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Summary THE CHALLENGE OF SECULARISM NOTES AND EVALUATION
In-depth, critical and evaluative A01 + A02 notes for the topic The Challenge of Secularism for the Developments in Christian Thought unit for OCR Religious Studies.
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THE CHALLENGE OFSECULARISM
Religion cannot be restricted to the private sphere; it must be discussed
and dealt with by society and the governments who run it. Secularism is a
hotly contested issue in this regard.
Programmatic Secularism
Faith should have absolutely no part in how Government affairs and
bodies are run and funded
New Labour: “We don’t do God”
“La laicite” and the invasion that religion makes on democracy and
freedom of speech
Procedural Secularism
More pluralist, faith is important and should contribute, but with no
preference above others. In other words, a state cannot be a
“Christian state” or a “Muslim state”
Former Archbishop Rowan Williams: Government should be a
“community of communities”
Durkheim on Religious Belief
Religion fulfils personal needs and seems to be shaped by societies
for their own purposes, such to promote a collective moral
conscience and to promote conformity
More likely for isolated people, linking to Freud’s Oedipal complex
and the need for a father figure and acceptance
Secularization
The process in which society removes the need for religion in public
institutions
Evidence: Less church attendance, distaste for the conflict religion
causes and favour for values that put stuff like industry for
Evidence against: Cannot really be measured and liberals make it
up, cannot compare ages where church attendance was socially
expected and how most major religions still exist but don’t involve
policy
Charles Taylor’s objection to Secularisation thesis
We seem to use “subtraction stories” to prove we have outgrown
religion, yet it can be dismissed for two reasons:
i) Forget communal aspect of religion
ii) We are simply at a weird point in history and western civilization
has always been weird
, Terry Eagleton’s Marxist objection to Secularisation thesis
Puts value on the religious imagination, that secular capitalist belief
has largely dismissed
Morality, like secular capitalist society, has become privatised and
away from God’s eyes
Secular society is just an anxious response to religious fundamental
conflict; both are as bad as each other
Berger (Sociologist and Protestant theologian)
Personal belief endures largely the same, and secularisation does
not extend to the private sphere
Ford and Casanova (Theologian and Anglican)
Secular Atheism has created degradation of society also, with
ideologies like fascism and communism
Ford: Societal development is not a linear thing, and secularism is
not inevitable in the way we think
Bretherton (Political Theologian)
The private-public parts of faith and pluralist society shows that the
secularisation thesis is wrong and that “multi-faith London is in full
bloom”
The Views of Secular Humanists
FOR FAITH SCHOOLS AGAINST FAITH SCHOOLS
Taylor: No culture can impose Has opportunities to foster socially
itself on the public institution more isolated communities
than any other
Dawson: Religious heritage must Potentially leads children into
be taught, and conscious efforts to indoctrination and even radicalism.
remove it is a form of revisionism,
akin to extreme ideologies like
Communism
Conroy: Good in a liberal The state has no responsibility to
democracy, as it centralises choice teach faith onto people, it should
on what the parent thinks is best remain a private matter
for the child.
There are no value-neutral schools, Issue of whether science is taught
so faith schools and non-faith properly, most significantly in
schools should just be apart of the America where Creationism is a
bigger picture part of some curriculums.
According to the Humanist 2002 Amsterdam Declaration, human
values are expressive of spiritual values and the two are NOT
distinct. Both seek human development and fulfilment.
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