secularism - secondary lit

Question 1

topal - definition of secularism

Answer 1

‘The basic definition given for secularism is the separation between church and state—or, in a country where there is no church, it is the separation between religion and politics. More and more recent scholarship on the category of religion, however, indicates that the very differentiation between “religion” and “politics” and various other categories, is the produc tion of a specific context of Western Christianity

Question 2

topal - islamic history

Answer 2

o ‘The most important characteristic of Turkish secularism is the fact that it has been implemented in a Muslim society with a six-century history of Islam-state relationship that built elaborate theories on Islamic governing. Keeping this fact in mind, one should not expect a full adaptation of secularism—either in the French model or American model—in the context of Turkey.’ (4)
o caliphate abolished
o madrasas closed
o adoption of European codes of law
o pre-modern Ottoman state did not have Vatican etc.
o disenchantment did not occur in Islamic world
o Republican regime
♣ Religion and politics not abandoned altogether
o ‘Western Christianity plays the role of a signifier in the birth and development of the concept of secularism’ (12)
o secularism = tool by AK Party to ‘enable Turkey’s integration with the global values of democracy, pluralism and human rights’ (13)
o in turkey, ‘secularism is established against the ancient regime (the Ottoman State)’ (13)

Question 3

masud - western vs. muslim secularism

Answer 3

• ‘in this paper, I would like to argue that the idea of secularism in Muslim countries has a different trajectory than it has in Europe and that due to different political experiences, secularism has been perceived essentially as a politico-religious ideology’ (364)
• ‘Generally, secularism came to the Muslim world along with modernization, the latter usually perceived as Westernization. It was also an encounter with the West as a colonial power, which was regarded in the Muslim world as a continuation of Christian crusades against Islam. Muslim thinkers found it very difficult to understand new ideas like secularism in isolation from Christian (Western colonial) supremacy.’ (364)

Question 4

Gallagher on Taylor

Answer 4

• ‘He sees the birth of atheism as less a cognitive crisis than a complex transformation of moral sensibility. One of his favourite expressions is “human flourishing”, in the sense of an ideal of fullness of life, and a key question becomes how ordinary people, and not just the intellectual elites, came to imagine human fulfilment as possible without God.’ (436)
• ‘Taylor suggests some fascinating parallels with the Romantic movement, which was born in part from a rebellion against the mechanisation of the world and against a merely disengaged or impersonal self’

Question 5

Gallagher on what Taylor thinks society needs

Answer 5

• ‘In brief, Taylor insists that the faith crisis of today’s world calls for renewed forms and languages of faith. What has declined, in his interpretation of cultural secularisation, is a set of ecclesial priorities and expressions that suited another moment in culture. What is needed is a creative discernment of the underlying hungers of the present situation that seems so secular, but may often be expressing a spiritual hunger for fullness.’ (443)