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Is "Secular" Really Neutral? Secularism and the Christian West (Kevin Flatt) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
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  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
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  Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
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  Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
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  Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this
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  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm
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  Speaker 1: joined by my co host Hashish Varma as well as
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  Speaker 1: our guest, doctor Kevin Flat. He's the author of a
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  Speaker 1: new book, Secularization, Social Order and World History, and a
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  Speaker 1: really fascinating book.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to talk a lot about it.
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  Speaker 1: But he is also the professor of history and Associate
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  Speaker 1: Dean of the Humanities at Redeemer University near toront On
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  Speaker 1: to up in Canada, and so we're happy to have
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  Speaker 1: you here, Kevin, and thanks for taking time to be
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  Speaker 1: on the show and talk about your new book and
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  Speaker 1: the concepts that you presented it.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on, James, I'm looking forward to
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  Speaker 2: chatting about this. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I was first introduced by to your work from
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  Speaker 1: the Civitas podcast, so sort of a shout out to
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  Speaker 1: those guys, and was really fascinated the idea of I
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  Speaker 1: think part of the reason that I was so fascinated
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  Speaker 1: by it is because I was doing a Bible study.
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  Speaker 1: I was leading a Bible study through Hebrews at the time,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, Hebrews does this whole sort of move
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  Speaker 1: with the shadow and the copy, and then there's the substance,
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  Speaker 1: as I sort of referred to it, that is the
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  Speaker 1: heavenly order. And it seemed like it resonated so well
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  Speaker 1: with that sacred social order that you were discussing. And
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  Speaker 1: so maybe the best place to start is, you know
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  Speaker 1: you're dealing with this concept that's called sacred social order.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe just give a brief explanation of what that is
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  Speaker 1: and sort of where it comes from and.
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  Speaker 2: Your approach to it. So, sacred social order it's a
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  Speaker 2: term that I coined, but it's based on the ideas
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  Speaker 2: of an American sociologist named Philip Reef, and I think
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  Speaker 2: maybe we'll get into his work later on the idea
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  Speaker 2: of sacred social order. It's meant to capture the way
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  Speaker 2: that most human cultures have tried to make sense of
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  Speaker 2: their place in the world and in the cosmos. So
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  Speaker 2: in most human cultures, in fact, in all human cultures
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  Speaker 2: other than modern Western culture, as far as we can tell,
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  Speaker 2: there's been this idea that human beings, the life that
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  Speaker 2: we live as human beings, both individually but also as
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  Speaker 2: a society, our social institutions, all of that ought to
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  Speaker 2: align with or harmonize with something that's higher than us,
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  Speaker 2: some kind of a cosmic order, usually associated with God
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  Speaker 2: or the gods. So there's this idea that the social
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  Speaker 2: our life as human beings that we live together in
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  Speaker 2: community ought to mirror or reflect or align with this higher,
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  Speaker 2: sacred thing. It's not something we make up. It's not
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  Speaker 2: something that we get to kind of create or decide arbitrarily.
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  Speaker 2: It's something that is part of the universe. It has
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  Speaker 2: demands that it makes upon us. It demands our obedience
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  Speaker 2: and our reverence. And so the whole life that we
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  Speaker 2: live as a society is a human society needs to
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  Speaker 2: respect that order. And so the concept of sacred social
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  Speaker 2: orders is a simple shorthand way of capturing this idea
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  Speaker 2: that the social order. The way we order our lives
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  Speaker 2: as human beings ought to reflect this higher sacred order,
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  Speaker 2: and it's meant to be an alternative term to the
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  Speaker 2: term religion. Religion, which for us seems like just kind
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  Speaker 2: of a common sense category, it turns out actually is
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  Speaker 2: a uniquely Western and uniquely modern way of dividing up
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  Speaker 2: the human experience. Most cultures historically have not done that.
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  Speaker 2: They haven't had words or concepts that correspond to religion,
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  Speaker 2: but they have had words or concepts to capture this
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  Speaker 2: idea of the comprehensive alignment of human life and human
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  Speaker 2: society with something above us. One way to think about
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  Speaker 2: this is we use the word religion to refer to
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  Speaker 2: like one particular aspect of life, or certain aspects of
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  Speaker 2: life that have to do with God or that have
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  Speaker 2: to do with the supernatural in some way. So it's
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  Speaker 2: like a compartment, whereas sacred social order is like a
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  Speaker 2: framework or a blueprint, or all of human life, all
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  Speaker 2: of human society, all socialists institutions. So whereas religion, the
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  Speaker 2: way we use the term religion, it's like an app
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  Speaker 2: on your phone. You know, you can use it, it does
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  Speaker 2: certain things. You can also Sacred social order is more
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  Speaker 2: like the operating system that the whole phone runs on.
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  Speaker 2: All of the apps have to work within that operating system.
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  Speaker 2: And so we think of religion as having to do
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  Speaker 2: with church or maybe certain things that happen in the
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  Speaker 2: home or in private time. But sacred social order encompasses
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  Speaker 2: not only those kinds of activities, but also everything from
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  Speaker 2: education to the state, to the economy, to the arts.
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  Speaker 2: The whole breadth of human experience is part of a
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  Speaker 2: sacred social order. And yeah, that worm in human history
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  Speaker 2: is to think that way.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting that you use the analogy of the app
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  Speaker 1: and the software. I wrote a piece not too too
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  Speaker 1: long ago where I argued that the firmware for the
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  Speaker 1: United States and maybe the Western world as a whole,
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  Speaker 1: but I was really focused on the United States is liberalism.
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  Speaker 1: It's this notion that we have these individual rights, that
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  Speaker 1: there is a sovereign individual, and then everything else is
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  Speaker 1: sort of constructed within that. So in America we have
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  Speaker 1: American civil religion that really feels like it reverses the
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  Speaker 1: sacred social order that you're talking about, that there is
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  Speaker 1: a super human component to which we that has a
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  Speaker 1: claim on us, to which we are obligated. What it
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  Speaker 1: feels like American civil religion sort of does, is it
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  Speaker 1: draws that down from the superhuman and puts it underneath
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  Speaker 1: the auspices of whatever the state slash the consensus of
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  Speaker 1: the people really wants to do. And so, and I
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  Speaker 1: think that gets at partly at least your notion of secularization,
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  Speaker 1: which is that there's this notion that there is no
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  Speaker 1: real suprah human. There is a prototypical humanity maybe to
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  Speaker 1: which society is oriented, but there's not a superhuman notion
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  Speaker 1: that we are beholden to for all times.
