Only religion conforming to liberal civil-society values is deemed truly modern

Evidence

The argument is that whether religious deprivatization threatens modernity or not depends on how religion becomes public. If it furthers the construction of civil society (as in Poland) or promotes public debate around liberal values (as in the United States), then political religion is entirely consistent with modernity. If, on the other hand, it seeks to undermine civil society (as in Egypt) or individual liberties (as in Iran) then political religion is indeed a rebellion against modernity and the universal values of Enlightenment. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 888

Categorization

• XREF: Casad’s test — that only liberal-compatible religion counts as modern — is the precise asymmetry by which Islam gets coded as premodern-religious while Christianity (Polish or American) rides along as secular-compatible.
• QUESTION: The Poland/US versus Egypt/Iran pairing is doing heavy normative work — worth pressing what Casanova’s selection of cases presupposes about which publics are ‘civil.’