Secularity (adjective form secular, from Latin saeculum meaning "worldly", "of a generation", "temporal", or a span of about 100 years) is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion. Historically, the word "secular" was not related or linked to religion, but was a freestanding term in Latin which would relate to any mundane endeavor. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the 18th century European Enlightenment. Furthermore, since "religion" and "secular" are both Western concepts that were formed under the influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. In many cultures, little conceptual or practical distinction is made between "natural" and "supernatural" phenomena and the very notions of "religious" and "nonreligious" dissolve into unimportance or nonexistence, especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in gods.
Conceptions of what is and what is not religion vary in contemporary East Asia as well. The shared term for "irreligion" or "no religion" (無宗教, Chinese pron. wú zōngjiào, Japanese pron. mu shūkyō) with which the majority of East Asian populations identify themselves implies non-membership in one of the institutional religions (such as Buddhism and Christianity) but not necessarily non-belief in traditional folk religions collectively represented by Chinese Shendao and Japanese Shinto (both meaning "ways of gods").[5] In modern Japan, religion has negative connotation since it is associated with foreign belief systems so many identify as "nonreligious" (mushukyo), but this does not mean they have a complete rejection or absence of beliefs and rituals relating to supernatural, metaphysical, or spiritual things.[6]
One can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, some religious traditions see both eating and bathing as sacraments, therefore making them religious activities within those world views. Saying a prayer derived from religious text or doctrine, worshipping through the context of a religion, and attending a religious school are examples of religious (non-secular) activities.
The "secular" is experienced in diverse ways ranging from separation of religion and state to being anti-religion or even pro-religion, depending on the culture.[7] For example, the United States has both separation of church and state and pro-religiosity in various forms such as protection of religious freedoms; France has separation of church and state (and Revolutionary France was strongly anti-religious); the Soviet Union was anti-religion; in India, people feel comfortable identifying as secular while participating in religion; and in Japan, since the concept of "religion" is not indigenous to Japan, people state they have no religion while doing what appears to be religion to Western eyes.
A related term, secularism, involves the principle that government institutions and their representatives should remain separate from religious institutions, their beliefs, and their dignitaries. Many businesses and corporations, and some governments operate on secular lines. This stands in contrast to theocracy, government with deity as its highest authority.
Etymology and definitions
This does not necessarily imply hostility to God or religion, though some use the term this way (see "secularism", below); Martin Luther used to speak of "secular work" as a vocation from God for most Christians.[citation needed] According to cultural anthropologists such as Jack David Eller, secularity is best understood, not as being "anti-religious", but as being "religiously neutral" since many activities in religious bodies are secular themselves and most versions of secularity do not lead to irreligiosity.[8]
Secularization
According to anthropologist Jack David Eller's review of secularity, he observes that secularization is very diverse and can vary by degree and kind. He notes sociologist Peter Glasner's ten institutional, normative, or cognitive processes for secularization as:[8]- Decline — the reduction in quantitative measures of religious identification and participation, such as lower church attendance/membership or decreased profession of belief.
- Routinization — "settling" or institutionalizing through integration into the society and often compromising with the society, which tends to occur when the religion becomes large and is therefore one mark of success as a religion, although it is less intense and distinct than in its early formative "cultish" or new-religious-movement stage.
- Differentiation — a redefined place or relation to society, perhaps accepting its status as one religion in a plural religious field or morphing into a more "generic" and therefore mass-appeal religion.
- Disengagement — the detachment of certain facets of social life from religion.
- Transformation — change over time (Glasner cites Weber's analysis of Protestantism as a transformation of Christianity for a new social milieu) .
- Generalization — a particular kind of change in which it becomes less specific, more abstract, and therefore more inclusive, like the supposed "civil religion" in the United States; it moderates its more controversial and potentially divisive claims and practices.
- Desacralization — the evacuation of "supernatural" beings and forces from the material world, leaving culture and rationality to guide humans instead.
- Segmentation — the development of specialized religious institutions, which take their place beside other specialized social institutions.
- Secularization — the processes of urbanization, industrialization, rationalization, bureaucratization, and cultural/religious pluralism through which society moves away from the "sacred" and toward the "profane".
- Secularism — the only form that leads to outright rejection of religion, usually amounting to atheism.
Modern usage
Examples of secular used in this way include:- Secular authority, which involves legal, police, and military authority, as distinct from clerical authority, or matters under church control.
- Secular clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, who, traditionally, do not live the monastic lives of the regular clergy and are therefore, in a sense, more engaged with the temporal world. For a related Roman Catholic reference, see secular institute.
- Secular education, schools that are not run by churches, mosques, or other religious organizations.
- Secular states with secular governments that follow civil laws—as distinct from religious authorities like the Islamic Sharia, Catholic Canon law, or Jewish Halakha—and that do not favor or disfavor any particular religion.
- Secular Jewish culture, cultural manifestations of Jewishness that are not specifically religious.
- Secular music, composed for general use, as distinct from sacred music which is composed for church use. Secular sonatas, in the 17th century, were those not composed for church services.
- Secular Organizations for Sobriety, a secular alternative to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) organization which is a loosely religious one although nondenominational.
- Secular society refers to aspects of society that are not mosque-, church-, synagogue-, or temple-affiliated.
- Secular spirituality, the pursuit of spirituality without a formal affiliation with a church, or other religious organization, or the pursuit of spirituality specifically in the context of temporal affairs.
- Secular peers, in reference to the Peers of the House of Lords that are not connected to the Church.
- Secular humanism
Related concepts
- Secularism is an assertion or belief that religious issues should not be the basis of politics, and it is a movement that promotes those ideas (or an ideology) which hold that religion has no place in public life. French frequently uses laïcité as an equivalent idiom for sécularisme. Secularist organizations are distinguished from merely secular ones by their political advocacy of such positions.
- Laïcisme is the French word that most resembles secularism, especially in the latter's extreme definition, as it is understood by the Catholic Church, which sets laïcisme in opposition to the allegedly far milder concept of laïcité. The correspondent word laicism (also spelled laïcism) is sometimes used in English as a synonym for secularism.
- Laïcité is a French concept related to the separation of state and religion, sometimes rendered by the English cognate neologism laicity and also translated by the words secularity and secularization. The word laïcité is sometimes characterized as having no exact English equivalent; it is similar to the more moderate definition of secularism, but is not as ambiguous as that word.