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  Speaker 2: In all places.
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  Speaker 3: Is that a.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? To what extent is that it's fair? And where
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  Speaker 2: would you correct it? Yeah? So I think that is
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  Speaker 2: that is actually quite accurate. So the thing that I
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  Speaker 2: contrast with sacred social order is what I call secular order.
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  Speaker 2: And a secular order is a way of organizing society
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  Speaker 2: without reference to something that's higher than human beings. You
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  Speaker 2: can have different versions of secular order, just like you
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  Speaker 2: can have different versions of sacred social order, right, you
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  Speaker 2: can have you can have Christian or Islamic or Buddhist
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  Speaker 2: sacred social orders, for example. You can also have different
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  Speaker 2: flavors or versions of secular order. But I think the
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  Speaker 2: one that hasn't been dominant definitely in the United States
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  Speaker 2: and the Western world as a whole for the past
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years or so is a liberal version,
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  Speaker 2: or what I call in the book a liberal individualist version,
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  Speaker 2: and secular orders as a whole have to say, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: if we're not going to appeal to God, or to
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  Speaker 2: cosmic order, or to something above human beings as the
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  Speaker 2: justification for our social order, what are we going to
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  Speaker 2: look to? And in the liberal individualistic version of secular order,
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  Speaker 2: what we say is basically, well, if there isn't anything
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  Speaker 2: higher than us that we can appeal to, it's going
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  Speaker 2: to be the individual, the autonomous individual who is autonomous.
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  Speaker 2: And the word autonomous comes from two Greek words meaning
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  Speaker 2: self and law. So you're basically a law to yourself
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  Speaker 2: because there isn't anything really higher than you to which
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  Speaker 2: you have to conform. And so how do we take
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  Speaker 2: all of these autonomous individuals and translate that into some
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  Speaker 2: kind of a social order. Well, you can do it
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  Speaker 2: through a certain kind of economic system. You can do
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  Speaker 2: it through a certain kind of political system that tends
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  Speaker 2: to be democratic, with guarantees of individual rights and freedoms
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  Speaker 2: and so on, and this can become a way of
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  Speaker 2: reorganizing every aspect of society in terms of what does
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  Speaker 2: the individual want and then what are people willing to
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  Speaker 2: consent to as individuals, And this logic works its way
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  Speaker 2: out in every social domain, not only politics and economics,
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  Speaker 2: but also things like the family and sexuality and education.
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  Speaker 2: We reconfigure these things as opportunities for individual self expression,
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  Speaker 2: for people to kind of do what they want and
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  Speaker 2: to freely enter into and exit agreements and contracts with
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  Speaker 2: other individuals. There is overlap. The one thing that's not
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  Speaker 2: a correct exactly, but it's a complexity here, which is
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  Speaker 2: that you can also have versions of a kind of
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  Speaker 2: liberal order in the political realm or the economic realm
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  Speaker 2: that can overlap with a Christian understanding of society, and
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  Speaker 2: a liberal order can be more or less secular, and
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  Speaker 2: in fact, some of the main elements of the liberal
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  Speaker 2: order as we have it in the English speaking world
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  Speaker 2: actually do have some Christian roots and some Christian influences
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  Speaker 2: coming from the reform tradition and coming from the English
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  Speaker 2: the gradual development of English law, common law, English governing
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  Speaker 2: institutions in Parliament and so on and so both in
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  Speaker 2: Canada and the US and other parts of the English
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  Speaker 2: speaking world. Some of that firmware of liberalism, as you,
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  Speaker 2: I think quite aptly put it, some of that firmware
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  Speaker 2: does have Christian origins as well, or is compatible Christian
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  Speaker 2: way of looking at things, but it's also compatible with
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  Speaker 2: a secular way of looking at things that says, well, actually,
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  Speaker 2: individual human beings are the only authority. Yeah. And you
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  Speaker 2: could say one of the things that's been going on
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  Speaker 2: gradually in the United States for a long period of
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  Speaker 2: time is you have this architecture of a liberal order
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  Speaker 2: that is kind of being moved off of a Christian
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  Speaker 2: foundation and onto a more secular foundation. Really not for everybody,
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  Speaker 2: of course, but for many people that's kind of how
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  Speaker 2: they've come to think of it, that it's a more
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  Speaker 2: secular order. So it's a little more complicated, but I
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  Speaker 2: think definitely one of the main forms of secular order
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  Speaker 2: that we have in the West today is this liberal
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  Speaker 2: or liberal individualistic version. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think what I find interesting and done a fair
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  Speaker 1: amount of work on this. You know, when we think
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  Speaker 1: about the concerns voice to buy let's say, Christian nationalism
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, these desires to go back to
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  Speaker 1: being a Christian nation. What I found helpful in your
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  Speaker 1: book and really resonated with, was if the if liberalism,
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  Speaker 1: if we continue the metaphor, if liberalism is the firmware,
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  Speaker 1: then these other things Christian nation, Christian foundation. This is
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  Speaker 1: software running on a different firmware, and it can actually
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  Speaker 1: be upgraded slash replaced by new software, but that firmware
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  Speaker 1: is the more durable element. And I think what we're
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  Speaker 1: what some of those conversations about what we were found
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  Speaker 1: as a Christian nation we are, you know, we want
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  Speaker 1: to be Christian nationalists. What I think they're missing is that, yes,
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  Speaker 1: there's that complexity of there are Christian elements that agree
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  Speaker 1: with the liberal elements. They can be compatible, but they're
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily compatible, and that as the liberal logic begins
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  Speaker 1: to dominate the Christian logic, that's going to create friction
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  Speaker 1: with the system that requires the system to upgrade the software,
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  Speaker 1: let's say, right, And so you know, at the end
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  Speaker 1: of the day, I just think that sometimes what we're
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  Speaker 1: missing is we're trying to reinstall a software that isn't
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  Speaker 1: going to work anymore. That this notion of Christian nationalism
