Demystifying Secularism?

[Ravindra]

Demystifying secularism?
A Short History of Secularism, by Graeme Smith (IB Tauris)
Robin Walsh

A Short History of Secularism

Graeme Smith’s A Short History of Secularism should be titled ‘A short
history of Western Christianity, and why, despite appearances to the
contrary, it isn’t really in crisis’. The book wrestles with the
‘secularisation thesis’, the commonly held assumption that the
development of rational understanding would progressively squeeze
religion out of the mainstream, into the private sphere, then finally
banish it entirely when it was no longer necessary for human life.
Smith’s intervention into the debate is a well written and engaging
one, but the underlying weakness of his central hypothesis leads to
some slightly strange places.

Smith’s contention is that despite lower church attendance and a less
central role in public life, Western society is at base still
Christian. He sets about comparing the Christianity of the Middle Ages
with that of the Victorian era, and finds that despite modern ideas of
the medieval period as a priest-ridden ultra-religious period,
people’s day to day faith was far more relaxed. He argues that their
faith played a more ‘technological’ role – explaining phenomena and
attempting to treat diseases (a role now taken on by science); that
church attendance was widely lower than currently assumed; and
medieval religion was ‘vicarious’- meaning that people wanted others
to be religious on their behalf, rather than attempting to live the
lives of saints themselves. He draws a parallel with today’s society,
where people still often maintain a quiet belief in the supernatural,
but don’t attend church or take religion too seriously. Smith suggests
that contemporary theories of reduced religiosity stem from people
comparing the highly religious Victorian era, when the first data on
church attendance was being collected, with today’s more relaxed
attitude, more appropriately compared with less pious Middle Ages.

Attempting to construct a historical narrative of Christianity is a
useful starting point in trying to come to terms with its (or any
other social phenomenon’s) development. It manages to get across the
changes Christianity underwent as it moved across Europe, and the
markedly different mindset that influenced people in the medieval
period, suggesting for instance, that understanding even the simple
phrase ‘Jesus is Lord’ is contingent on the social context and
contemporary conception of the word Lord.

But then the author withdraws from his method when it threatens to
contradict his conclusions. Smith suggests that religiosity has
undergone ‘peaks and troughs’, and is returning to a ‘normal’ level
now. But there isn’t really any ordinary level of religiosity that can
be called constant across such diverse historical periods. Ancient
Athens and contemporary London both have democratic governance and
toleration of homosexuality, but these facts tell you precisely
nothing about either society or the origin of the beliefs held by
them. It’s similarly ridiculous to equate the laid back and
‘vicarious’ nature of modern and medieval Christianity on such a
superficial level.
Smith is on fairly firm ground when he’s dealing with the historical
and sociological facts of medieval belief, but when addressing
contemporary religion is much more wobbly. He claims there’s a strong
Christian identity in contemporary society, but this is superficial
since it seems the mood more closely resembles religious apathy;
likewise, census statistics concerning self-defining Christians don’t
prove the existence of a strong Christian movement, but are often used
to counter the fact of lower church attendances; and the lack of
popularity of secular and humanist societies proves, if anything,
people just aren’t interested rather than they are religious really.
So the upshot of his argument is that Christianity lives on in another
form, having morphed into liberal secularism.

Smith suggests that ‘because of the radical equality of Christianity,
expressed in the universal notion that all people are moral agents…
then liberalism is but a different form of Christianity’. The
individual relationship with god that characterises Christian thought
thus enables the individual-centred outlook that respects human
rights, so that the relationship is continued in a modern ‘secular’
form.

It’s a matter of historical record that almost all Western thought is
influenced by Christianity in one way or another, so on one level this
view has purchase. And it’s true, as Smith states, that the
Enlightenment scientists and philosophers, who supposedly overthrew
Christianity’s central role, were often Christians or deists
themselves; and that the anti-clerics’ primary focus was the abuses of
the church rather than religion per se. But unfortunately, it doesn’t
quite follow that the liberal consensus that has gradually emerged
since is Christian in any robust or real sense.

To support this non-sequitur, Smith leans on some strange allies: the
anti-Enlightenment philosopher Nietzsche, and in particular John Gray.
Both can be read as lambasting the human-centred morality of the
Enlightenment, declaring that man is really an animal, and that
morality is bunk – nothing more than repackaged Christianity. By
putting these philosophers to one side as exceptions, he manages to
elide liberalism and Christianity (hey, at least we all have some
morality!).

Smith concedes on the second to last page that ‘of course it [basic
liberal ethics] by no means matches the Christian ideal. But if we
compare it with the evolutionary nihilism of Gray, then it does’ (Well
Gordon Brown’s Britain isn’t socialist utopia, but if you compare it
to Burma, then it is…). This seems like a belated admission that what
we’re talking about in the current circumstance isn’t really
Christianity; but Smith seems unable to admit that the liberal ideas
and values immanent within Christianity transcended their mystical
trappings and became social and political ideals that could stand on
their own two feet.

I know this is a slightly strange endorsement for a book, but if you
can ignore the central thesis, it is a fairly interesting wander
though the history of ideas, with some good insights into medieval and
Victorian society. However, despite Smith’s best efforts, those facts
don’t add up to Christianity being in anything resembling a healthy
state – and his desire to paint almost everything except belief in God
as Christian is representative of this.