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Monday, January 12, 2015

Today, the Real Work Begins. Why Secularism should be Cheered, even to believers.

Today, the Real Work Begins. Why Secularism should be Cheered, even to believers.

These past five day's have been gut wrenching, inspiring, fearful and hopeful, all at the same time.

Monday January 12th, the real work begins. How do we respond,what will be the consequences, what is it that we change.  The biggest mistake would be to let what happened after the September 11th attacks, in light of an  attack we trade many liberties for a false sense of security.  Now, that shows you first where I stand, yet I am not a pacifist or unrealistic  to know that there might need to be changes to ensure future security, I just say we must weigh these items or we have let the tyranny of terrorism, fascism, or many other restrictive "-ism's" to prevail.



One pillar that was specifically attacked in the Charlie Hebdo massacre was what I will call the 4th pillar of French Society, and in almost cases in Europe and North America, Laicite or secularism.  With the fact that almost every European, North American and even many central and South American Countries (As well as many throughout the rest of the World), we need to say for some reason that has become a value, to various degree's, that the West has acclaimed for it's own.

Now, in for full disclosure, I am a believer, I am a Catholic, in fact I used to be a Catholic Priest and I am a firm believer in the Secular Nature of most government's (One notable exception I see is the Vatican,they are a sovereign nation and therefore I have no problem with them being an absolute monarchy, though I am glad they no longer are in control of the "papal states").  To be clear this  discussion is not about how, why and way's religion should influence, or not influence the political sphere, yet how I feel the government's themselves should be secular in nature, as many Americans call it the "Separation of Church and State". First what is laicite or secularism?  I am going to use a definition for French Laicite or Secularism, because it seems to be clearer or as some might call it an extreme interpretation of this word.

"French secularity (Frenchlaïcité, pronounced [laisite]) is the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs.[1][2

  1.  Madeley, John T. S. and Zsolt Enyedi, Church and state in contemporary Europe: the chimera of neutrality, p. , 2003 Routledge
  2. Jump up^ http://www.allabouthistory.org/separation-of-church-and-state.htm

Just this past October, I was in Paris and for the first time was able to go out and see the beautiful ground's of the Palace at Versailles.  It is a beautiful place, a beautiful day and a great place to wander around. Yet I realized when the King of France built this, it was not for me, it was in fact a way to separate the ordinary citizen from the often argued divinely appointed King and or Queen.  The great opulence was also tolerated often times through the complicity and social constructive (or destructive) nature of the Church State Relation's.  This was one of the many things that led to the French Revolution and thus the Nature in France and that spread throughout the western world of the current Secular nature of these governments. I am not going to go into a history lesson but this was a sweeping and new concept, but not one that wasn't forming itself for centuries.  In fact you could go all the way back, if not before to the two way's that Plato and Aristotle saw the world. In the famous Raphael painting "The School of Athen's" which is housed at the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, the dramatic scene culminates with Plato pointing his finger up to search to the heaven's while Aristotle points down to the world to find our answer's. (Some would argue this but even those who would argue this was not a symbolism must admit that many have taken this painting as a clear depiction of renaissance thought).




Before there was a deep relationship of the Churches and State's, many times there were many deep positive outcomes to this relationship. The growth of the University System, hospitals and health care.  Yet many times it did lead to tension's, wars and even at time corruption.  Right here in the United States, which has never had a State Religion, this tension bore itself out.  Well before my time the Catholic Church in this country was fighting to not allow "Prayer in School's", because it meant that the prayers offered were "protestant" prayers even if it was in a heavily Catholic area.  As a believer I am always countering the argument that we need more prayer's in school, with; "What belief should those prayers be?"


Turning back to our current context we can see that most Western Democracies with some varying degree of secularism (Germany, for example, does pay money to the Lutheran, Catholic and Jewish Churches from monies raised by the state.) also have  a clearly defined model that people should be free to exercise their religion in an unhindered way.  No longer is it permissible to charge people to live in their country and be a Jew in a "Christian Nation", as was the case in the past and still happens in some middle eastern countries who practice minority religion's.

We have to agree that this is one of the reason's that many, for example Muslim's, have come to Western Europe and other places because they may not have been able to practice freely their form of belief system and have found that home in a new land that is not their cultural homeland.  This is why I hope that the response will not be xenophobia, because the vast majority who might have come to new land's respect the very value of the Western World because they can worship freely in a pluralistic world their own beliefs.



Yet it is a valid concern that you can't allow a parallel set of rules in a society, such as in some pockets and neighborhood's where people have tried to instill shariah law.  This would smack in the face of other values of the Western Democracies. This is why I am even personally in favor of the laws of prohibiting in the public the "Burqa" and other religious symbol's of France Belgium, in context with their own constitution's.  They are seen as an infringement of their Laicite and the idea of equality of the sexes, and I would argue it does in no way hinder their way of "worship".  It would have a harder time in the context of the United States of America's understanding, that wouldn't have as strict a separation of Church and State.

What will happen?  I really don't know, yet my hope is that we can continue to create and nuance a society that does understand a health tolerance, yet even more so, I hope we can move beyond "tolerance" and embrace the differences in people's lives and beliefs.  It is and can be a joy to live in a pluralistic society, time will tell, but it will be interesting to see how this moment of history unfolds.

Douglas F. Langner
January 12, 2015


P.S.  (Looking at my last few post's it would seem that many of my article's have taken on a "Francophone" tone.  This is true in recent day's but I promise you that is not the full extent of this web page, in fact my expertise in Europe is much more the Germanic cultures, at least of what I have studied.  Yet I will say the French have always given us an beautiful picture of some of the formation's of Western Society in today's world..)


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