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  Speaker 1: can't really overpower the movement of liberalism, and there needs
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  Speaker 1: to be some more fundamental rethinking of what does it
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  Speaker 1: really mean to be Christian within a liberal society as
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  Speaker 1: opposed to trying to make a liberal society Christian almost
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  Speaker 1: just because if we view it as a secular order,
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  Speaker 1: Christianity is not a secular order. It has to be
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  Speaker 1: a top that in order to really truly be Christian,
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  Speaker 1: there has to be a shift and inverting of the
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  Speaker 1: authority structure. And so, yeah, those are just some random
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  Speaker 1: thoughts I had on after reading through your book and
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  Speaker 1: listening to the Tziptos podcast, I was like, yeah, this
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  Speaker 1: sort of gives new language to something that's been itching
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  Speaker 1: in my brain for a while.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. This so there's a whole world of topics that
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  Speaker 2: opens up, you know, once we start talking about Christian
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  Speaker 2: nationalism and how that relates to kind of a prenominantly
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  Speaker 2: liberal political order that we've got in the West, and
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  Speaker 2: what I think the Christian nationalism conversation, well, you know,
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  Speaker 2: one of the ways that people that people tend to
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  Speaker 2: think about this is that it's sort of like a
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  Speaker 2: religious backlash against secularization, right that society has become more secular,
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  Speaker 2: and so religious people, in this case Christian people don't
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  Speaker 2: like that, and so there's kind of a desire to
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  Speaker 2: reassert control. And I think, you know, there's there's something
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  Speaker 2: to that. But if we start off with these categories
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  Speaker 2: of religious and not religious, there's a tendency to miss
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  Speaker 2: the larger thing that's going on, which is again this
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  Speaker 2: question of like, what's the logic to the whole society,
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  Speaker 2: what's the grammar of the society, and what is that
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  Speaker 2: pointed towards. Is it a sacred social order or is
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  Speaker 2: it a secular order. What's happening in conversations in the
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  Speaker 2: US around things like Christian nationalism, Catholic integralism, some of
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  Speaker 2: these things that really just have been in the popular
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  Speaker 2: consciousness for the last decade or so, actually is not
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  Speaker 2: that different from some conversations that are happening in other
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  Speaker 2: parts of the world. So if you look at the
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  Speaker 2: Middle East, if you look at India, even if you
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  Speaker 2: look at China and kind of the Chinese cultural sphere.
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  Speaker 2: In very broad terms, what has happened over the last
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  Speaker 2: one hundred years or so is you had attempts to
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  Speaker 2: implement a secular order in these other parts of the
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  Speaker 2: world that had historically their own sacred social orders, often
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  Speaker 2: very complex mixtures of multiple sacred social orders. But you
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  Speaker 2: get with the advent of European imperialism. Also in some
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  Speaker 2: of these countries that weren't ever colonized by Europeans, you
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  Speaker 2: get what historians called defensive modernizers, who basically say, we
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  Speaker 2: need to make our society more like a Western society
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  Speaker 2: in order to be able to hold our own economically, scientifically, technologically,
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  Speaker 2: militarily against the West. And in both cases, plus in
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  Speaker 2: a third case, which is communist regimes that take over
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  Speaker 2: in certain places like China, you have an attempt to
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  Speaker 2: construct a secular order in these places and to really
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  Speaker 2: do away with the old sacred social order, which many
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  Speaker 2: of these new leaders see as kind of that's why
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  Speaker 2: we haven't been able to keep up with the West.
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  Speaker 2: It's kind of kept us behind. And so this reaches
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  Speaker 2: sort of its high water mark in the sixties and seventies,
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  Speaker 2: nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, when throughout the Muzzlim world
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  Speaker 2: you have these kind of secular nationalist regimes that are
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  Speaker 2: Arab nationalists, people like Nasar and Egypt. You have in India,
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  Speaker 2: that's kind of the high water mark of sort of
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  Speaker 2: a secular conception of Indian nationalism, of Indian national identity.
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  Speaker 2: In China, you have the Cultural Revolution, which is sort
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of the last attempts of Chairman Now to really do
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: away with traditional Chinese culture as much as possible and
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: implement this atheistic, materialistic, communist division. But then following the
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  Speaker 2: sixties and seventies, in different times, in different places and
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  Speaker 2: with differing degrees of intensity, you start seeing proposals or
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  Speaker 2: movements to bring back, or at least adapt for the
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  Speaker 2: modern world elements from these traditional sacred social orders. The
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: most dramatic examples of what happens in Iran, where you
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  Speaker 2: have a fairly secular, westernizing, modernizing Shah as the king
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  Speaker 2: of Iran and he's overthrown in a revolution, and there's
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  Speaker 2: lots of reasons for that, but the faction that ends
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  Speaker 2: up dominating that revolution, the faction that's led by the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Ayatola Romani, wants to create an Islamic republic and actually
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: succeeds in doing so, And so you get this really
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  Speaker 2: dramatic reversal of a society that seems to be on
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  Speaker 2: the path to more and more thorough going secular order
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  Speaker 2: in a modern Western vein rejecting that, or at least
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  Speaker 2: the people who end up in control rejecting that, and
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  Speaker 2: not exactly trying to go back to a previous situation,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: but trying to say, if you're going to have in
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  Speaker 2: Islamic in my terminology, in Islamic sacred social order, now
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  Speaker 2: in the late twentieth century, what would that look like?
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  Speaker 2: And they invent a new kind of constitutionalism and new
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: kind of republic, a whole new structure for that. There's
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  Speaker 2: less dramatic examples though in other places. Right you get
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the rise in India of Hindu nationalism, the Hindufa movement,
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  Speaker 2: even in the Chinese cultural sphere in places like Hong
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Kong and Taiwan and Singapore, but then also increasingly in
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: mainland China, you start to get intellectuals saying, should we
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  Speaker 2: go back to Confucianism as a source of ideas for
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: how we could order our society? And it's this traditional system.
