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The End of Secularism

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Hunter Baker's new book, The End of Secularism, reminds me more than anything in my own experience of the work of Francis Schaeffer (though Baker criticizes Schaeffer in certain areas). It's a dense book, heavily footnoted, presenting a lot of information in a relatively short (194 pages) format. You'll want to keep a highlighter in hand as you read it, and if you're like me, you'll have to stop and contemplate what you're reading from time to time.

Baker begins with several chapters of historical overview, tracing the history of the Christian church, then explaining how secularism as a world-view and ideology burgeoned in a world increasingly weary of religious conflict and war. Secularism--the view that religion (if tolerated at all) must be cordoned off from public life, so that even someone whose politics are formed by faith must find secular public arguments for it in order to participate in the process--was originally marketed, and continues to be marketed today, as the only rational and impartial alternative to the passions and intolerance of believers.

Baker then applies to this claim of rationality and impartiality the same kind of analysis that secularists like to use on religion. He finds secularism greatly wanting, and fatally blind to its own unexamined presuppositions. It's strange to find postmodern thinkers presented positively in a Christian book, but Baker takes particular note of recent deconstructions of secularism by younger thinkers. These postmoderns note that secularists are not, as they imagine, impartial referees in the world of thought, but partisans holding a distinct ideology, and that their efforts to silence religious ideas in the public square are simply a new example of an elite class attempting to muzzle heretics. Baker also marshals historical facts to demonstrate that secularism has no better record of tolerance and the prevention of conflict than Christianity had. He devotes a later chapter specifically to the "legend" of the incompatibility of religion and science. In the final chapter he examines an interesting situation from recent history where politicians explicitly appealed to religion in a controversy in a southern state, and the secularists made no complaint at all--because in that case, religion was being marshaled in the service of a liberal cause.

The End of Secularism will challenge the Christian reader, and will raise some Christian hackles--Baker gives short shrift to those who claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, for instance. But Christians should read it, for the mental exercise, and for the hope it presents that the long cultural dominance of secularism may finally be coming to the beginning of its end. Secularists should read it for an education.

Highly recommended.

Hunter Baker of Houston Baptist University has produced a rare book. It is a book of serious explication both accessible to layman or beginner at the subject, and illuminating to those long immersed in its twisted passageways and forbidding streets. That subject is secularism, a tormented subject indeed in American history. For definition Baker gives, early in his book, several useful definitional statements: "private religion is at the heart of secularism." "Secularism means that religious considerations are excluded from civil affairs."

But the essence of secularism, according to him, is a cheap rhetorical trick. It is the pretense that you can kick out the supports for the edifice of traditional morality, stand in some bewilderment as it falls in a cloud of dust, and then proceed about in the ruins, appealing like some madman to a vague consensus in order to convince everyone a new structure has already been built. How the secularist has convinced so many with this particular chicanery is a story, perhaps, for our psychologists or novelists.

For our philosophers and historians and simple readers like me, Baker gives us a serviceable narrative, succinctly composed and carefully worded, which not only summarizes the state of things now, but also incorporates some unappreciated scholars and thinkers into the conversation.

There is no sense in hiding my view that it will be a blow not merely for clarity, but for justice and truth as well, when the end of secularism has come. It is little to be doubted that when that day dawns, Baker will have had his part in the victory.

I'll leave readers with what may be my favorite part. To some bewildered secularist who, faced with a strongly argued religious position, throws up his hands in frustration and shouts, "why do religious people always have to make things so difficult!" -- we can answer, with Dr. Hunter Baker, that the reason people "bring their comprehensive views to bear" on political reality, "is that they have integrity."

In a time much more given to heat than light, Hunter Baker offers a brilliant and courageous analysis of the argument that secularism is the guarantor and preserver of pluralistic harmony in America. Instead, he points out,it is an ideology well on its way to becoming a orthodoxy that is likely to become a censoring force, controlling and stifling religious life and discourse by interventionistic suppression (as in the Swedish model) of what of what it considers to be unacceptable tangents in the church. This does not mean that he endorses the opposing notion that America was founded as a "Christian Nation." He is as ready to dispel pious fictions as he is to describe pernicious frauds. Baker offers the reader further enlightenment by pointing out that secularism is a normal, though variable, feature of human life and governance. We must first know meaning of our terms in the contemporary context when we speak of secularism. On this point alone, The End of Secularism is worth reading. But this far from being its only merit; it is a book that Christians and secularists alike should read. It is a powerful antidote to the ranting that too often passes for intelligent discourse in our day.

