This view of the Christian origins of secularism, of secular ideas as a modern translation of Christianity, has been contested by those who argue that secularization has its own genealogy, one that represents a profound break from religion and enchantment -- a break that is marked by the emergence of modern science and modern politics.
I'll turn briefly to this debate in a moment, but first I want to pose a question. Why is it important for self-described secularists to claim a Christian heritage? Personal motives are obviously difficult to establish at this level, but one can clearly see what the effect of such a claim is: the political exclusion of all those who cannot claim that heritage.
What proponents of this thesis mean when they refer to Christianity is, of course, European Christianity, which, in the early encounter of Europeans with non-Europeans (especially with the construction of European empires dominating non-Europeans), became an important part of their identity.
There were of course forms of Christianity in Eastern Europe, Northeast Africa, and West Asia, but these were dismissed as irrational or decadent forms of essential Christianity.
The redefinition of the heritage from which Europe claims to derive secularity as Judeo-Christian comes at the end of a long history of Christian ambivalence towards Jews, ending with the Nazi Holocaust; the new term is, like so many other connected moves, designed to be taken as a sign of genuine repentance and reconciliation, but it is a Christian perspective on the outmoded place of Jews in theological history. [3] The claim to a Judeo-Christian heritage is now invoked by secularists in the European Union as a grammatical exclusion of Muslims--Talal Asad, Secular Translations: Nation-State, Modern Self, and Calculative Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 2-3.
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