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  Speaker 2: We don't in the West normally think of it as
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  Speaker 2: a religion, but it definitely is a system of sacred
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: social order. Movements to kind of reinvigorate Confucianism and to
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  Speaker 2: look to Confucianism for ideas for how we can organize
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  Speaker 2: society and politics. Now, So I think what's happening in
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  Speaker 2: the US and some other parts of the West people
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  Speaker 2: are saying, is there is the Christian tradition a source
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  Speaker 2: of alternative ideas for social and political order. Whatever we
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  Speaker 2: think of that, the merits or demerits of that, I
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  Speaker 2: think it's helpful to look at that as actually part
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  Speaker 2: of a more global phenomenon where you've had this era
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  Speaker 2: of dominance and very secular ways of looking that seemed
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: like the very secular ways of looking at society, that
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  Speaker 2: seemed like the only game in town. And then you
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  Speaker 2: have people saying, well, we've kind of lost confidence in
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  Speaker 2: some of that, and can we go back into our
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: own traditions and find different ideas for how we can
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  Speaker 2: organize things? And yeah, I see, I see Christian Nationalismthic
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  Speaker 2: integralism as particular attempts to do that, not, of course,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the only attempts that you can write what particular attempts
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Now, it's really helpful. I know I've been kind of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: fanboing this early on. You want, you have any questions
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: you want to through author.
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  Speaker 3: I do this is this is great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 3: My own background. I grew up Pindu uh and one
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: of the one of the great dissonances. I suppose you
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: could say, I should add to this that my research
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: has been, especially in the last decade in coloniality, racialization, uh,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: the interwovenness of the missionary, the merchant and the soldier,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: and sort of the modern effects that has. And I
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: think what you're what you're describing and what you do
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: in your book gives a sort of language that prior
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: language has been really uneasy to and and you hone
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: in on it with the word of religion. And I
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: think of growing up Pindu, some of the sorts of
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: ways in which I have students talking about religion just
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: don't map right. So you think about the ways in
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: which Western Christians might speak of the committed versus the
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: nominal Christian. And I would, initially when I first became
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: a Christian, try to map that onto what I knew
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: in my Indian background, the Indian community that I grew
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: up in my family, and it did just didn't work right.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: You'd have people that were I suppose you'd say, very devoted, Right,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: they're keeping all the feasts they're they're doing all the poujas,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: as we would call it. They're going to Temple Mundad
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: very often. Then you have others who would go to Manda,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: but go on and off. But when they'd go, they
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: were happy to go, but they were also most excited
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: to go into the cafeteria and eat food. But then
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: when they were done with eating the food, then they'd
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: go up and pay their respects to the various altars
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: that were set up. And one might be inclined to
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: say that this latter group is nominal, but the reality
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: was is that you have you have a very clear
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: sense in everyday life that it's actually far from nominal,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: even if the religious practices seem to take a backstage.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: And I think, to me, the most stark moment was
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: growing up. I've mentioned on this podcast before, probably too
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: many times, my love for the Chicago Bulls growing up.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: But I were watching the Bulls win their fifth title
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: game six. Everyone knows Michael Jordan's going to get the ball.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: Game tied, Michael Jordan knows Michael Jordan's going to get
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: the ball. Michael Jordan turns to Steve Kerr and he says,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: John Stockton's going to come double me. I need you
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: to step up and be ready to get the pass
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: and nail the shot. Steve Kurrd been struggling from three.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: He steps inside the arc. John Stockton switches over and
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: as soon as he starts to switch over to double Michael,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: MJ passes it back over to Kerr. And the thing
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: that from my eyes was exciting was Kurr raises up
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: hits the shot. Bulls take the two point lead that
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: becomes the game winner. To my father, who might otherwise
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: be considered that nominal by sort of Western religious standards,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I'll never forget it. He turns, and he says, something
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: must have happened to John Stockton. He must have done
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: something wrong in his past life. Because what I hadn't
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: actually paid attention to, but then noticed in the replay
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: was when Stockton came to double Michael and he saw
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: that MJ was going to pass it back to Kerr,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: he stumbles out of the double team, so he doesn't
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: end up even he's not even able to put a
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: hand up to challenge the shot. Well, what my father
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: was expressing there was classic karma, or karma as we
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: say in the West. Whatever he did in the past
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: meant in that moment, the moment that he most needed
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to stay on his feet, he stumbled. And to my ears,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: that's never left me because kind of growing up in
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: two cultures, I wasn't quite as attuned to thinking in
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: those sorts of terms. But to my father just slipped
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: off his tongue in the most natural way, in the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: most basic of moments, And that, to me is what
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: actually shows that the kind of nominal language doesn't work,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: because there is actually a deep penetration that religion never
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: quite captured, right. And I think the way that we
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: tend to think of religion, often in Western Christianity in particular,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: and not even necessarily in historic Christianity, is that religion
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: is in some ways tied to this this explicit form
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: of belief right, this catechism, this dogma, this creed, and
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: to the degree that you affirm that you're good, you're Orthodox,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: and we end up with situations like in Cure Guards Denmark,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: right where it's he has this critique of what what
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: about your life is really actually a Christian right which
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: you live into what I would determine our current terms
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: is some form of coloniality, right, And when we transfer
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: that to places like India. It's really fascinating to watch
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: from a distance now because, as you've pointed out, there's
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: been this this rise of religious nationalism, but it's also
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: a bit of a reaction, right You've get this historic
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: movement in which the missionary, the merchant, the soldier all intertwined,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: and through that you have the formation of this idea
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: of India that doesn't actually exist historically. What you have
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: is local kingdoms. But in those local kingdoms you have,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: for instance, the Muslim Mughal Empire, but there are plenty
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: of people that we would term Hindus today within it,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: and they're not living in some sort of religious persecution,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: but we know the pecking order. But you also have
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: historic groups of Jews that exist from the diaspora that
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: are over two thousand years old. You have Christians from
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: the first century. You have Buddhists that are you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: the date misses me, but it's a very old tradition
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: and it's not the sort of thing that we think
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: of in the West as a secular religious mosaic or
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: mal pot depending on your Canada.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Or the US.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Right, it's it's very much a sense of we do
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: our lives and we do our lives understanding that we're
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: not in the same place, but our lives are animated
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: in slightly different ways, and that allows us to do
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: our lives. But it's not necessarily a conflict. That makes sense.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: And when you have the rise of religious nationalism, it
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: really is sort of a combination of these colonial impulses
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: that have been grafted on but also these older senses
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: of reaction to it, so that you don't, you know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: whatever is going on with American nationalism, for instance, in
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: the current unfolding of the world, it still actually looks
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: pretty different than what say Modi is doing, and the
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: sorts of ways that people either affirm him or react.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Those who are reacting, they're reacting out of older senses
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: of difference. Right in the South, where the sorts of
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: cultures are very different history, even if we'd call it Hinduism,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: the gods that one is worshiping are very different, the
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: languages they speak are different, the food that they eat
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: is different, and so they're sort of saying, you're what
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: you're doing is another form of coloniality upon us. But
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: the reactions still have you know, a very It's sort
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: of like with my father, with karma, it's sort of
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: saturated with the sacred, but it doesn't doesn't work out
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: and saying, well, I've made this explicit theological judgment. I
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: don't know if this makes sense, but I wonder if
