Church-state separation alone does not constitute secularism as a distinct doctrine.

Evidence

Secularism as political doctrine arose in modern Euro-America. It is easy to think of it simply as requiring the separation of religious from secular institutions in government, but that is not all it is. Abstractly stated, examples of this separation can be found in medieval Christendom and in the Islamic empires—and no doubt elsewhere too. What is distinctive about “secularism” is that it presupposes new concepts of “religion,” “ethics,” and “politics,” and new imperatives associated with them. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 18

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines secularism as more than institutional separation — it presupposes new concepts of religion, ethics, and politics.
• DEEPTHINKING: The core move: secularism is not simple separation (which predated it in medieval Christendom and Islamic empires) but a recasting of the very categories religion/ethics/politics. This resists one-sentence summary.

Related

• Church-state separation alone does not define secularism’s novelty (similarity 0.93)
• Secular societies can coexist with religion through state separation. (similarity 0.88)
• The secular is conceptually dependent on the idea of religion. (similarity 0.86)
• The secular is a contingent doctrine, not an emancipation from religion (similarity 0.86)
• The secular concept precedes secularism as a political doctrine (similarity 0.86)
• The secular cannot be conceived without the category of religion. (similarity 0.86)
• The religious and secular are not essentially fixed categories. (similarity 0.85)
• Secularism is not a neutral doctrine but a modern construct redefining religion and politics (similarity 0.84)
• Secularism’s essence is not protecting freedoms from religious tyranny (similarity 0.84)
• The secular is neither a continuation nor a negation of the religious. (similarity 0.84)
• The modern state is an articulation rather than a cause of secularization (similarity 0.84)
• Secularism legitimizes the nation-state through consensus or religion-independent political ethics. (similarity 0.84)
• The secular as epistemic category and secularism as doctrine need separating analytically (similarity 0.83)
• Secularism is a legal-moral arrangement, not the liberating opposite of religious tyranny (similarity 0.83)
• The defining of religion and secular categories is itself a contested act. (similarity 0.82)