Secularism and Religion in the West: Rethinking a Contested Relationship

In the annals of human history, few phenomena or institutions display the same degree of historical depth and diversity in both form and substance as religion. Religion has constituted a central component of human culture, offering ontological and epistemological visions of existence, as well as frameworks for living in the world. It stands among the most prominent elements that have shaped human identity across psychological, cultural, social, and political dimensions.

In the Western context in particular, scholarly examination of history reveals that religion has consistently been a locus of contention within the social and political fabric. This contention has intensified in recent decades due to various factors, including modernization and secularization, as well as migratory flows that have transformed the religious landscape of the West. These changes have given rise to new patterns of diversity and have reignited debates concerning the boundaries of religion and its relationship to the public sphere.

These transformations underscore that religion is not merely a vestige of the past, but rather a dynamic and active force that continues to assert itself within the Western modernity project. It puts to test the boundaries and capacities of secularism, particularly in light of the declining plausibility of the "religion’s sunset" thesis and the emergence of what has come to be known as the "post-secular" condition.

Beyond offering a historical or descriptive account, this study advances a critical thesis: secularism should be understood not merely as a neutral regulatory framework governing religious diversity, but as a historically situated paradigm that produces its own normative assumptions about religion, politics, and the human subject.

By interrogating secularism as a form of power-laden knowledge rather than a self-evident achievement of modern rationality, this research seeks to expose the epistemological and political presuppositions embedded within dominant secular narratives. In doing so, it aims to move beyond binary oppositions such as religion versus politics or faith versus reason that continue to structure much of the contemporary debate.

The originality of this work lies in its genealogical and comparative reading of secularism, which situates Western secular paradigms within their Christian and post-Christian matrices, while simultaneously questioning their presumed universality. This approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of secularism not as the negation of religion, but as one of the historically contingent modes through which religion has been reconfigured in modern Western societies.

 By positioning this study at the intersection of philosophy, sociology, and political theory, it challenges the implicit assumption that secularism is a neutral framework. Instead, secularism is examined as an epistemic and political construct that shapes, and is shaped by, the tensions between religion and modernity. This stance allows us to question not only the assumed universality of Western secular paradigms but also their transferability to non-Western contexts.

Research Problem

Building on the foregoing, and in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the nature of the relationship between modernity and secularism on the one hand, and religion on the other, within the Western context, this study addresses the following research question: Primary Research Question What are the formative foundations and subsequent transformations that have shaped and redefined the secular paradigm from its inception to the present, in its interactions with religion in the Western world?

Secondary Research Questions

• What are the philosophical, historical, and social foundations that have shaped the concept of religion in the West?

• Upon which foundations has the modern then secular paradigm been constructed?

• To what extent is the “death of religion” thesis valid? 

• What characterizes the return of religion in the post-secular era?

• What are the defining features of religion in contemporary Western societies?

Research Methodology

This study adopts an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes historical, sociological, and philosophical analysis to examine the religious and secular phenomena within the Western context. It also relies on a critical hermeneutic method to analyze the discourses and conceptual frameworks foundational to secularism in the West, while employing a comparative perspective when contextually appropriate.

In the initial phase of the study, we undertake a reconstruction of the concept of “the West,” not merely as a geographical entity, but as a civilizational and historical construct imbued with political, cultural, and intellectual significance. This phase involves analyzing the interactions of religious institutions with social and political structures, as well as deconstructing the discourses that contributed to the formation of a distinct “Western religious personality”.

The research further traces the formation of the modern paradigm and the subsequent developments of secularism, examining them both theoretically and in practice. It analyzes the causes and driving forces behind these transformations by identifying the foundational blocks, so to speak of the primary social thought processes surrounding our topic. One of the most effective strategies in this regard is the examination of “primary carriers” of shifts in social consciousness, namely the key transmitters of ideas: institutions, their intellectuals, and the practices directly responsible for influencing and transforming patterns of thought. This entails tracking the mediating and formative factors shaping both collective and individual consciousness.

The study also engages with contemporary secular narratives concerning the future of religion, through a critical reading of the sociology of religion literature, particularly the works of Steve Bruce, Peter Berger, Grace Davie, and Jürgen Habermas, among others.

As much as possible, the research draws upon original Western sources written in English and French across philosophy, sociology, and anthropology, both classical and contemporary. It draws specifically on the writings of modernity and secularism theorists, the founding fathers of sociology who attempted to understand secularization as a social phenomenon, as well as contemporary scholars who have analyzed the current interactions between religion and secularism within the Western public sphere.