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: you have thoughts on that.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: This is fascinating. So there's a lot of threads there,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, maybe two that I'll pick up on initially.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: So one is this idea. You're exactly right. So one
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: of the pieces of kind of baggage or connosation that
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: comes with this conceptual category of religion is that, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: especially true in places where Protestantism has has been the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: dominant form of Christianity, it's very much based on explicit
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: commitments expressed through belief and certain practices to a way
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: of understanding the world. And of course this is one
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: of the one of the great things historically about Protestantism
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: is precisely that it wants to create among not just
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: kind of an elite subset of the but among the
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Church as a whole, a deep understanding of the Gospel,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: a deep understanding of scripture that is accessible to everybody,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: and a high level of kind of lived out commitment.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But if we then take that as our model of
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: what religion is and expect to kind of use that
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: lens to understand what's happening in other parts of world.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: It can become very misleading. And the normal situation, if
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: we think instead of sacred social order, the normal situation
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: in a human society is that whatever that dominant sacred
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: social order is, you definitely have people who are kind
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: of the virtuosos in the sacred social order. You have
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the people who are the scribes or the priests or
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the legal scholars, who really know and understand the ins
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and outs or understand kind of what the orthodox way
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: of looking at that is. But in the society as
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: a whole, you have all kinds of degrees of understanding
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: of and commitment to kind of the theory of what
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: that sacred social order is. You have apathy, you have
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: different degrees of kind of heterodoxy. You have people who
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: live with just every day much lower life level of
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: conscious commitment to that. That being said, they're still living
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: in a society where the official account of reality, the
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: structuring of social institutions, and for lack of a better word,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: kind of the grammar of the culture has been shaped,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: often has been shaped by a very long time, but
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: by that official version of reality, by that version of
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: reality that is guarded by those virtuosos, by the scribes
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: or the legal experts or whatever. And so you know,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: that example of your father, I think illustrates that where
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: he's not he isn't somebody it sounds like who would
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: have considered it himself or would have been considered to
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: be a very devout Hindu. But that basic logic of
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: understanding reality that involves a concept like karma is still
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: is still operating for him, right, And this is.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Also should throw in too, sorry, I should throw into
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: to your point that he would call himself a scientist.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: He's a he's a physician. He's been in that world
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: his whole life. And yet that's one of those moments
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: where what he means by a scientist doesn't match with
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: what a Westerner would say. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: but I think that's significant with the way I describe.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: It, significant, And that'll plan. There's a second point I
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: wanted to to respond to as well. Yeah, and that
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: plays into that. So just just a conclude kind of
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that first train of thought, this is also true in
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: secular orders. I would say right, So our social order
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: in the West, and this is more true in Canada
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: than it is in the US, but I think it's
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: overall true in the US as well. The kind of
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: hegemonic or dominant secular social order. A part of me
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: is a secular one, right, So for the purposes of
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: our life together, most of the time we're thinking within
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: a secular frame, what Charles Taylor would call an imminent frame.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And that's sort of the official version of reality. Uh.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And it's a liberal individual stick one. And so you know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: you have people who are really kind of analogous to
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the scribal class in some of these other sacred social orders,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: also in a secular order. So you hear, you might
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: think of, let's say, a progressive human rights lawyer in
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: New York, or you might think of a tenured professor
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: teaching in the humanities or the social sciences at an
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Ivy League institution. Right. So these are people who really
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: know and are really committed to and understand this is
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: the correct version of secular order that is dominant in
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: the West right now. But then you have all kinds
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of other people from all sorts of walks of life
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: who might not really be that committed to that, they
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: live within that framework. It's to some extent part of
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: their subconscious understanding of things. But they might also be
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: committed to or have beliefs or values or practices that
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: don't sit very well with that. They might be people
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: who are first or second generation newcomers to North America, right,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: and they're at home, still living out of on a
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: micro level cultural framework and maybe even a sacred social
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: order that's from a different part of the world. But
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: you also have people who maybe haven't had as much
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: formal education and they don't know the correct way to
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: think or talk about certain topics. And so one of
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the things that you find in Western societies is generally
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: people who are of lower socioeconomic status, people who have
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: less formal education. They believe in all kinds of stuff
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: that doesn't really fit with the official version of reality. Right.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: They're into astrology, they're into UFOs, they're into you know,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: where do you find that kind of stuff, Well, not exclusively,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: of course, but more often in these pockets that are
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: officially inducted into the reality. So yeah, So that's kind
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: of one thing I would note is that in any
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: of these in any society, you have degrees of adherence
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: to the official version of reality, like consciously, but also
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: everybody's still living within that framework. And that's the prim
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I would say is, I think
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: very often we tend to assume that the situation that
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: we live in in the contemporary West today, where you
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: have a relatively high degree, especially in urban centers, a
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: relatively high degree of cultural diversity, a relatively high degree
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: of diversity of worldviews and religions and value systems, I
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: think we tend to think that's a uniquely modern situation
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: that's brought about by modern migration patterns, technology, et cetera.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And then we assume that pre modern societies were kind
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: of monolithic. Like we think of ancient India and we're like, wow,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: well that must mean that everybody was what we would
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: today call a Hindu, or you think of China and
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: you think, okay, well it's just a very straightforward everybody's
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: following this kind of unified Confucian model or whatever, and
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: that's just not the case. Actually, more often it seems
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: you do have some degree of pluralism that exists. And
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: so you know, in the example of India, what's in
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: India before the British come. You have the last major empire,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: which you referred to, is the Mughal Empire, which is
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: a Muslim empire. It's officially committed to Islam, and that establishes,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: as you said, kind of a pecking order. Then of course,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: actually most people living under the Mughal Empire aren't Muslims,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: but they're following this other package of customs and beliefs
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: and deities and practices and legal structures that we later
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: kind of package together and call Hinduism. But you also
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: have Christians and Buddhists and Jews and Jains that are
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: part of the mix. Same is true in China. And
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: in China you have this historically, this fashion situation where
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: you have Confucianism as a very influential tradition, you have
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Daoism as a very influential tradition that has a long
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: history of kind of arguing with and coexisting with Confucianism,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: making fun of Confucianism actually as well. And then you have,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: coming in indirectly through Central Asia but originally from India,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: you have Buddhism coming in, and there's tensions between these
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: three systems, but what you end up with is kind
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: of a working mo whereby these three systems exist in
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: equilibrium and they kind of have a division of responsibilities,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: a division of jurisdictions that there's a Chinese term for this,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: which is three teachings the Sanjiao, and you have a
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: sacred social order that actually is intrinsically complex because it
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: has all these three elements. So anyway, that maybe is
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: taking us a little bit far afield from what you
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: were talking about, but the situation of multiple sacred social
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: orders overlapping, or there being a dominant form of social order,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: but then also these kind of minority forms, or even
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: the dominant form is a minority and the majority is
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: not really committed to it, but they have to live
