms in early Christian usage to distinguish clergy from lay matters. By the 19th century, "secular" had evolved to signify worldly or non-religious concerns, particularly in opposition to ecclesiastical authority. George Jacob Holyoake introduced "secularism" in 1851 through his publication The Reasoner, defining it as a system promoting human welfare via material and ethical means without reliance on religious revelation.[9] [1] Holyoake's secularism emphasized utilitarianism, positing that moral duties arise from observable consequences and service to others, independent of supernatural beliefs.[1] Core to this framework is the exclusion of theological dogma from public discourse and policy, focusing instead on evidence-based reasoning applicable to all individuals regardless of faith.[10] Unlike atheism, which denies deities, secularism as conceived by Holyoake accommodates belief while insisting on naturalistic methods for societal organization, viewing religion as a private matter unfit for state imposition.[10] In essence, secularism prioritizes institutional neutrality toward religion, ensuring governance derives from rational, empirical principles rather than doctrinal authority, thereby safeguarding individual freedoms in diverse societies.[9] This approach underscores causal mechanisms in human affairs—such as economic incentives and social contracts—over faith-based explanations, aligning with a worldview grounded in verifiable outcomes.[1]Distinction from Related Terms
Secularism, as a sociopolitical doctrine, emphasizes the neutrality of state institutions toward religion, advocating separation between governmental authority and religious bodies to prevent any creed from dominating public policy or receiving preferential treatment. This principle differs fundamentally from atheism, which denotes a personal conviction rejecting or lacking belief in deities, and agnosticism, which asserts that the existence of deities is unknowable or beyond human comprehension.[11][12] Secular states can thus accommodate religious citizens who endorse institutional neutrality, whereas atheism concerns individual metaphysics and does not inherently address governance structures. Unlike state atheism, exemplified in the Soviet Union where the 1918 decree on separation of church and state evolved into active suppression of religion under Marxist-Leninist ideology until 1991, secularism maintains impartiality without promoting disbelief or curtailing private faith.[13] State atheism, by contrast, positions irreligion as an official ideology, often enforcing antireligious education and confiscating religious properties, as occurred with over 80% of Orthodox churches closed by 1939.[14] Secular humanism integrates secular principles with an ethical framework grounded in human reason, empirical evidence, and welfare, rejecting supernatural authority, but secularism proper remains neutral on such worldviews, permitting theistic rationalists or deists to support it without endorsing humanism's anthropocentric focus.[11] Humanism, formalized in documents like the 1933 Humanist Manifesto, prioritizes human agency over divine, yet surveys indicate only a subset of non-religious individuals (25% identifying as atheists in 2017 UK data) align with its propositions, underscoring secularism's broader institutional scope beyond personal ethics.[11] Laïcité, codified in France's 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, represents an assertive form of secularism that prohibits religious symbols in public schools and civil service to ensure state visibility free from confessional influence, contrasting with accommodative secularism in the United States, where the First Amendment safeguards religious expression alongside disestablishment.[15] This French model, rooted in Third Republic efforts to counter Catholic dominance, prioritizes freedom from religious intrusion in public spheres over protections for religious practice, leading to bans like the 2004 headscarf prohibition affecting over 1,000 students annually.[15] Anticlericalism targets the temporal power of religious hierarchies, often through historical movements like Spain's 1931 constitution dissolving Jesuit orders, but lacks secularism's commitment to even-handed neutrality, potentially fostering bias against specific denominations rather than principled exclusion of all religion from state functions.[16] Irreligion, encompassing non-affiliation with any faith (52% of UK respondents in 2017), describes personal detachment from organized religion but does not dictate public policy, whereas secularism operationalizes such detachment at institutional levels without mandating individual irreligiosity.[11]Historical Development
Ancient and Medieval Precursors
In ancient India, Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire (reigned c. 268–232 BCE) promulgated edicts that promoted tolerance among diverse religious groups, including Brahmanas, Sramanas (such as Buddhists and Jains), and Ajivikas, by urging mutual respect and restraint from criticizing others' doctrines while emphasizing ethical conduct like non-violence and obedience to parents. These Rock Edicts, inscribed across his domain from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh, represented an early state policy of pluralism, where royal patronage supported multiple sects without mandating adherence to one, though Ashoka's personal conversion to Buddhism after the Kalinga War (c. 261 BCE) infused the framework with Buddhist moral priorities rather than neutral secularism. Scholars debate whether this constitutes proto-secularism, as the policy subordinated tolerance to Ashoka's dhamma—a syncretic ethical code—rather than deriving from irreligious first principles, yet it marked a causal shift toward governance prioritizing administrative harmony over theological uniformity.