Methodologically, this study departs from approaches that treat secularism as a self-evident or normatively settled category. Instead, it adopts a reflexive stance that interrogates the conditions under which secular knowledge is produced and legitimized. This involves questioning not only the historical emergence of secular institutions, but also the epistemic frameworks through which religion and secularism are conceptualized within modern social thought.

By combining genealogical analysis with critical hermeneutics, the research resists both reductionist sociological explanations and purely normative philosophical accounts. This methodological positioning enables the study to expose the implicit assumptions that underlie dominant secular narratives, while remaining attentive to empirical variations and historical specificity. Such an approach seeks to bridge the gap between descriptive analysis and critical theory in the study of secularism.

While this interdisciplinary and hermeneutic approach provides a robust framework for analysis, it is not without limitations. Certain empirical nuances may elude purely conceptual reconstruction, and the study relies on interpreting historical and textual sources, which requires careful consideration of context and translation. Nonetheless, this methodology offers a critical lens capable of bridging descriptive and normative understandings of secularism.

General Overview and Selected Findings

This dissertation explores the nature of religion within the Western context, as well as the nature of political modernity namely, its secular dimension and how these two concepts relate to contemporary conflicts concerning the appropriate boundaries between religion, politics, and society. The central argument advanced is that the secular–religious conflict in the Western world is better understood through the lens of philosophy and the social and political sciences, rather than through metaphysical debates alone. This is not to dismiss the metaphysical dimension entirely, but rather to stress that focusing solely on it may contribute to further misunderstanding.

The research scope has been delimited to the Western world, as defined both generally and specifically in Chapter One. Starting from the premise that linguistic definitions are not neutral vehicles of meaning, and that concepts are carriers of diverse political and social ideas and practices throughout history, secularism can be conceptualized as a “cluster concept.” The research scope has been delimited to the Western world, as defined both generally and specifically in Chapter One. Starting from the premise that linguistic definitions are not neutral vehicles of meaning, and that concepts are carriers of diverse political and social ideas and practices throughout history, secularism can be conceptualized as a “cluster concept.” The conceptual multiplicity of secularism is not merely a theoretical curiosity but reflects the contested normative stakes of modern governance. Different definitions carry implicit expectations about the boundaries of religious practice, the role of the state, and the rights of individuals, illustrating that secularism is inseparable from political and social power. This is not merely because it is multiform and contested, but also because each criterion used to define it generates its own equally contested set of questions.

Accordingly, rather than seeking a single definitive meaning, this dissertation proposes an examination of secularism through its constitutive structures and a tracing of the concepts and ideas that relate to it. In doing so, the study sheds light on a constellation of concepts related to religion and secularism in the Western world, such as modernity, modernism, modernization, secularization, scientism, postmodernity, postsecularism, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and others. While this classification is to some extent artificial, it nonetheless contributes to deepening our understanding and resolving ambiguities and problems linked to the phenomenon in its various dimensions.

One of the contributions of this study lies in the conclusion that the term secularism is, in many respects, inherently religious. It was originally employed by Latin Christians, and a comparable semantic usage appears among Arab Christians of Syriac heritage, who were responsible for transmitting the term into Arabic. Although the genealogy of the term secular is well established traced back to the Latin saeculum, from which the English secular is derived and which denotes profane or worldly time as opposed to sacred time (Taylor, 2007, p. 55) it was historically used to refer to the non-clerical class concerned with temporal affairs (Falci, 2018, p. 10). Nonetheless, the Arabic genealogy of the term ʿilmāniyya remains largely absent from academic scholarship, where the term is often used in its modern sense, detached from its historical and religious roots.

The first Arabic dictionary to introduce the term ʿilmānī in its contemporary meaning was Al-Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ, published by the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo. In both its first (1960) and second (1979) editions, the term appeared with a fatḥa (ʿa-lamānī), meaning: “related to the world; opposed to religious or clerical” (ʿalamānī: nisba to ʿālam, the world, thus the opposite of religious). This remained the case until the third edition in 1985, where it was rendered as ʿilmānī with a kasra (ʿi-lmānī), connoting a relationship with ʿilm (science) (ʿĀmirī, 2017, p. 62). This latter interpretation was later adopted by certain Arab thinkers and authors, who promoted the term as deriving from science, thereby implying a dichotomy between religion and science.

