Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

Arien Mack Editor’s Introduction TH IS ISSU E OF SOCIAL R E S E A R C H CONTAINS PAPERS FROM THE twentieth conference in the Social Research conference series, which began in 1988. The conference, The Religious-Secular Divide: The U.S. Case, was very much the work of my collaborator and former colleague, José Casanova, whose work in the area is highly acclaimed. Like many of the earlier conferences in the Social Research series, this one addressed an important, currently contested social-political issue. It was motivated by the evident tensions between religion and secularity in the United States, which are long-standing, widespread, and, at the time we organized the conference, increasingly fierce. These tensions have been evident in the debates over such issues as evolution and intelligent design, which challenge the traditional absence of reli­ gious discourse from education and science; in the deepening trends toward religious priorities in political decision-making; in the govern­ ment’s reliance on spiritual or faith-based philanthropy; and in the role of faith-based communities in lobbying for legislation or bringing out the vote to elect candidates. As this issue goes to press, the tensions between religion and secularity are particularly evident in the heated arguments over whether abortions will be covered by a nationally sanc­ tioned health care plan. While the ferocity of the discourse surround­ ing some of these issues has somewhat reduced with President Barack Obama’s election, the points of disagreement remain. The tension between the religious and the secular is no less evident in debates about what behaviors are legal or not at home and in our indi­ vidual, private lives. The power struggle between religion and secularism bears on decisions ranging from what sort of health care alternatives are acceptable to how we should educate our children, from the legality of Editor’s Introduction xiii abortion and euthanasia to what legal standing, if any, should be granted to adult same-sex partners. Indeed, as the tide of religion ebbs and flows in relation to secularism, the very nature of the self is renegotiated. As we look to the future, both in the near term and over time, urgent questions arise about the nature of the religious-secular divide in the United States and about the direction in which we are headed. Our conference was designed to address these issues from the perspec­ tives of religious studies, legal studies, political science, sociology, and philosophy. While we are well aware that this conflict is playing out on a worldwide stage, often violently, we chose to focus the conference on U.S. debates, leaving transnational comparisons for another time. As you will find on reading the papers in this issue, there was much discussion of the various meanings of secularism, its origin, and its future. In the first section, authors look at the theoretical founda­ tions of the current religious-secular divide from the perspectives of religion, politics, and philosophy, and we also include a paper on secu­ larism itself as an ideology. Part II, “Religious Selves; Secular Selves,” explores notions of the self as defined by religion, spirituality, and secularism. The third section contains the keynote address given by the distinguished political philosopher and winner of the Templeton Prize, Charles Taylor. Part IV, on “Religion, Politics, and the Democratic State,” examines the historical and contemporary legal and constitu­ tional debates about the “wall of separation” and the continuous entan­ glement of religion and politics in U.S. history. Part V, “Moral Crusades: Religious and Secular,” explores the ways in which religion has been implicated in reform movements throughout American history. Finally, in Part VI, “Contemporary Debates: The Future of Religion, the Future of Secularism,” our roundtable discussants offer their perspectives on where we are headed. The conference, and consequently this special conference issue of SocialResearch, wouldnot have been possible without the generous support of others. The Religious-SecularDivide was supported by the John Templeton Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and Eugene Lang College, the New School for Liberal Arts. We are extremely grateful to all ofthem. xiv social research ...