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: within that framework. That's not unusual historically. In fact, that's
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: very common, And in a society in the West today
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: where you have a dominant liberal, individualistic, secular order, you
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: can still have large numbers of people who to some
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: degree are following some other vision of social order, which
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: in large parts of the US is going to be
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: a broadly one. It's most oftenly going to be an
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: evangelical one, although there's also going to be other flavors
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: and versions of that, and there's some degree of tension
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: between that and kind of the official dominant form of
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: social order, where that dominant form does set the parameters,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: it sets the limits within which those other things can
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: be expressed, but it doesn't mean that everybody in the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: society is a card carrying proponent of a liberal, individualistic,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: secular order.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: So I want to get into Philip Reef a little bit,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and this seems like it might be a good place.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: So what you both just described is sort of these
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: pluralistic societies where you're negotiating or people are negotiating the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: boundaries of when am I part of this sacred social order,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: you know, this dominant sort of perspective, Where can I
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: when do I start to give up maybe portions of
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: my culture that I brought with me, this sort microsocial
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: order within my family that now I'm I'm blurring the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: boundaries and adopting something different. So there's what I would
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: call that is there's a negotiation taking place there. And
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes these negotiations can increase friction to a point where
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it seems like conflict. But in Reef he uses the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: chaof comp kind of language, like there's always this conflict
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: that's coming and I was a little I wanted to
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: ask this question because I think I'm sure you know
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Philip Brief better than I do. But my thinking was
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: that probably negotiation is almost a better term for that,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and that the conflict is more a punctuation or occasional
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: within the negotiation. But really, what's happening most of the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: time is this sort of like poking and prodding the
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: boundaries of your own perspectives. You know that whether it's
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: autonomous or whether it's uh, you know, a smaller group
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: sort of understanding and the broader what we're calling the
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: more dominant sacred social order.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so this is you talk about my understanding
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: of Reef, and it's an open question as to whether
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: anybody other than Reef understands Reef. And he passed away
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: quite some time ago, so we can't ask him, unfortunately,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: if we're getting it right or not. Yeah, he's famously
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: his his this trilogy that he published at the end
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: of his life and partially posthumously, which begins with the
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: first volume is My Life among the Death Works. Yeah. Uh,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to understand. It's it's it's convoluted stuff.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And kudos to to to you and to anybody who's
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: tried to wrestle through this. But yeah, so so Reef.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: One of the major themes for Reef. So he talks
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: about what I what I would call kind of the
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: secular order. Reef doesn't talk so much in terms of
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: it as an order, but he talks about what he
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: calls the third world or the third culture. Yeah, third world.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: He does not mean, you know, those of us who
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: grew up in the eighties or nineties, you know the
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: term that we used to use for what we now
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: call the developing world. That's not what he means, although
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: it's an intentional play on that terminology. By the third World,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Reef means a secular culture that has rejected sacred order,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: that has become dominant in intellectual and artistic and political
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: circles in the West, and he sees them as a
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: reaction against what he calls the Second culture, which in
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: the case of the West, is the culture that was
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: shaped by a Christian understanding of sacred order. So Reef
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: sees the West as a whole as being in this
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: process of transition where we used to be dominated by
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: the second culture, which was Christendom. Basically, although there's Jewish
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and Islamic versions of that as well. And there's this
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: third culture that's coming in. And for Reef, this is
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: this is this is like a this is warfare. It's
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: warfare that is happening culturally mainly, although it can turn violent.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And his word for this is the culture comp the
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: cultural war, or the struggle for civilization. It's a reference
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: to this thing that happened in Germany in the eighteen
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: seventies eighteen eighties, which was sort of a struggle between
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the newly unified German government and the Catholic Church. He
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: repurposes that term for this, this this culture term. And
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Reef really sees this third culture, the secular cultural movement,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: as absolutely destructive. It is a negation of the second culture.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: So he says, it's actually not a culture, it's an
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: anti culture. It exists purely as kind of this movement
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: to destroy any concept of something higher than human beings,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: anything that is sacred, God in particular, God's law in particular,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: any kind of commandments that are prohibitions that say you
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: cannot do this, thou shalt not. Reef sees the third
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: culture as its central motivating thing is to destroy that
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: and this is where I partially kind of dissent from
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Reef because I think there's something he's naming that's real,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: that does exist, that kind of destructive impulse that is
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: targeting at the Judeo Christian tradition, that is targeting at
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: any kind of moral prohibitions, and you do see it
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: particularly strongly in the areas that Reef devotes a lot
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of his attention to, which is kind of the high arts,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: like a high culture, the avant garde artistic movements, certain
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: intellectual strands in the modern West. That's definitely a real thing,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: but that's not the entirety of the secular order that
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: we're living in. It also has, first of all, a
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: constructive element, meaning it doesn't just define itself against Christendom,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: but it has its own sort of positive vision, its
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: own sort of positive values that it's striving towards, one
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: of which, connecting back to something that she said earlier,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: is the idea of science, and science is kind of
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: being revered as the most reliable, the most dependable way
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: of getting at reality and being able to exert control
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: over reality so as to better the human condition. So
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: that's just one example of many that it's not a
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: destructive value in itself. It's something that's making forward as
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: a positive goal. So it has its own constructive vision.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: It's not just there to destroy what's left of the
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Second Culture, what we've calls the Second culture. And as
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I think you say quite rightly, James, it does coexist
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: to some degree with what's left over of the period
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: of Christian dominance. It's not simply a constant outright war.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: There's also negotiations and truces and even compromises. And as
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: I said earlier, the kind of liberal order that we
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: have in a place like Canada or the US is
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: itself kind of like a compromise arrangement between an inherited
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Christian vision of human beings and how society should be ordered,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: and more secular visions coming out of the Enlightenment or
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: subsequent movements in the West. There is overlap, right, there
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: have been points of agreement. And so even if you
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: look if you go back to the American Founding, uh
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: that doesn't come purely out of a of an inherited
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Christian vision. It doesn't come purely out of a secular
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Enlightenment vision. But you know, for my money, the historians
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: who are most convincing on this, they really say like
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: it's kind of an overlapping consensus where yeah, there's some
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Enlightenment influences that that are moving in a more secular
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: or deistic direction, but there's also really strong Christian influences
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: that are very self conscious that are rooted in a
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: longer tradition in the English speaking world. It's not one
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: or the other, it's it's this overlapping kind of thing.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's where I would you know, if
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Reef we're still with us today, you know, that's what
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I'd want to I'd want to kind of push him
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: on this and see what he had to say that, yes,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: there is this destructive current in what he calls the
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: third culture or the third world. Uh, but that's not
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: the whole picture. There's also a constructive vision, and there's
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: also in many cases compromises. And yeah, again going back
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: to what I said earlier, that's the normal human condition.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Is not everybit in a society agrees with each other
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: about what social order should look like, or how we
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: should legitimate it, or where we get its orientation from.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: And yet we still have to figure out how to
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: live together. Yeah, and there can be more or less
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: oppressive ways of navigating that. Yeah, very helpful. Hasheesh anything?