Through historical investigation, it becomes evident that the earliest writings on the topic were authored by Arab Christians of Syriac origin. When consulting Syriac dictionaries, one finds that the term ܥܳܠܡܐܝܬ (ʿālmāyīt or ʿalma) refers to the secular, the world, and the temporal domain (Costaz, 2002, p. 254). Following the development of a distinction in Christianity beginning in the 4th century CE between the clergy and the laity, Syriac Christians, like other Christian communities, adopted terms to distinguish between religious and secular spheres. As they became Arabized during the Abbasid period, they translated the term as ʿālamānī, which was later simplified to ʿilmānī. The earliest known Arabic source to mention the term ʿalamānī appears in Miṣbāḥ al-ʿAql by Bishop Sawīrus Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, written in the 10th century CE (Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, 1978, p. 95).

This genealogical tracing highlights a recurring methodological oversight in contemporary scholarship: by treating the term ʿilmāniyya as a neutral or purely modern concept, many analyses overlook the historical and theological processes that shaped its emergence. Recognizing these origins allows for a more critical understanding of how secular paradigms operate within both Western and Arab contexts.

In Chapter Two, we concentrated on the formation of the Western secular paradigm by examining the historical development of the concept of religion (religion) within the Western context. We analyzed how its meaning evolved over time, culminating in a modern conceptualization forged during the Renaissance and solidified during the Enlightenment, which delineated its final contours (Smith, 1991). This was achieved by reshaping collective consciousness through monopolizing conceptual production and redirecting it to serve modernity's objectives (Cavanaugh, 2009, p. 69).

The study further investigated how the concept of secularism emerged and developed within the Western context, emphasizing its intrinsic link to Christianity. We demonstrated that secularism is a uniquely Western phenomenon. The study also focused on the political dimensions of the rise of the sovereign state and how this transformation altered the way religion is conceptualized in the contemporary public sphere.

Moreover, we proposed a framework to distinguish and reorganize the diverse definitions of secularism (Casanova, 1994), treating it as an ideology that is, as a mode of political thinking about governance and pluralistic society. Secularism, in this light, can be understood as a (ontological, epistemological) worldview of the political and social domain (Falci, 2018, pp. 282–29). We argued that secularism, as an ideological construct, shapes thought and behavior alike. It offers a prescriptive vision of what politics and society ought to be, thereby functioning as both an ideal model and a political governance framework.

By analyzing what secularism does when placed at the center of political contestation (Scott, 2017), this dissertation has aimed to understand how secularism became not only possible but necessary within Western societies.

In the final chapter, our focus turned to the paradigmatic shift within Western secularism specifically, the moment when secularism began to fashion the human being as a replica of the natural world, subject to regulation, control, and determinism. This transformation aimed to achieve objectivity in legislation and establish universal norms that would eliminate those grounded in metaphysics, transcendence, or religion.

Our inquiry shed light on religion’s persistent relevance alongside other social systems, particularly secular ideologies. Contrary to the secular prediction of religion’s disappearance (Berger, 1968), religious belief did not vanish. Even in what sociologists consider the least religious societies, such as the Czech Republic, often labeled the most atheistic state, some scholars argue that the transformation concerns the institutional location of religion, not its existential presence. There is continuity in individual religious belief, although Czech religiosity is marked by extreme privatization and a profound distrust of traditional religious institutions. This calls into question the validity of studies that rely solely on institutional indicators to assess religiosity (Václavík, Hamplová, & Nešpor, 2018).

This continuity may be explained by religion’s unique capacity to offer resources unavailable in other social systems, as Durkheim had observed decades ago (Durkheim, 1995). However, religion has also undergone transformations as it navigates the demands of modernity manifesting a softer, contemporary sensibility, especially in the postmodern era (Testot & Dortier, 2017, p. 1079).

A particular emphasis was placed on laïcité, the French model of secularism, which we regard as the most rigorous expression of Western secularism. It exemplifies the full logical extension of secular principles in both public and even private spheres. We traced the emergence of varying procedural secular models, most notably the French and American versions back to differences in their respective historical conditions and the character of the Enlightenment in each context. Specifically, we identified two Enlightenment traditions: a more rigid, religion-hostile European model led by France, and a comparatively tolerant, softer American model (Peter, Grace, & Effie, 2016, p. 31). The contrast between these secular models illustrates that secularism is neither monolithic nor universally applicable. Rather, it is historically and culturally contingent, mediating relationships between religion, politics, and society in ways that reflect distinct intellectual, legal, and political traditions. This underscores the need for any comparative analysis to consider local histories and institutional arrangements.

Understanding these procedural models sets the stage for evaluating post-secular and posthumanist debates. In this light, the contemporary debate on post-secularism can be seen not as a radical departure from secular logic, but rather as a nuanced rearticulation that often evades confronting the core dilemmas of secularism itself. Such frameworks rarely interrogate the underlying assumptions of secular thought, and when engaging with religion, they tend to replicate inherited structures rather than challenge them (Possamai, 2017). This underscores the persistent influence of secular rationality in shaping contemporary discourses, highlighting that even apparent departures from secularism remain constrained by historical and conceptual frameworks.

