April 22, 2008


The theory of secularization forecasts the end of religion.
It started with political thinkers of the twentieth century,
such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, who said that
religion was a byproduct of ignorance, poverty and political
repression. A new day would dawn when tyranny was
vanquished.

The sun doesn't appear to be rising on that new day.
Religion shows no sign of disappearing. Islam is growing
rapidly. Vatican reports show that the number Muslims in
the world now exceed Catholics for the first time. A cynic
might explain that the growth of Islam is a retreat into
darkness, not the defeat of ignorance.

But how do you explain the world's superpower which remains
as religious as it was a century ago? Author John Gray
wonders: "Is America an anomaly among advanced societies or
is the theory of secularization flawed? (Harper's magazine,
January, 2008)"

Gray cautions us not to confuse secularization with
secularism. Secularization predicts the demise of religion;
secularism accommodates it. In fact, secularism is the main
feature of modern governments in which the separation of
state from church is legislated.

It seems like a happy balance that all can live with.
Religions accept secular states because if they didn't, a
competing religion could rise to power that would threaten
the survival of minority religions. Reasonable religious
leaders realize that if one religion were to dominate
government, it would to be to the detriment of all others.

Democratic secular states must accommodate all. Elected
leaders have to satisfy both believers and non-believers in
order to stay in power.

The modern secular state didn't happen overnight. It would
have been an abomination to the monarchs of medieval Europe.
If God is on your side, and whispers in your ear, he tells
you that the existence of other religions is a sin.

Of course, the world was very different back then. God,
angels and demons controlled natural events, not scientific
laws. Calamity befell humans at the whim of the spiritual
world. In this "enchanted world," disastrous events were
the prerogative of a vengeful and unforgiving god. In that
world, atheism was close to being inconceivable because to
deny God would be to deny the material and evident natural
world.

Scientific advances revealed that events are the result of
cause and effect, not divine whim. Impersonal mechanisms
determine common physical events. This discovery was
revolutionary because it allowed for an alternative view.

Religion was not the only game in town as governments
emerged from the Middle Ages. Religious belief became a
matter of choice rather than an inextricable part of life.

The European Enlightenment movement may have seemed hostile
to Christianity but the world-transforming impact of
humanism that came out of that movement was Christian at its
core. Sanctity of life and the struggle for social justice
had their genesis in Christianity.

Nothing is more fundamental to culture than the way it
regards the way events unfold in time and history. One of
the most profound innovations of the new secular state was
the concept of time as viewed in fixed intervals. Medieval
Europe viewed history as a succession of cycles like the
seasons. Events in time were inevitable and immutable.

This timeless view of history was global. Hinduism and
Buddhism regarded history as a "succession of cycles similar
to those in the natural world," says Gray. As such, they
had no purpose or end point. Unlike modern Christianity,
salvation was not an event in time but liberation from time
itself.

In contrast, Christianity views history as having a
termination as exemplified by return of Christ to earth and
His rule for a thousand years. This view imbues human
events with a sense of immediacy.

The concept of an end point to historical cycles is
relatively modern. So pervasive was this concept that even
non-religious ideologies such as communism embraced it with
the prediction of the end of capitalism. "Historical
teleology," the idea that history tends towards a single end
or consummation is an inheritance of Christianity.

So did neo-conservatives. Francis Fukuyama in his book, The
End of History and the Last Man, announced the end of
communism and a glorious new epoch of global capitalism.

The death of religion has been greatly exaggerated.
Religion lives on in the secular state with the best that
religion has to offer; justice, charity, tolerance, the rule
of law, equality and choice.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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