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's okay, zoom out a little bit. I
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: think we've gotten into some really interesting conversations that the
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: nerd in me wants to just keep digging. But I
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: think it might be helpful to zoom out a little
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: bit and just think about the contours of the change
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: that you're kind of advocating and what it might mean.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: And maybe that's that's the way to put it right,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: As we think about a shift of imagination from just
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: thinking about the secular as something that stands in opposition
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: to the religious, and we move to a thought of
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: the sacred secular, the sacred secular social order, or I
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: forget the exact term, but the sorts of ways that
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: you're describing things. What change does that cause us to
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: recalibrate in the way that we think about Western society,
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: perhaps especially the way that it's it's embodied in Canadian
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: and US cultures. The way that we then think about,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: you know, the kinds of establishment clauses that we have
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: and the way that those are used or not used
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: or claimed or pushed against in our sacred social sort
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: of reality.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me let me answer this kind of
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: in three layers. One is more and this is one
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: of the primary audiences of the book. It's addressed more
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: to scholars and academics who are trying to think about
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: how do we tell the story of what secularization is.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Then there's a layer that starts to have a lot
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: more practical implications, including political implications, which is thinking of
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: the secular not as just the absence of religion, but
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: as an alternative kind of social order. And then finally,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: like for us as Christians living in this moment in
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: this world, how might this shift the way that we
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: approach certain things. So starting with kind of the academic level,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and I'll keep this fairly brief, but basically, everybody who
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: writes about secularization, scholars who write about secularization, they have
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: some version of thinking of secularization as the decline of religion.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: So religion is this thing, secularization is you just have
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: less of that in a society. And that's true as
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: far as it goes right, So we can look at
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: you know, there's fewer people in the United States today
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: who would claim that they have a religion. Right, So
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that group of people who say I have no religion,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I'm nothing in particular, or maybe I'm an atheist or
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: an agnostic. Even that that group of people has been
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: growing for the last couple of decades and much longer
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: than that in most western countries of the United States
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: is kind of late late to the party on that.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: So that's true. It's true that church attendance has been down.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: It's true that church membership has been down. I know
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: there's some early indications that maybe some of that is changing.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: With with what you guys down south would call gen z,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: we would call them gen z. Maybe that's changing. It's
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: probably too early to say that with much confidence. But yeah,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: but that that's so that that's real, that decline is real.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: But the problem is to only talk about secularization as
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: like the decline of religion. It's like looking at what
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: happened in the Roman Empire in the fourth century and saying, oh,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: what we had in the late Roman Empire was a
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: decline of paganism. People kind of stopped talking about the
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: pagan gods, they stopped worshiping at the temples. That sort
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: of faded out, And that's true, it did, but you're
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: completely missing, like it was replaced with something, and what
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: it was replaced with wasn't just people were worshiping a
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: different god. It changed the educational structure, It changed the laws,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: It changed the way people talked about political power. It
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: changed not only the rules around sexuality and marriage, but
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: how people behaved around sexuality and marriage. It changed how
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: people treated unwanted children. Right like, it has massive social ramifications.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: And so I proposed that we need to think of
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: secularization not just as the decline of religion, but as
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: the replacement of a particular sacred social order, which, in
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: the case of the West is is some form of Christendom.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: The replacement of a sacred social order with a secular order,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: which isn't just the absence of religion, but it's a
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: whole new grammar for how we justify and orient society
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: across all domains of life and all social institutions. It's
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: not just about what is or isn't happening in churches.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: It's about what's happening in politics, in schools, in the arts,
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: in sexuality, in literature. It shifts all of those things,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: just like the Christianization of the late Roman Empire brought
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: about changes in all of those domains. So it's in
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways a more radical and far reaching
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: understanding of what secularization is. It's not just this largely
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: individualistic decline of this thing that we call religion. It's
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: you're moving the whole society onto a different foundation, and
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: that has much more radical implications. So that's kind of
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: the skull or we pitch, right. So I want sociologists
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: of religion, religious studies, scholars, historians to start thinking this
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: other way about what secularization is, because I think it'll
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: help us to see a lot of things more clearly.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: The second layer is if we think of secular order
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: not just as the absence of religion, but as an
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: alternative set of values, that gives us a different way
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: of thinking about how should we understand reality and what
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: human beings are for, and how we should organize our
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: lives together. I think this helps with a lot of things.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: So a lot of our problems that we have, I
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: think in North America around particular issues, and this is
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: maybe especially true in the realm of education, is that
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: we think of certain things as just kind of neutral spaces,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: and so we think, okay, well, education is supposed to
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: be public education at least is supposed to be kind
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: of like a neutral space, and neutral means secular. It
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: means we need to have a wall of separation between
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: religion and the state, which includes public education. And if
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: it's secular, and then that should work for everybody. It's neutral.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: But of course secular does not mean neutral, and in
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: particular secular order, whatever version it is, let's say it's
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: a liberal individualistic version, has its own set of core values.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: In the case of the liberal individualistic secular order, it
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: includes the idea that you, as an individual are and
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: ought to be autonomous. It's up to you to decide
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: what is important to you, what your life should be about.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Nobody else really can do that for you, and if
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: they try to, actually they're violating your autonomy. And you
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: shouldn't accept any obligations or relationships or institutions other than
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: those that you have freely chosen for yourself as an informed,
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: consenting person. So that's a particular vision of what the
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: good life is. Right, we want a society where those
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: individuals can be as autonomous as possible. It's not neutral, though, right,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: it has substantive content, and that's going to affect how
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: you teach, not just some of the flashpoint subjects like
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: sex ed or something like that. It's actually going to
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: affect how you teach everything, right. It affects what do
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: you think the goal or the end or the teleoss
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: of education is, which is a question that's downstream from
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: what is the end or goal of a human being?