[17][18] In ancient Greece, pre-Socratic philosophers from the 6th century BCE onward advanced naturalistic explanations for cosmic origins and phenomena, attributing change to material principles like water (Thales, c. 624–546 BCE) or the boundless apeiron (Anaximander, c. 610–546 BCE) without invoking divine intervention, thereby initiating a tradition of empirical reasoning detached from anthropomorphic mythology. This Ionian school laid foundational causal mechanisms for secular philosophy by privileging observable patterns over supernatural agency, influencing later skeptics like Pyrrho (c. 360–270 BCE) who questioned dogmatic certainties. However, these ideas coexisted within a polis culture where religion permeated civic life, including state cults and oracles, limiting their institutional impact on governance.[19] During the medieval Islamic world, particularly in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE), rationalist philosophers such as Al-Razi (Rhazes, 854–925 CE) critiqued prophetic revelation as inferior to reason and rejected miracles, advocating medicine and philosophy as autonomous pursuits free from theological oversight, while Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198 CE) distinguished demonstrative truth in philosophy from dialectical faith, arguing for the separation of interpretive domains to avoid conflict. These efforts, amid translations of Greek texts in Baghdad's House of Wisdom (established c. 825 CE), fostered a cultural milieu where empirical science—yielding advancements in algebra, optics, and astronomy—operated with relative independence from orthodoxy, influencing European scholastics via Spain. Yet, this rationalism remained embedded in an Islamic framework, curtailed by figures like Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE), who subordinated philosophy to revelation, prefiguring tensions rather than achieving enduring state-religion divorce.[20][21] In early medieval Europe, secularizing strategies emerged through pragmatic distinctions between sacred and profane spheres, as seen in seventh-century Iberian, Irish, and Anglo-Saxon contexts where rulers repurposed ecclesiastical properties for lay use or invoked Roman legal precedents to limit clerical jurisdiction over temporal matters, reflecting elite maneuvers to assert control amid Christian dominance. The Investiture Controversy (1075–1122 CE) intensified this by pitting papal spiritual authority against imperial temporal claims, culminating in the Concordat of Worms (1122 CE), which delineated papal elections from lay investitures, establishing embryonic boundaries between ecclesiastical and royal powers. Figures like Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1292 CE) furthered proto-secular thought by championing experimental methods in natural philosophy, insisting on verification through observation over unquestioned authority. These developments, driven by power dynamics and Aristotelian revival, hinted at causal realism in governance but were constrained by the era's theocentric worldview.[22]Enlightenment Foundations
The Enlightenment, spanning roughly the late 17th to late 18th centuries, marked a pivotal intellectual movement that prioritized empirical reason, individual liberty, and skepticism toward ecclesiastical authority as bases for governance and knowledge, laying groundwork for secular principles by challenging the fusion of religious and civil power. Thinkers argued that religious belief, being a matter of personal conscience, should not coerce state policy or vice versa, promoting toleration to avert confessional strife while subordinating theology to rational inquiry. This shift was driven by observations of religious wars, such as the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which demonstrated the destabilizing effects of state-enforced orthodoxy, prompting proposals for institutional separation to preserve civil order.[23][24] John Locke, in his A Letter Concerning Toleration published in 1689, articulated a foundational case for distinguishing ecclesiastical from civil jurisdiction, asserting that the magistrate's authority extends only to temporal goods and harms, not to souls or doctrinal purity. Locke contended that the church functions as a voluntary association for worship, incapable of wielding coercive force without corrupting its spiritual ends, and that mutual toleration among sects prevents the civil magistrate from arbitrating irreconcilable faiths, as evidenced by the divisions among princes in religious opinions akin to their secular disputes. He excluded atheists from toleration not on theological grounds but due to their presumed unreliability in oaths, reflecting a pragmatic rather than absolutist secularism rooted in social contract theory. This framework influenced subsequent constitutional designs by emphasizing consent and limited government over divine right.[25][24] Voltaire, writing in the mid-18th century, extended this critique through sharp polemics against religious fanaticism and institutional privilege, advocating a deistic worldview where a rational creator exists but organized clergy wield undue political influence. In works like his Philosophical Dictionary (1764), he lambasted the Catholic Church's intertwinement with monarchy for fostering intolerance, as seen in his defense of Jean Calas, a Protestant executed in 1762 on fabricated charges, which galvanized campaigns for judicial reform and state impartiality toward creeds. Voltaire favored a state-established religion stripped of coercive power, prioritizing civil peace and freedom of thought over confessional uniformity, though his deism retained a providential order subordinate to human reason.