A Case for Christian Secularism

KING’S COMMUNITY

A Case for Christian Secularism

Tony George Headmaster

It is not uncommon for people to think of religion and secularism as binary ideologies, or at least as substitutes. For example, when we think about schools, people think of a religious school as being the opposite of a secular school, or at least that a school can be either religious or secular, but not both. In modern Australian society, it is not uncommon to hear the argument put that our system of public education is to be secular and not religious, and, consequently, that religion has no place in our public schools.

To think of religion and secularism in this way invokes a category error, in that it conflates our notion of community with society. Religion is fundamentally concerned with the notion of community, while secularism is fundamentally concerned with that of society. Religion, therefore, along with other forms of ideology, is essential for a healthy secular pluralist society, and that Anglican Christianity may be understood as a form of Christian secularism. Let me elaborate on the statements above. In his book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor provides an expansive account of our development and understanding of what it means to be secular. Taylor explains that the plain meaning of the term secular (Latin: secularis) refers to our temporal understanding of the current age, whatever and whenever that may be. In other words, to have a secular perspective is to have a real time, in the moment, of this age, perspective – rather than a future or eternal or other worldly perspective. Consequently, we can bring an eternal perspective, such as a religious perspective, to this secular age, such that our behaviour in the present is influenced by what we believe might or will happen in the future.

This perspective on secularism allows for religious and secular perspectives to be seen as complimentary, rather than substitutionary. It is of course possible to think and behave in the present secular age, without any concern for the future or with reference to an eternal perspective. However, it is a little more difficult to think and behave religiously without any consideration for the present secular age in which we live. We all live secularly, and the range of interpretative schemas we bring to making sense of our world and of influencing our thoughts and behaviours inevitably draw upon all manner of assumptions and ideologies about our future and the eternal truths.

The belief that secularism is necessarily anti-religion is associated with the notion of a “hard” secularism and seeks to pit religion against secularism. Many philosophical writers, however, adopt a softer secularism (see the writings of Jurgen Habermas, William Connolly and Peter Berger), what we might better understand as secular pluralism. Habermas observes, “Churches and religious organisations are increasingly assuming the role of ‘communities of interpretation’ in the public arena of secular societies.” (2008, p.20). It is this distinction between community and society that is important for understanding secular pluralism.

It was the German philosopher Ferdinand Tonnies who drew our attention to the important difference between community and society with his publication of Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) in 1887. Tonnies observed, as did Max Weber, that traditional communities were giving way to modern society with the resultant loss of meaning and significance. Weber described this loss of meaning as an “iron cage” from which we could not escape. However, while Tonnies romanticised about a return to the ideal of community, it is the notion of secular pluralism that allows us to resolve the tension by understanding modern society as being made up of many communities. It is in this sense, that secular pluralism describes the role of society as accommodating the diversity of various religious and ideological communities that make up modern society. Indeed, it is the diversity of ideas and concepts arising from each community that contributes to the health of society as whole. With the rise of modernity and globalisation, we now experience Weber’s iron cage on a global scale, with an increasingly global society. At the same time, we are experiencing increasing multi-culturalism and religious diversity in our society. Australia is now one of the most diverse and multi-cultural countries in the world. Our challenge in being inclusive is to accommodate, encourage and celebrate this cultural diversity, without privileging one community over another. This has the upshot of requiring secular society to accommodate competing communities with competing beliefs, values, and attitudes. Consequently, it is not uncommon for one community to seek to impose its beliefs, values, and attitudes on those communities that surround it. Yet, to do so is to tend towards a kind of communal homogeneity that tends towards communism and certainly not secular pluralism.

