Editing Secularity (section)

{{Short description|State of being separate from religion}}
{{About|secularity in the sense of being unrelated to religion|clergy who are not monks|Secular clergy|the legal status of countries in relation to religion|Secular state}}

'''Secularity''', also '''the secular''' or '''secularness''' (from [[Latin]] {{Lang|la|saeculum}}, {{Gloss|worldly}} or {{Gloss|of a generation}} or {{Gloss|century}}), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to [[religion]]. The origins of secularity can be traced to the [[Bible]] itself. The concept was fleshed out through [[Christian history]] into the [[modern era]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berlinerblau |first1=Jacques |title=Secularism: The Basics |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780367691585 |quote=In the first part of this book we will chart the slow, unsteady development of political secularism (Set 2) across time and space. You might be surprised to see that we'll trace its origins to the Bible. From there we will watch how secularism's core principles emerged, in dribs and drabs, during the Christian Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation, and the Enlightenment. Secularism, some might be surprised to learn, has a religious genealogy.}}</ref> Since the [[Middle Ages]], there have been clergy not pertaining to a religious order called "secular clergy".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Hugh M. |title=The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216 |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198702566}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Eller |first1=Jack David |title=Introducing Anthropology of Religion : Culture to the Ultimate |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781032023045 |page=282 |edition=Third}}</ref><ref name="brillRPP124156">{{cite journal |title=Secular Priest |url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/religion-past-and-present/secular-priest-SIM_124156 |website=Religion Past and Present Online |date=April 2011 |publisher=Brill |doi=10.1163/1877-5888_rpp_SIM_124156|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191228214048/http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/religion-past-and-present/secular-priest-SIM_124156|archive-date=December 28, 2019|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tierney |first1=Brian |title=The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300 : With Selected Documents |date=1988 |publisher=Published by University of Toronto Press in association with the Medieval Academy of America |location=Toronto |isbn=9780802067012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Strayer |first1=Joseph R. |title=On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State |date=2016 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=9780691169330}}</ref> The word ''secular'' has a meaning very similar to [[Profane (religion)|profane]] as used in a religious context.

Today, anything that is not directly connected with religion may be considered secular, in other words, neutral to religion.{{sfn|Lee|2015|pp=31–37}} Secularity does not mean {{Gloss|anti-religious}}, but {{Gloss|unrelated to religion}}. Many activities in religious bodies are secular, and though there are multiple types of secularity or secularization, most do not lead to irreligiosity.<ref name="Eller">{{cite book |last1=Eller |first1=Jack |editor1-last=Zuckerman |editor1-first=Phil |title=Atheism and Secularity |date=2010 |publisher=Praeger |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |isbn=9780313351839 |pages=12–13 |chapter=What is Atheism? |quote=The point is that the sacred/secular dichotomy is, like most dichotomies, false. "Secular" certainly does not mean "atheistic" or without religion, definitely not anti-religion; in fact, as I illustrate in a chapter in the second volume of this collection, there is a proud tradition of "Islamic secularism." Despite the predictions of the "secularization theorists" like Marx and Weber, "modern" or secular processes have not meant the demise of religion and have actually proved to be quite compatible with religion—have even led, at least in the short term, to a surprising revival of religion. The problem with earlier secularization theories is that they presumed that secularization was a single, all-encompassing, and unidirectional phenomenon. However, as Peter Glasner has more recently shown, "secular" and "secularization" embrace a variety of diverse processes and responses, not all of which—indeed, few of which—are inherently antithetical to religion, Glasner identifies ten different versions of secularization, organized in terms of whether their thrust is primarily institutional, nonnative, or cognitive... The upshot of this analysis is that secularism most assuredly does not translate simply and directly into atheism. Many good theists support the secularization of the American government in the form of the "separation of church and state," and all of them go about at least part of their day without doing religion.}}</ref> Linguistically, a process by which anything becomes secular is named ''secularization'', though the term is mainly reserved for the [[secularization|secularization of society]]; and any concept or ideology promoting the secular may be termed ''[[secularism]]'', a term generally applied to the ideology dictating [[secularism|no religious influence on the public sphere]]. Scholars recognize that secularity is structured by Protestant models of Christianity, shares a parallel language to religion, and intensifies Protestant features such as iconoclasm, skepticism towards rituals, and emphasizes beliefs.<ref name="sec para" /> In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under a different name.<ref name="sec para">{{cite book |last1=Blankholm |first1=Joseph |title=The Secular Paradox : On the Religiosity of the Not Religious |date=2022 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |isbn=9781479809509 |page=8}}</ref> 

Most cultures around the world do not have tension or dichotomous views of religion and secularity.{{sfn|Zuckerman|Galen|Pasquale|2016|p=31}} Since ''religion'' and ''secular'' are both Western concepts that were formed under the influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them.{{sfnm |1a1=Juergensmeyer |1y=2017 |2a1=Zuckerman |2a2=Galen |2a3=Pasquale |2y=2016 |2loc=ch.&nbsp;2|pp=78-79}}