Continuing my thoughts on faith and politics… Tom Price over on his blog A Better Hope asks some Worldview Level Questions About Secular Democracy:
Hazel Blears said, ‘We live in a secular democracy.’ But does she live in an ‘outside, inside’ ? Let me explain. The concept of secular democracy that she has articulated, has on one side, ‘real freedom’ and on the other ‘the closed system’ of secularism. We need to ask some questions about this. What do I mean? Secularism is perspective. Democracy, stable and free, neither needs it nor asks for it. Though some think it means ‘neutrality in public life’ secularism actually means, ‘a doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations.’ It is at root from the family of perspectives that see the universe as only matter, it’s a naturalistic (atheistic) life and worldview…
I think that “secular” is one of those words like “tolerance”. It can mean two very different things, things that at first glance resemble each other, but are actually very different.
Secularism in the sense of freedom of religion, that the state does not enforce a particular religious or philosophical belief, seems to me to be a right and proper outworking of the Christian worldview. If God has allowed us the responsibility of choosing whether to accept or reject him, who are we to deny this to our fellow humans? Christianity allows freedom because we are called not just to submit to God, but to love him, and love must be in some sense freely given to be meaningful. Freedom has an integral place within the Christian worldview.
However, secularism is often used in the sense that Tom describes, to mean a naturalistic perspective that rejects religion and religious considerations – freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion. The basis for so-called freedom of belief is uncertainty (not “choice” as such, as Tom argues, and so naturalistic secularism isn’t necessarily internally inconsistent) – we can’t impose any one worldview because the jury is still out, we don’t know for certain who’s actually right, or so the argument goes. The claim that no-one really knows the truth for certain is itself a big truth claim, and denies freedom to those who believe they hold the truth. Naturalism actually allows far less freedom than Christianity.
But I think Tom gives up too much too soon to say that this second version is what secularism “actually means”. Just as we need to articulate and argue for a proper understanding of tolerance, one that is in accord with the Christian faith and worldview rather than opposed to it, we need to do the same for secularism.
We need to argue the case for Christian secularism, which gives freedom on the basis of love, rather than naturalistic secularism, which gives so-called freedom on the basis of uncertainty.