Harold Raley, PhD
Senior Editor
Halcyon Press

(My full review is provided below, but in short, Dr. Baker's argument - crafted with excellent research and presentation - addresses a substantial issue in modern public life which has gone largely unchallenged. I highly recommend The End of Secularism to any reader interested in the roles of church and state in a free society.)

For the pragmatic atheists and religious zealots alike, The End of Secularism will test beliefs and sharpen understanding. In his recent contribution, Hunter Baker, J.D., Ph.D., takes on an ambitious challenge to correct the false ideas that have been injected into modern thought surrounding the role of religious influence in the public square and the supposed objectivity of the secular position. Through a detailed examination of history and the bringing together of notable thinkers spanning the centuries, Baker lays out an impenetrable case against an increasingly tolerated but insufficiently vetted point of view that favors the secularization of society as a means of peace and progress. With every step, readers are drawn to the central premise - that secularism, despite its persistent application as a supposed neutral arbiter of conflicting public interests, is in fact an aggressive interest all its own, and furthermore, that failure to recognize this truth poses a great threat to the free expression of valid public concerns and ideas through the marginalization and privatization of religious conviction.

A good portion of The End of Secularism is devoted to defining the terms and clarifying the contexts surrounding his thesis. Responding to fundamental questions pertaining to the nature and purpose of government and the proper role of church authority, Baker navigates two thousand years of church and state relationships, examining the mechanisms and motivating forces behind the tensions of convoluted powers. Widely understood as a period of unrest and religious warring, this era has become an easy target for advocates of privatized faith, but pivotal details are often omitted for the sake of a strategic narrative. Baker reveals that the source of strife was not the presence of religious interests, but a failure to construct the proper systems for multiple interests to enter into peaceful discourse and reconciliation. He argues that a just system of public debate should consider far less whether a faction is of a religious or secular nature, and more on the weight and value of its input, ensuring that all concerns are considered valid. "Bracketing off religion does not solve the problem of toleration," Baker argues, "It just disadvantages one set of orthodoxies from interacting with the many secular orthodoxies roaming free in a liberal society." He points out that through the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, our young nation sought not to remove religion from the table, but to ensure it full and unhindered participation, and protect the rights of men whose values and civic engagement were shaped by internal convictions.

This is not, however, to be taken as a free license to theocratic government. In fact, Baker asserts, "Whether coercion is religious, philosophical or even based on a radically different reading of the available facts, the harm is the harm is the harm." The tyrant is not religion or lack thereof; it is the coercive nature of the marriage of interest and power. It is essential in a free society, and inherent in our claim to equality, that all voices are heard, and that the power to silence is given to no one.

Baker confronts the peacemaking claim of secularism, destroying myths that have been crafted by its advocates. He deconstructs the false story of the war between religion and science, and shows how peace on the basis of empirical reasoning alone is an unreachable and illogical notion that has failed at every test. Peaceful solutions are possible when peaceful solutions are the aim of all parties - and in no way does the absence of religion provide a better support for such an objective.

I found particularly interesting Baker's assessment of the anti-Christian nature of the French Revolution and the subsequent secularization of Europe. He posits that unlike the American colonies, which saw a significantly more independent church, the European model overlapped religious and secular authority to such a degree that a weary populace of eighteenth-century revolutionaries disposed of church leaders and institutions with the same swiftness and fury as state leaders. Europe has since been reluctant to embrace a Christianity that is viewed by many as a partner in tyranny.

Baker also addresses the constitutionality of the separation argument. A school of thought that has pervaded the courts for decades insists that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment purges from all governmental functions any reference to, or involvement with religious speech or symbols, claiming that this constitutes an "endorsement" of a religion. It seems that very few people have asked the question of whether it was endorsement or coercion that our Founders were attempting to prevent in the first place, for it is clear that the text refers to a legislative act of Congress. Baker puts forth this important distinction with clarity and authority.

I tended to agree with the entirety of Dr. Baker's thesis. It is difficult to refute such well-presented points. I'll be the first to admit that I am no theologian, and I am unfamiliar with a number of the scholarly texts that are brought into the discussion, but the author makes no attempts to hide his research. Full blocks of referenced text are supplied with unreserved abundance, allowing the reader a greater sense of understanding about the works that contributed to this polemic. In the process of observing Dr. Baker's personal insights, I became more familiar with influential contributors of years past, from Aquinas to Luther; from Weber to Rousseau.