[26] Charles de Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), analyzed how moderate governments sustain liberty through balanced powers, viewing religion as a civil utility that bolsters mores but warning against clerical dominance that erodes legal equality. He praised England's post-1688 settlement for curbing ecclesiastical overreach while noting that excessive separation could weaken moral foundations, yet insisted states assess faiths by their societal contributions rather than truth claims. Montesquieu's comparative method, drawing from historical examples like Roman tolerance, underscored causal links between institutional religion and despotism, favoring secular mechanisms like constitutional checks to mitigate fanaticism. These ideas collectively advanced secularism as a bulwark against absolutism, influencing framers of modern liberal orders by privileging empirical governance over revelation.[27][28]Modern Codification and Spread
The term "secularism" was coined by George Holyoake in 1851 to describe a form of freethought that emphasized ethical conduct derived from natural and social sources, independent of religious doctrine, while advocating tolerance toward religion without promoting antagonism.[29] Holyoake, a British reformer and editor of The Reasoner, positioned secularism as a practical philosophy focused on this-worldly duties, contrasting it with atheism by avoiding direct denial of the supernatural. This codification emerged amid 19th-century industrialization and scientific advancements, which challenged traditional religious authority in Britain, where Holyoake faced imprisonment for blasphemy in 1842, prompting his development of a non-confrontational framework.[30] Early institutional embodiments appeared in the United States with the First Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on December 15, 1791, which prohibited Congress from establishing a national religion or restricting its free exercise, establishing a precedent for governmental neutrality toward religion.[31] In France, the principle of laïcité—state neutrality and separation from religious institutions—was codified in the Law of Separation of the Churches and the State on December 9, 1905, which ended state funding for religious bodies, nationalized church property, and guaranteed freedom of worship while barring religious influence in public education and administration.[32] This legislation resolved longstanding tensions from the French Revolution's dechristianization campaigns and Third Republic anticlericalism, prioritizing republican governance over Catholic dominance.[33] Secularism spread further in the 20th century through nationalist reforms and constitutional frameworks. In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk implemented sweeping secular policies following the 1923 founding of the republic, including the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, adoption of a secular civil code in 1926 modeled on European systems, and the 1928 constitutional amendment removing Islam as the state religion, aiming to modernize society by curtailing clerical power and promoting Western legal norms.[34] India's 1950 Constitution embedded secular principles by ensuring equal treatment of religions, freedom of practice under Article 25, and state non-interference in religious matters, though without initially using the term "secular" (added to the Preamble in 1976), reflecting a model accommodating religious diversity amid partition's communal violence.[35] In contrast, the Soviet Union pursued militant state atheism from 1917, enacting decrees like the 1918 separation of church and state, confiscation of religious property, and anti-religious campaigns under Lenin and Stalin, which suppressed worship, closed thousands of churches, and promoted scientific atheism as ideological orthodoxy rather than neutral secular governance.[36] By mid-century, secularism had disseminated via decolonization and international norms, influencing constitutions in countries like Mexico (1917) and Indonesia (1945, with accommodations), though implementations varied between passive tolerance and assertive exclusion, often correlating with modernization efforts and resistance to theocratic legacies.[5]Variations and Typologies
Passive and Assertive Models
Passive secularism describes a state approach that upholds neutrality toward religion by neither promoting nor suppressing it, thereby accommodating religious pluralism in the public sphere while maintaining institutional separation between state and religious authorities.[37] This model emerged from ideological struggles where accommodationist views prevailed, allowing practices such as public religious displays, school vouchers for religious education, and congressional chaplains without state endorsement of any faith.[38] In the United States, passive secularism has dominated since the founding era, as reflected in Supreme Court rulings like Zorach v. Clauson (1952), which permitted released time for religious instruction, and ongoing accommodations for Muslim headscarves in federal employment.[39] Similar patterns appear in India, where the constitution's Articles 25-28 guarantee religious freedom and permit personal laws based on faith, fostering a passive framework amid diverse religious communities.[37] Assertive secularism, conversely, entails active state intervention to exclude religion from public domains, confining it to private life to safeguard secular governance and prevent clerical influence.