Similarly, posthumanist responses, which emerge within the same secular matrix, attempt to fill the moral and existential vacuum left by the marginalization of religion in public and private life. In this vision, the human is elevated to a quasi-divine status, becoming a “superhuman” in an effort to replicate the guiding structures once provided by traditional religious systems (Wesley, 2018). Yet this very elevation paradoxically reveals the continued imprint of religious logic within ostensibly secular narratives, demonstrating how secularism and religion remain interwoven rather than entirely separate.

By interrogating these contemporary narratives, the study demonstrates that post-secular and posthumanist frameworks often replicate core secular assumptions, redistributing transcendence onto the human or technological sphere instead of critically engaging with the foundational questions concerning the nature of religion, the secular, and their interactions. This reinforces the central thesis of the dissertation: secularism should not be understood merely as the absence of religion, but as a dynamic, normative, and regulatory matrix through which religious forms are continuously rearticulated, transformed, and socially mediated. Conclusion This dissertation has undertaken a critical examination of secularism as a foundational paradigm of Western modernity, with particular attention to its historical formation, conceptual assumptions, and enduring entanglement with religion. Contrary to dominant narratives that present secularism as a linear process of emancipation from religious authority, this study has demonstrated that secularism is best understood as a historically situated and normatively charged framework that reconfigures, rather than abolishes, religious meaning and practice.

By reconstructing the genealogy of secular concepts and tracing their development across theological, philosophical, and political domains, the research has shown that secularism emerged from within specific Christian contexts and was later institutionalized through the rise of the modern sovereign state. This trajectory reveals that secularism does not operate outside religion, but continues to rely on inherited religious distinctions such as the sacred and the profane, the public and the private while recasting them in ostensibly neutral terms.

One of the central contributions of this dissertation lies in its critique of the presumed neutrality and universality of the secular paradigm. Through a critical engagement with classical and contemporary theories of secularization, the study has highlighted the limitations of explanatory models that equate modernization with the decline of religion. Empirical and theoretical evidence examined throughout this work indicates that religion persists in transformed, privatized, and hybrid forms, even within societies commonly described as highly secular. Such persistence challenges the analytical adequacy of institutional indicators alone and calls for a broader understanding of religiosity as a multidimensional and context-sensitive phenomenon.

Furthermore, this research has argued that secularism functions not only as a descriptive category, but as an ideological and regulatory framework that actively shapes the boundaries of acceptable religion in the public sphere. By redefining religion as a matter of private belief, secular governance simultaneously produces normative expectations regarding religious expression and marginalizes forms that resist such confinement. In this sense, secularism operates as a technology of power that structures political rationality, legal norms, and social imaginaries, rather than merely arbitrating between competing worldviews.

The analysis of diverse secular models, particularly the contrast between French laïcité and American procedural secularism, has underscored the contextual and historically contingent nature of secular arrangements. These models are not interchangeable expressions of a single principle, but distinct configurations shaped by differing Enlightenment legacies, state–church relations, and political cultures. Recognizing this diversity undermines claims to a monolithic or universally applicable model of secularism and invites a more pluralistic and historically informed approach to secular governance.

The study has also critically engaged with post-secular discourse, arguing that much of what is described as “post-secular” does not represent a genuine rupture with secular assumptions, but rather a rearticulation of secularism that leaves its foundational premises largely unexamined. Similarly, contemporary posthumanist narratives, which seek to respond to the perceived moral and existential vacuum of secular modernity, often reproduce quasi-religious structures while displacing transcendence onto the human or technological domain. These developments further illustrate the enduring presence of religious patterns within ostensibly secular frameworks.

Ultimately, the principal contribution of this dissertation resides in its reconceptualization of the relationship between secularism and religion as an internally dynamic and mutually constitutive process. By moving beyond binary oppositions and linear narratives of decline, this research offers a more nuanced analytical lens through which to understand ongoing tensions surrounding religion, politics, and modernity in the Western world.

By clarifying the historical and conceptual specificity of Western secularism, this study also lays the groundwork for future comparative research in Arab and Islamic contexts, where secular paradigms are often adopted, contested, or resisted without sufficient attention to their genealogical origins. Such an approach enables a more critical engagement with the transfer, adaptation, and limits of secular models beyond the Western experience, thereby contributing to a deeper and more reflexive global discourse on secularism and religion.

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