To the interested reader, I would suggest a highlighter, a pen and a great deal of unhindered isolation. The End of Secularism, with its depth and breadth of subject matter and detail, is a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of religion and politics that demands its place on the shelf of leading academics and aspiring preachers and politicos worldwide. For anyone who has ever asked whether it is appropriate to invoke religious convictions into business decisions or the formulating of a political stance, this book should serve as a conclusive answer. I look forward to future work from Dr. Baker, whom I believe is among a new generation of Christian intellectuals that will help rebuild the causeway between unwavering faith and uncompromised reason.

As another reviewer noted, this book is packed with information. Though short, this isn't the kind of book you can read while multi-tasking. However, the argument put forth is a very strong one which is well-thought out and well researched.

For the first several chapters, the author traces the roots of secularism from around Aquinas until modern times. He notes the obvious influences of men like Roussou and Hobbes as well as the not so obvious influences of men like Luther and the other reformers. This was quite interesting, as many of the quotes by the aforementioned people make clear that they did not have the secularism in mind when they wrote, but you can see how these contain the seeds of some ideas found in today's secularism. We are then lead into a discussion of the modern debate about "separation of church and state" and the original intent of the founding fathers. This in turn leads us into the rise and fall and rise of "fundamentalism" or evangelicalism in America and to our current situation today.

After the history of secularism in America, the author deals with some arguments against secularism. One argument that was quite interesting was the post modern argument against secularism. Basically, this says that there is no such thing as compromise or common ground because the common ground compromises one of the positions. Although we should always be weary of anything labeled "post modern", there seems to be some truth to this idea, as is evidenced by all the "compromise" and "common ground" we hear about in the abortion debate, which of course, is not common ground.

The last chapter brings the whole book together very nicely. It tells of a time in Alabama when a law professor made a biblical case for more government help for the poor in Alabama. Her argument was apparently very well-known, and was essentially the platform of a politician running for Governor (I believe). Yet there was never a cry of "separation of church and state" or "theocracy." It reminded me of how nowadays, people have no problem citing 16th century theological speculation to justify abortion (Aquinas says that life doesn't begin till quickening blah blah blah) and never call themselves out on separation of church and state. Anyway, this chapter summarized the position of the author quite well; that is, that everyone brings their arguments and ideas to the table and we discuss and critique these ideas not based on why we hold them or where they are from, but on the merits themselves.

All in all, this is a very good book that makes a strong case for a more rational form of political debate.

Baker's slim volume is an intelligent brief against the popular "modern" conception of secularism that seeks to keep the religious out of public life. Readable, and useful, for non-academics but interesting for those with a greater depth on the subject as well.

He uses straightforward arguments and language to lay out both the history and the debates surrounding the issue before making his own - in my opinion persuasive - case against what might be called hard line secularism. More academics should learn to write this clearly and succinctly.

The End of Secularism is a logical miscellany of arguments that counter the belief that secularism is the best neutral ground to engage in public debate. Secularism is far from benign: it is an ideology that intentionally contradicts the public exercise of religion.

One of the best aspects of this book was its logic. You never had to guess where the author was going with an argument, or what his next step would be. Indeed, he took two and a half pages in the Introduction to lay out a precis of his case (which is helpful for readers--but especially helpful for reviewers!)

Here's how the book unfolds:

1. The first chapters are a history lesson on the interaction of church and state from the time of Jesus until the present. These chapters present an excellent foundation for everything that follows.

2. As the history approached the present, Baker narrowed his focus on the founding of America. With refreshing honesty, he demonstrated how the two prevailing myths of America's genesis (either as founded on religious principles or on secular principles) are overblown. Indeed, a fresh examination of the Constitution shows how the founding fathers, instead of enshrining the separation of church and state, used language which deliberately avoided the question.

3. Once the history lesson was through, Baker moved to a threefold attack on secularism:

a. Secularism is not a neutral matrix whereby every ideology can dialogue--it carries its own presuppositions. This resonates with me as a pastor. I know that when people say, "my own opinion has nothing to do with it--I'm just reading the bible literally," they're simply blind to their own colouring job! Secularism has its presuppositions, but for Baker, the secularists know that they're colouring.
b. American secularism is not a natural and inevitable development, but the strategic design of a minority of atheists. This is the weakest chapter in the book. Baker spends the whole chapter supposedly dialoguing with the similar argument of Christian Smith. I found that Baker did little more than rehash and repeat Smith's conclusions without providing support for them. Here the book began to slide toward conspiracy theory territory!
c. Secularists are a specific group of people whose views line up so closely with the secularist social order, "that it may as well have been set up for their own comfort" (22).