For secularism to be authentically pluralist, we need a society that exhibits a heterogeneity of communities. Secular society needs to ensure both freedom and safety for each community to develop and celebrate their own unique identity without fear or favour of the governing state, or of being ridiculed or vilified by competing communities. This is particularly the case for matters of religious identity, including issues of sex, gender and marriage. It is here that we come to realise the importance and significance for a secular society to be inherently inclusive in its heterogeneity, made up of plethora of diverse communities, each with its own identity and freedom to upholds its own beliefs, values and attitudes. However, there is a tension for us here between secular law, on the one hand, and a particular community’s ethical and moral standards, on the other. The tension arises from the rightful place that each community must live in and contribute to the laws that govern secular society while living alongside other communities that have different ethical and moral standards and, therefore, different expectations regarding the same secular laws. I am using the term “secular law” to distinguish between those laws that apply to secular society in its entirety, and those laws that might be better understood as the moral and ethical standards adopted and applied within a particular community. Examples of these tensions include attitudes to sex, marriage, drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, dress, and so on.

Governments have an essential role in providing for the heterogeneity of secular society in its policing and lawmaking, so that the legislative environment provides a safety net that accommodates the broad range of communities. It is not for any government to legislate what individual communities must believe or value, for surely communities are free to have their own beliefs and values. Rather, secular law has an important role in governing the behaviour of individuals and communities so that communities can live alongside one another freely despite ideological tension. Consequently, while communities may be free to believe and value whatever they like, we do well to observe that all moral and ethical freedom is limited to within the behavioural boundaries set by secular law for the broader good of secular society. Individuals and communities are free to disagree with these laws but are obliged to exercise their views and expectations

A Case for Christian Secularism

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for any change through the appropriate democratic processes we associate with secular society.

Each community is free to live according to its own moral and ethical standards, provided it does not transgress the laws governing secular society. This is what it means to live within the law. Living within secular law provides freedom and permission for communities to navigate how to uphold their own beliefs, values, and attitudes, religious or otherwise. In other words, societal standards do not necessarily compel all communities to live those same standards – for example, that gambling or eating meat is lawful in secular society does not obligate all communities to gamble and eat meat. Indeed, vegan restaurants are not required to offer “carnivore options”, even though steak houses might offer vegan options. To maintain the heterogeneity of secular society we need to accept and encourage the diversity of different communities, religious or otherwise. This kind of thinking, however, can draw criticism from various anti-discrimination groups seeking to mandate homogeneity across all communities. Examples of this might include same-sex marriage or abortion. It is important for us to consider that in being legalised, whether there is still freedom for communities to withhold their assent to these practices within their communities. The Anglican Church has its origins in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century that gave rise to the myriad variety of Christian churches and denominations that we see today, each of which has its own unique set of characteristics, including different beliefs, values, and attitudes. Importantly for the Anglican church, was the separation of Church and State, whereby the Church would contribute as its own unique community to the broader landscape of the State and secular society. However, this separation of Church and State is not the same as the separation of the sacred and secular, as the Protestant Reformation also sought to remove the sacred/secular distinction. Removing this distinction was an important foundation for what we call the Protestant Work Ethic, also attributed to Weber.

Unsurprisingly, the Anglican Church sees its role as bringing a sacred perspective as a religious community to that of secular society, just as any other community, religious or otherwise, has a responsibility to contribute to secular society. Thus, as an Anglican School Community, the King’s School brings an Anglican Christian perspective to its educational contribution to secular society through its students, its quality of teaching and leadership in education. Importantly, the distinction we make as an Anglican Christian community, is understanding the difference between the Christian faith as a personal reality and the Christian religion as a communal reality. Each person has their own personal faith, and for Christians, that is a matter between them and God in Jesus Christ. However, when Christians get together to form communities, they do so as a Christian religion, of which there are many. Each Christian denomination is essentially a different and unique religious community. For the King’s School, our history and tradition as an Anglican Christian Community informs our understanding of what it means to be human and our aspiration to provide our students with an education grounded in Christian wisdom to benefit secular society. The King’s School is a significant contributor to, and participator in, secular society through its Anglican Christian perspective as a religious educational community.