[38] This approach arises from historical dominance of anti-clerical ideologies, often in contexts of strong religious establishments perceived as threats to national unity or modernization.[37] France exemplifies assertive secularism through its 1905 Law on the Separation of Churches and State, which dissolved the Catholic Church's public role, and the 2004 ban on conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, enforced to uphold laïcité and applied to items like hijabs and Sikh turbans.[39] In Turkey, assertive policies under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s-1930s abolished the caliphate in 1924, banned religious attire for officials via the 1925 Hat Law, and closed religious schools, aiming to marginalize Islam's public presence despite comprising 99% of the population.[38] Mexico adopted a similar model post-1910 Revolution, with its 1917 Constitution's Article 130 stripping clergy of political rights and prohibiting religious education in schools until partial reforms in 1992.[37] The divergence between models stems from state-building eras' power dynamics: passive secularism thrives where religious groups allied with liberal factions against absolutist states, as in the U.S. during the 1780s constitutional debates, yielding compromises like the First Amendment's non-establishment clause without public exclusion.[39] Assertive secularism, however, consolidates when secular elites overpower entrenched religious hierarchies, as in France's Third Republic (1870-1940) amid Catholic monarchy legacies, or Turkey's post-Ottoman reforms.[37] Empirical outcomes vary; passive systems correlate with higher religious participation rates—U.S. church attendance averaged 36% in 2020 Gallup polls—while assertive ones show declining practice but persistent underground influence, evidenced by Turkey's 2023 mosque construction surge under post-2000 shifts.[38] Critics of assertive models argue they infringe individual freedoms, as seen in European Court of Human Rights cases like Leyla Şahin v. Turkey (2005), upholding headscarf bans but noting proportionality tensions.[7] Passive models, while pluralistic, risk state capture by dominant religions, though U.S. data indicate minority protections via equal application of neutrality.[40] Both face ideological resistance, with assertive regimes encountering Islamist backlashes, as in Turkey's Justice and Development Party gains since 2002, and passive ones debates over faith-based initiatives.[39]Comparative National Frameworks
Secularism in national frameworks varies significantly, often aligning with passive models that accommodate religion in public life or assertive models that actively exclude religious influence from state institutions. In the United States, passive secularism predominates, rooted in the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, which bar federal establishment of religion while protecting individual religious practice, allowing practices like school vouchers for religious schools and congressional chaplains as long as no coercion occurs.[39] This approach, influenced by historical Protestant pluralism, permits religious symbols and discourse in public spaces provided they do not endorse one faith over others, as affirmed in Supreme Court rulings such as Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which established tests for neutrality. France exemplifies assertive secularism through laïcité, codified in the 1905 Law on the Separation of Churches and the State, which dissolved the Napoleonic Concordat and mandated strict neutrality in public institutions, prohibiting religious instruction in state schools and symbols like the hijab in public schools per the 2004 law.[41] This framework, emerging from anti-clerical Third Republic efforts, prioritizes republican unity over religious expression, with the state subsidizing non-religious public services while fining violations of neutrality, such as in the 2010 burqa ban upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2014.[42] Turkey's Kemalist secularism, initially assertive like France's, was enshrined in the 1928 constitutional removal of Islam as state religion and 1937 explicit declaration of secularism, enforcing reforms like banning the fez and Arabic script to modernize along Western lines.[39] However, since the Justice and Development Party's rise in 2002, policies have shifted toward accommodation, including lifting the headscarf ban for public employees in 2013 and expanding imam-hatip schools, reflecting ideological tensions between secular elites and Islamist currents, though the constitution retains secular principles.[43] India's constitutional secularism, declared in the Preamble via the 42nd Amendment in 1976, adopts a positive model enabling state intervention for religious equality, permitting community-specific personal laws for marriage and inheritance under Articles 25-26, unlike strict separation elsewhere.[44] This accommodates Hinduism, Islam, and others through uniform civil code debates, with the Supreme Court striking down practices like triple talaq in 2017 to align with equality, balancing sarva dharma sambhava (equal respect for religions) amid critiques of pseudo-secularism favoring minorities.[45]| Country | Model Type | Key Constitutional/Legal Basis | State Role Toward Religion |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Passive | First Amendment (1791) | Accommodates without endorsement |
| France | Assertive | 1905 Separation Law | Excludes from public sphere |
| Turkey | Assertive (evolving) | 1928/1937 Amendments | Historically restrictive, recent relaxations |
| India | Positive/Accommodative | Preamble (1976), Articles 25-26 | Intervenes for equality, retains personal laws |