The Pitfalls of Believing in Separation of Church and State

I want us to better understand our position in the world relative to religion, particularly how our steadfast (if misguided) belief in secularism feeds into the idea of Western supremacy.

some of our commonly held “wisdoms” around religion are missing crucial context, and in the process, are letting many nefarious forces in this world go unchecked and under-examined. In addition, some of these talking points and universal claims about religion are unintentionally reproducing notions of othering, racism, and Western supremacy—even th... See more

In liberal societies, we already have the answer to the problem of how to deal with reified philosophical systems that threaten to impose themselves on society: this answer is called secularism. Secularism is best known as a legal principle: the “separation of church and state.” But this principle is based on a more profound philosophical idea—that

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Religion—whether we like it or not, whether we envision ourselves as secular or not—informs how most of us view the complicated issues of our time, including race, gender, sexuality, and so forth. In acknowledging its complexity, we should also begin to understand that essentialist statements about religion will always fall short of accuracy.