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Post-secularism Marginalizes the University: A Rejoinder to Hollinger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

C. John Sommerville
C. John Sommerville
Affiliation:
professor of history at the University of Florida.
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Extract

Like David Hollinger I think that the history of secularization, or as he prefers, de-Christianization, has been unduly avoided and might well be at the center of contemporary American historiography. As he says, this ought to bring religious history more into the mainstream. But I would like to develop some of his points in a different way than he does in the recent “Perspectives” section in Church History. Our differences derive from the fact that he sees secularization as a default value, the absence of a distraction, whereas I focus on secularism, something substantial and ideological. I hope that adopting that perspective may make sense of his main puzzle, which is why religion “persists” in America even though it has lost all the recent debates. Indeed I would like to turn his question around, to suggest that secularism is failing and that we should start thinking in terms of a “post-secular” society. This could mean, contrary to Hollinger's implication, that America is not lagging in this area but might be “ahead” of Europe.

Type
Perspectives
Information
Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 848 - 857
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

The “Perspectives” section of Church History features essays that offer seasoned reflections on enduring themes in the field, stake out positions on emerging issues, or summarize and critique recent scholarship in definable subfields. These essays may express alternative views: they are primarily meant to stimulate debate and discussion.

1. Hollinger, David A., “The ‘Secularization’ Question and the United States in the Twentieth Century,” Church History, 70 (2001): 132–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Sommerville, C. John, “Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term ‘Secularization,‘“ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37 (1998): 249–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Hollinger, David A., Science, Jews, and Secular Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

4. Ibid., ix.

5. Gross, Paul R. and Norman, Levitt, eds., Higher Superstition: The Acadmic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Gross, Paul R., Norman, Levitt, and Lewis, Martin W., eds., The Flight From Science and Reason (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1996).Google Scholar

6. See the numerous works of Rodney Stark and associates.

7. Sommerville, , “Secular Society/Religious Population,” 249–53.Google Scholar

8. See Sommerville, C. John, The Secularization of Early Modern England: From Religious Culture to Religious Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

9. Bultmann, Rudolf, Kerygma and Myth, ed. Hans Werner, Bartsch (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), 5.Google Scholar

10. Hollinger, , Science, Jews, and Secular Culture, 32.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., 155–61, 51.

12. For example, Stanley, Hauerwas and Jones, L. Gregory, eds., Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1989).Google Scholar