A Christian Secularism

PROFESSOR ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU

The “secular” has come to mean many things. Most Orthodox speak about the secular as an aggressively anti-religious attitude and space, in which religion is marginalized or privatized. Given the communist experience, the Orthodox suspicion of the secular is understandable. But this is an excessively narrow view, and to devise a genuinely Orthodox approach to civil society and democracy, we need to come to terms with secularism in all its complexity. In fact, secularism can be entirely consistent with an Orthodox Christian theological worldview. Our faith in the divine-human communion realized in Christ demands that we, as Orthodox Christians, together with other institutional churches, promote a secular space that is understood as a distinct public sphere that is pluralistic, including but limited to religious pluralism. Such a space is a “Christian secularism” because it reflects the Christian vision for the space outside the Church—the political space—and the Christian value of hospitality toward our neighbors. It is only in supporting such a vision that the mystical becomes the political.

First, let me be clear about what is meant by “secular.” In the global popular imagination, it is usually associated with a decline or elimination of religion that is correlated with modernization and scientific advancement. For many, the word also conjures the idea that political and cultural elites are aggressively trying to eradicate religion. This particular meaning, however, was more a prediction than a way of simply describing the changes in the way religion functioned in western society. Since the seventeenth century in the West, the relationship between religion, on one hand, and politics, society, and culture, on the other, has changed considerably; and no doubt, these changes have led to decreased religious participation, particularly in western Europe, along with a weakening of the institutional churches. However, it would be wrong to say religion has gone away. Despite the efforts of certain intellectual elites, it remains a powerful political, societal, and cultural force everywhere in the globe, including western Europe. Ironically, the claim that religion is declining is now used by some religious figures as a rhetorical scare tactic to push an agenda of reintegrating certain religious values in default social mores, or in the law.

There is another meaning to the word “secular,” which has to do with the privatization of religion. The idea is that for democracy to thrive, religion must be taken out of the public sphere. While the total decline of religion has turned out to be a myth, it’s true that religion has been privatized to varying degrees in different countries. The most extreme example is in France, where the privatization of religion is seen as necessary for the sake of securing freedom. The country is well known for not allowing people to publicly wear religious clothing, such as a head scarf, or even to visibly display a cross in the workplace. 

France, however, is an exception, as religion still plays some public role in most Western societies. In many Northern European countries, even though church attendance has diminished, the Lutheran churches still play an important social role, which most citizens support vocally and through taxation. And religion remains far more prominent in the United States, especially in politics—both in elections and in legislation on controversial issues. So, if by “secular” we mean the privatization of religion, not all Westerners think alike about this privatization, and it is clear that religion plays a very public role, even if it is different depending on the particular country. So again, if what we mean by “secular” is the privatization of religion, then the secularization of Western countries has been greatly exaggerated.

Even so, it’s clear that religion does play a different role now than it did in pre-modern societies. So we might ask: In what sense have Western societies become secularized?

In pre-modern societies, religion was what we may call “the all-encompassing reality.” Everyone believed in the supernatural; it was a given, a default belief, and it informed the way people thought about other aspects of society, such as politics, government, law, culture, science, and education. To not believe in the supernatural was inconceivable. After the Reformation, but especially after the American and French Revolutions, all these other areas of society started to separate themselves from religion. Not only was there church-state separation, but culture, economics, science, and education also started to develop independently of the churches. This separation was not only promoted by influential atheists, like Karl Marx, but was also a result of the scientific revolution, where it became clear that scientific advancement could occur independently of a religious worldview. 

As a result of this separation, the various parts of western societies no longer rely on religion for their meaning. Religion has ceased to be the all-encompassing reality; there is no common theological perspective shared by everyone. In this condition, we start seeing a rejection of the supernatural as a given reality as unbelief becomes an option; an emphasis on personal autonomy; and the elevation of human rights as a way of protecting the individual from the power of government. It is not the case that religion stops playing a role in society, nor that morality is eliminated. Religion simply takes on a different role. 

Another effect of these changes has been the emergence of secular pluralism. Some version of pluralism has always existed—even in premodern societies and empires. Secular pluralism, however, means that no one can be designated a second-class citizen in a society as a result of who they are, in the way that Orthodox Christians were once second-class citizens under the Ottomans, or Jews were second-class citizens under the Byzantine empire. It means the civil acceptance of various faith traditions, ethnicities, and lifestyle choices (to use a contemporary term), in a way that never existed in premodern societies and empires. We might think of it as a form of mutual generosity and accommodation. Even though many Orthodox like to criticize the West for promoting a social vision of pervasive atheism and immorality, that kind of secular society rarely exists anywhere in the world. In fact, the clearest example we have of an atheistic, anti-religious society was former Soviet-style communism, which often contrasted itself against the “religious West.” 

One possible response to secularization is the one we have seen in those former Soviet countries. Increasingly, since the 1990s, they have swung in the far opposite direction from the state-sponsored atheism of the past. They have tried to reject secularism altogether—including secularism understood as a public, pluralistic space—and to uphold Christianity as a state religion, whether official or unofficial. This approach is motivated by fear that the decline of religious participation in the West will be mirrored in these post-communist countries. In other words, these countries worry that in time, being religious will not be simply the default, and that national identity will no longer be linked to religious identity. 

However, imposing a state religion does not necessarily translate into a homogeneously religious society—as these countries’ experience shows. In Russia, for example, even though 90% of residents identify as Russian Orthodox, only 75% believe in God, and less than 5% attend religious services. According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, the pattern is similar in most historically Orthodox countries. History has also taught that since the shift to secularization occurred in the West, state religions—both official and unofficial—often produce resentment more than they inspire belief. In short, enshrining a state religion is not an effective long-term strategy. 

What the Orthodox should really focus on, and should be discussing more often, is whether we can accept what I would call a Christian secularism. This would mean recognizing that religion now has a different social role. It would mean making peace with pluralism. This kind of secularism does not mean denying religions a public voice; quite the opposite, it actually allows multiple religious voices to have a public hearing. If, in fact, we can imagine spaces in the world where religions play a public role, but no single religious voice or common theological perspective dominates, then we are, in fact, not living in a post-secular world, nor do I think we want to. The hard question for Christians, and especially for Orthodox Christians, is what role religion should play in a society where it is not the all-encompassing reality, and where Orthodoxy is not the default common theological perspective of all citizens.

The first and primary role that the Orthodox Church (as an institution) and Orthodox Christians (as individuals) should play in the political space is to promote and protect religious pluralism. The political space is, by nature, that space where we encounter the other—the person who does not believe what we believe. That “other” should not be coerced, either directly or indirectly, to convert to the majority religion of a particular nation. 

Besides this, however, there are other forms of pluralism that Orthodox churches should both accept and promote in the political space, though it does not accept them within the borders of the Church. For instance, women cannot be ordained to the ranks of clergy in the Orthodox Church, but this should not prevent the Church from promoting the full equality of women in every aspect of society within the public sphere. More examples could be given, but the underlying theme here is that we must act with discernment. It’s not that the Church cannot have a voice; rather, it has to decide what it should say in light of a commitment to a democratically free and equal public space. Put more theologically, the Church needs to discern how to act in such a way that it shapes a public sphere that is hospitable and welcoming of the stranger. It is in promoting such a pluralistic space that the Church acts most consistently with its own beliefs and values. In so doing, it supports a secular space that is also Christian. 

Aristotle Papanikolaou is the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and the Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University.