Liberalism Without Secularism

Cécile Laborde argues that religion is more than a statement of belief or a moral code. It refers to comprehensive ways of life, theories of justice, modes of association, and vulnerable collective identities. By disaggregating these dimensions, she addresses questions about whether Western secularism and religion can be applied more universally.

Even though the crisis of secularism was declared decades ago, it remains unresolved. This book argues that its roots are internal to the liberal model of secularism, which emerged from the religious dynamics of the Protestant Reformation. In Europe and India, this model has gone hand in hand with an intolerant anticlerical theology that rejects certain traditions as evil political religion. Consequently, liberal secularism often harms local forms of coexistence rather than nourishing them.

Cécile Laborde argues that religion is more than a statement of belief or a moral code. It refers to comprehensive ways of life, theories of justice, modes of association, and vulnerable collective identities. By disaggregating these dimensions, she addresses questions about whether Western secularism and religion can be applied more universally.

Arguing for a review of democratic theory to incorporate religion in the development of liberal democracy, the author challenges the widely held belief among social scientists that religious politics are structurally incompatible with the advancement of liberal democracy in Muslim societies.

Assaults on religious liberty and traditional morality are growing fiercer. Here, at last, is the counterattack. This revised and updated paperback edition of the acclaimed Conscience and Its Enemies showcases the talents that have made Robert P. George one of America's most influential thinkers. Here George explodes the myth that the secular elite represents the voice of reason. In fact, it is on the elite side of the cultural divide where the prevailing views are little more than articles of faith. Conscience and Its Enemies reveals the bankruptcy of these too often smugly held orthodoxies while presenting powerfully reasoned arguments for classical virtues.In defending what James Madison called the "sacred rights of conscience"—rights for which government shows frightening contempt—George grapples with today's most controversial issues: same-sex marriage, abortion, transgenderism, genetic manipulation, euthanasia and assisted suicide, religion in politics, judicial activism, and more. His brilliantly argued essays rely not on theological claims or religious authority but on established scientific facts and a philosophical tradition that extends back to Plato and Aristotle. Conscience and Its Enemies sets forth powerful arguments that secular liberals are unaccustomed to hearing—and that embattled defenders of traditional morality so often fail to marshal.

The problem of democratisation in the Arab Middle East has recently been a topic of great debate. Theories on the compatibility of Islam with democracy have been put forward, from within the Arab world and outside it, with accomodationist and rejectionist views available in both spheres. The rise of political Islam (or 'Islamism') since the late seventies has complicated the picture significantly, with new organisations calling for greater fidelity to Islamic principles on the part of the ruling regimes, with some suggesting that the divine revelation in itself provides sufficient guidance for even a modern Muslim polity. Such claims raise a challenge to the conventional wisdom that has long prevailed in Western countries, and has since spread to many others, which is that religion ought to be excluded from politics, for the good of both. As the title suggests, the big question that the present work seeks to address is whether liberal democracy can live without secularism.

Leading authors in politics, law, sociology and theology discuss what the proper place of religion is in a liberal state.

Many Christians feel that they are being opposed at every turn by what seems to be a well-orchestrated political and cultural campaign to de-Christianize every aspect of Western culture. They are right, and it goes even further back than the Obama Administration. In Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion, Benjamin Wiker argues that it is liberals who seek to establish an official state religion: one of unbelief. Wiker reveals that it was never the intention of the Founders to drive religion out of the public square with the First Amendment, but secular liberals have deliberately misinterpreted the establishment clause to serve their own ends: the de-Christianization of Western civilization. The result, they hope, is government as the new oracle. Personal faith in a deity is replaced with collective dependence on government, and the diversity of religious practices and dogmas is reduced to a uniform ideological agenda. The liberal strategy is two-pronged: drive religion out of the public square, and then, in religion's place, erect the Church of the State to fill the human need for a higher power to look up to. But what was done can be undone. Outlining a simple, step-by-step strategy for disestablishing the state church of secularism, Worshiping the State shows the full historical sweep of the war to those on the Christian side of the cultural battle--and as a consequence of this far more complete vantage, how to win it.