Lecture 2: What is Secularism?

First quiz next week.
First tutorial on Wednesday, March 12, 7-8pm on Zoom.
Case reports are due on Friday, May 23rd.
Case reports should address conflicts over religion, law, and politics, proposing solutions using course theories.
Choose a specific dispute located in any country.
The Canadian research project Secularism.

Religion, law, and politics are distinct spheres that should be separated in modern states through secularism.
Secular policies make states neutral, maximizing religious freedom, welfare, and harmony.
A uniform system of secular law maintains barriers between the private world of religion and the public worlds of law and politics.

Religion, law, and politics are distinct spheres that should be separated through secularism.
Secular policies render states neutral, maximizing religious freedom, welfare, and harmony.
A uniform system of secular law maintains fair and consistent barriers between the private world of religion and the public worlds of law and politics.

Religion
- Authority: Priests, monks, shamans, based on scripture, asceticism, grace, etc.
- Goals: Heaven, salvation, enlightenment, self-improvement, ultimate concerns.
- Methods: Piety, prayer, ritual, meditation, proselytizing, educating, reading texts; punishment and rewards.
Law
- Authority: Lawyers, judges, police, credentialed professionals, officials.
- Goals: Dispute resolution, order, security, equality, state-improvement (e.g., taxes), formalization of rules and administration of justice.
- Methods: Courts, cops, pleas, penalties, statutes, constitutions.
Politics
- Authority: Citizens, politicians, activists, based on elections, taxes, social contract.
- Goals: Popular representation, order, manage disagreement, social transformation, reshaping of society and redistribution of state power.
- Methods: Elections, lobbying, parliaments, voting, debate, protests, petitions.

Authorities
- Authority is visibly marked by title, office, dress, behavior.
- Importance of text (canon) and narratives.
- Religion is often posited as a source of state law.
Goals
- Deal with the relationship between the IS and the OUGHT.
Methods
- Employ structures of rules and consequences (sin-hell, crime-punishment, etc.).
- Elaborate use of rituals and ceremonial practices.

Secular: An adjective suggesting the absence of religion.
Secularization: A sociological process through which people become less religious.
Secularism: A political position advocating a necessary separation between religion and government.

The Wars of Religion (1517-1648) and the English Civil War (1641-1688).
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of French Huguenots by Catholics in 1572.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648): cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, their religion).

Charles I claimed the 'divine right of kings' to rule unchecked by parliament.
English Civil War (1642-51).
Hobbes wrote Leviathan (1651) in response to the horrors of the English Civil War, advocating for a strong king with powers over the church.

What is the business of civil government, and why can't a magistrate have care of souls?
What is a (true) church/religion for Locke, its goals and methods, and its duty of toleration?
What is the duty of toleration for Magistrates?

Secure civil interests (life, liberty, property) and the public good through fair enforcement of neutral laws.
Civil magistrate cannot compel belief through force.
Religion belief must be sincere.

Voluntary society governed by laws that members consent to willingly.
Core of religion is internal, inwards, about believing and faith.
Goals: worship, salvation in the afterlife.
Methods: persuasion and admonition, not force.
Duty of toleration: not use force against heretics, accept other churches, accept civil authority of governments.
Church is separate from the commonwealth.

Not to require outward worship.
Not to prohibit worship, provided it conforms to civil law and does not contravene the public good.
To allow the voicing of opinions about religion, even if untrue.

Two features of Secular, Democratic Liberalism:
1. The state should be neutral towards the worldview of citizens (neutral state).
2. The state should maximize the rights of individuals (individual rights).

Separating Religion, Law, and Politics.
Negotiation/rejection of institutional religious authority.
Separation of Church and State.
Pluralism and Individual religious freedom: liberty.
Modern, egalitarian, (capitalistic and/or socialist) values and refined aesthetics.
This-worldly - not other worldly. Empirical / Rationale (common sense).
Technical, instrumental understandings (science) of the world.
Anti-clerical/Anti-ritual/ Agnostic / Atheist.
Disenchantment / religion as false consciousness.

Religion, law, and politics can be thought of as distinct and similar, depending on the features emphasized.
Differences and similarities can be organized by authority, goals, and methods.
Some phenomena are easily categorized as religion, law, or politics, while others resist this.
Dominant models of secularism grow out of European history and Locke's ideas.