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And if we think of education as I think we should,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: as cultural transmission as handing down a culture, this becomes
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: very important. So this is helpful. Then it's not just
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: like is there religion and education? That's the wrong question.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: It's what vision is education oriented towards? And I would say,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: and then how do we create a society in which
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: we're not having one answer to that question posed on
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: the whole population, But how do we create room for
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: real pluralism where we don't say, okay, well, if you
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: have a Christian or a Jewish or a Muslim understanding
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: of this, you're kind of going to be at a
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: disadvantage and your version of reality is going to be excluded.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: So I think it has practical implications there. Finally, for
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: us as Christians, my working theory is a lot of
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: what we do and don't pay attention to is being
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: shaped by this mental category of religion that we have.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: So in my own context here in Canada, you know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: in evangelical churches, you will have people who are concerned
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: about yoga, let's say, practicing yoga, and the reason they're
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: concerned about it is because they understand that yoga has
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: elements that register for them as spiritual or religious. So
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: like why I'm a Christian and if yoga has spiritual
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: or religious elements that have to do with Hinduism, which
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I recognize as another religion. I have a religion, they
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: have a religion. There's a potential conflict there that has
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: to be navigated and it might mean, you know, people
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: come to different conclusions about this. Of course, I'm not
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: trying to comment on that the whole debate, but we
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: can talk about that if you want. But that's not
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: that's not what we're here to talk about. But at
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: least my generation and probably the following generation maybe this
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: is starting to change in Canada. Would then look at
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: education and they would not It wouldn't even occur to them,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: like nobody's teaching them a different religion. It's just neutral,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter what they're being taught in school
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: because the kind of secular value system that had become
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: in our education system didn't register to them as a religion.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't on the range, It wasn't a rival
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: right likewise, And I would argue, and maybe I will
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: kind of show my cards here a little bit. I'm
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: less worried about Evangelical Christians in Canada today going to
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: the yoga studio and becoming practice and Hindus than I
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: am about them actually going to the yoga studio or
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: the gym or the fitness class, where actually the real
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: sacred values of our culture it's all about you. It's
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: all about being the best person you can be. It's
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: all about enhancing yourself. Won't let anybody else tell you
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: what to do about that. Those are the values that
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: are going to be reinforced most of the time, probably
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: even in the yoga class. Not that he wrote lots
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: of Hindu sacred social order and that would be recognizable
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: from that tradition. So yeah, so I think shifting away
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: from can we work without this concept of religion and
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: instead ask like, what are the values that are dominant here,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: and how's it shaping the context that I'm done. I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: think that that would be very helpful for us to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Kevin, we're kind of winding down here. I'll just resonate
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: with that last point. I was asked to write a
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: piece on the La Boo Boos. I don't know whether
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: you have Laboo boos in Canada. They're these there's these
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: ugly little dolls that supposedly resemble an old Mesopotamian god
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: who nobody would have known about had they not created
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: the La Boo Boos.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: You know, there were a lot of Christians who were
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: thinking that this could be a conduit for evil spiritual
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: influence because it remembers, it resembles this old Mesopotamian god.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: And so when I wrote the piece, I said, the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: bigger problem seems to me to be that the there
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: they have a subli and demand curve that makes these
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: things almost inaccessible and drives up the price. And I said, so,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: if you're really concerned about what Labuo bo is doing
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: to you, it's more economic than it is spiritual. Like that,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: like you need to be looking at that sort of
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: push that this whole industry is giving you where somehow
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: having a little boo boo has become a status symbol,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Like that's the bigger problem. I don't think that an
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: ancient deity is going to come through the little Boo
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: boo doll and possess you. I think that if you're
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: seeking these things out and fighting for fighting for them
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: in stores, you've probably already been possessed by something. It's
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: just not it's just not the laboo, you know, It's
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: just not this ancient deity. So I totally resonated that
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: last point, and I think there's a ton of fruit
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: and I hope people who are listening understand. I think
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: there is like a ton of productivity that can come
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: out of rethinking some of what we do in terms
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: of this sacred social order. So I, like I said,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: I've already thought it begun thinking it through with regard
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to the Book of Hebrews and how some of this
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: can sort of help reframe my understand ending of just
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: how that book even works. And so I just really
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: appreciated the work and appreciate your time this morning talking
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to us.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: So thanks for being here. Thanks James, It's been a pleasure.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I hope people find the book useful and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: the idea is useful.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll have a link to it in the show description. Secularization,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Social Order and World History is the book. Kevin Flatt
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: is the author. Check it out in the link. I'd
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: really encourage you to read it. It is oddly accessible
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: for an academic book. I will say that it really
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: well written. I didn't have any you know, you're not.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: It's not like reading Philip Rief, right.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: It's my number one goal, James, Yeah, number one.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: So if you pick this up, if you're a lay
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: person in church, you're interested in these kind of things,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you're not going to have any trouble reading this book.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Very accessible, very helpful, and yeah, we'll close it out there.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: So thanks again for being here, Thanks ashish Alas for
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the conversation, and we'll catch everybody on the next episode
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: of Thinking Christian Care. Just want to take a seat
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Bible study, parenting, and more.