4. Secularists believe that their view is a scientific alternative to theistic superstition. They use an exaggerated warfare model between science and religion to support their case. Baker wisely takes the middle ground here: at times religion has hindered science, but has just as often supported and led scientific endeavour. Further, rational secularism is no more scientific than theism when formulating political policy. Here Baker unfortunately diverts from his modus operandi by throwing in a couple unfounded conclusions to support an otherwise carefully formulated argument:

a. Baker's comments against evolution detracted from his argument. Evolution and religion is a contentions multifaceted issue that requires more careful attention.
b. His political view that secularists are to the Democratic party what evangelicals are to the Republican party again betray Baker's own unexamined (at least in this book) presuppositions.

5. Baker wraps up his argument with a case study that shows how Judeo-Christian ethics can have a positive role to play in public discourse.

In the end, Baker calls for pluralism to reign in the public arena. That conclusion opens up a whole new window for study. I've spent enough time in inter-denominational ministerial meetings to know how difficult pluralism is to practice. I would like to see a model for pluralism fleshed out--then, I suppose, secularism would be just one of the dialogue partners in the public arena.

This book would feel cumbersome to the general public. Baker has a tendency to use larger words when smaller ones would do the job just as accurately. I would, however, recommend this book to any academic-minded person who wants to start thinking critically about the relationship between church and state.

[note: I won this book in LibraryThing's early reviewer's program.]

Hunter Baker's new book, The End of Secularism, is a breath of fresh air in the ongoing debate over how Christians ought not act in the public square. Baker systematically treats the historical, sociological, political, and epistemological dimensions of the most prevalent-and problematic-formulation of the relationship between religion and society. The End of Secularism is both helpful clarification and instructive critique of the de facto rules of political discourse: that God ought stay out, and that it ought proceed strictly on secular grounds.

Baker's argument proceeds, it seems, along three general lines of thought that are woven together.

First, Baker examines the history of church-state relations and scrutinizes the emergence of secularism-which comes by way of deism-in late modernity. Baker's historical analysis culminates in a brief examination of the role of Christianity within the American experiment. Baker is at his best navigating the perils of interpreting America's founding documents, simultaneously arguing against the "Christian nation" and the "secularist" interpretations of America's birth. Baker argues forcefully that the Constitution provides no substantive guidance on questions of religion and politics, but instead is designed to give jurisdictional guidance. The question of religion, in other words, was to be left to the States. Baker's treatment of this question and of the Fourteenth Amendment are worth the price of the book by themselves.

Additionally, Baker examines the sociological component of secularism. While secularization has been identified with progress by thinkers like Rodney Stark and Peter Berger, the facts have, in fact, proved the opposite. But Baker goes one step further, pointing out that the social forces that have promoted secularism have failed in their attempts to create a neutral public square, as they claimed. Instead, a social elite has acted inhospitably to religious people who wanted to contribute their voices to civil discourse. Writes Baker:

"The early stalemate among religions in the immediate wake of secularization might seem refreshing, but it could also create resentment and a sense of unfair censorship over the nature of public and institutional expression and the types of education that have gained favor versus those that have lost favor. This is in fact what has happened."

The sociological character and ascendancy of secularism depends upon its philosophical foundations, which is why Baker goes to pains to demonstrate the falsity of the warefare analogy for the relationship between religion and science. Secularism is often aligned with an empirically bound notion of public reason wherein truth claims are determined strictly by their scientific verifiability (one thinks of the debate over stem cells). Baker argues in favor of science, but a science that is appropriately bounded.

But the heart of the book is the critique of the purported neutrality of the secular public square. In making his critique, Baker makes friends with a surprising thinker, the renowned post-modern theorist Stanley Fish. Fish argues that the political arena is fundamentally constituted around the exercise of power, and hence inevitably excludes those whom we are exercising power over. In such a system, there is no "neutral process for adjudicating claims between groups, institutions, and persons based on common ground." The secularist thesis is, in this way, nothing more than a shell game. Baker doesn't adopt Fish's anti-foundationalism, of course. At points he suggests that a natural law theory would be his preferred method of making political decisions. But Baker's use of Fish as an ally against secularism highlights, I think, the potential usefulness of (broadly) post-modern thought for Christians who are worried about the totalizing impulse behind secularism.

Baker doesn't stop with Fish, but moves on to address the work of John Rawls. Rawls, perhaps the foremost proponent of the purported neutrality of secular civic discourse, argued that public discourse should be kept free of comprehensive doctrines, including religion, about which there could be reasonable disagreement. Baker points out that Rawls' notion of public reason is too thin to actually be practical, and that it ignores the holistic approach of people's interaction in the public square. Writes Baker:

"[The comprehensive doctrines] are intertwined with the political system in such a way as to be at least partially inseverable. The reason persons bring their comprehensive views to bear upon the political process is that they have integrity. They are undivided persons. They agree to be bound by democratic outcomes but not by a system which would bind their participation in the way Rawls proposes."

Yet while Baker's use of Stanley Fish occupies a central role in his argument, I am worried that it give up too much. While I am sensitive to critiques of what people do not say, Baker is unclear about precisely how we can deploy Fish's criticism of public discourse as being fundamentally oriented around the pursuit of power without adopting his anti-foundationalism. Baker rejects theocracy and monism repeatedly, which are (ostensibly) grounded in the sort of foundationalism that Fish rejects. But he does not specify an alternative mode of discourse. He hints that he likes Robert George's notion of public reason, but does not say whether this too will be subject to Fish's critique, or how it would provide a better means of public discourse than the false neutrality of secularism.

But this may well be a critique of Baker's particularist approach to the relationship between Church and society. Writes Baker, "No elegant political philosophies or legal rules are needed to police the boundaries of religious and secular argumentation. The focus should be on the wisdom and justice of particular policies, not on the motives for the policies. An endless fascination with perfecting the way we form our reasons for policies, religious or otherwise, leads to absurdity and arbitrary decisions."

Baker's point happens in the context of legislation, and on this he might be right. But the particularities, for instance, of the Republican Presidential primaries raised a host of theoretical questions that were absolutely crucial to navigating a number of difficult political decisions for evangelical Christians. I wonder whether a strictly particularist approach to political reasoning can account for the election of officials to represent us, where representation demands some sort of identification between the people and the governor. Additionally, argumentation about the boundaries of religion and politics frequently happens in pre-political settings-society-on issues that are not necessarily tied to specific policy discussions, but rather are about the philosophical presuppositions that drive policy. Here it seems some criterion is needed for what is acceptable and not acceptable, unless the only goal is persuasion, wherein the only canon for public discourse would be what moves your audience to agree with you-a mildly depressing thought.

All this to say, if there is one thing about Hunter Baker's The End of Secularism that makes me sad, it is that it is (for now) incomplete-and consciously so. Baker is well aware of the limitations of his deconstructive project, even if he hints occasionally at a positive alternative. But I sincerely hope that now he has told us what we ought not think, he will at some point expand this positive viewpoint. Baker has no interest in a naked public square, but I am left wondering how it ought be clothed.

This should not, however, dissuade you from buying and reading Baker's vitally important book, and then buying a copy for your friends and pastors. Secularism as a mode of discourse has been given a free pass for far too long, and there is no better nor more comprehensive treatment of its history or troubles than The End of Secularism. It is necessary reading for Christians who wish to speak in public about their faith-which, I presume, is all of them.

Professor Baker writes with an eloquence that carries the reader through some intense discussions about the role of secularism in the public arena. He includes enough autobiographical context to demonstrate that this is not only of academic interest, but of significant personal investment.

The application of Biblical logic, coupled with a careful and consistent historiography, provide the reader with the tools to weigh Hunter's evidence and conclusions. He is most effective in debunking the myth that secularism is some benign neutral position in the inevitable cultural and political issues any nation must face. There is a refreshing, positive perspective in the book; that should help readers of different initial opinions profit from an honest reading of the material.

This book would be useful as a college text; it should be required reading for any course in political science, comparative religions or church and state studies. Pastors need to read and grasp the logic of this book. Christians and secularists who want to have honest, helpful discussions with one another should include this book in their preparations.

This is an outstanding contribution to the subject and I give it my highest recommendation.

Well done! Hunter's grasp of history, his objectivity and balance in his research and his economy of expression allow him to cover a lot of important intellectual territory in a relatively short book. Hunter lays the ground work with a methodical and balanced summary of the history and development of secular thought and worldview, then proves that a completely secular worldview is non-existent even among the most committed of secularists. His logic and the development of his arguments are brilliant.

I highly recommend this book.

The book has several quotable lines, including thoughts like this: "If we are equal it is almost surely in the sense of being equal before God, because we are in fact equal in virtually no other way."

Get your highlighter ready...

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