Religious politics can be fully modern without secularization

Evidence

It is from such a perspective, acknowledging the role of religion within a particular articulation of socioeconomic and political structures, that Asad is able to present an impressive critique of the account favored by Halliday that Western secularization is the only mode forward. In fact, Asad engages in such a debate with Clifford Geertz, another proponent of the “West is Best” paradigm, and rejects the notion that “the existence of ideological (religious) politics within a given society indicates that it is not yet fully modern” (Asad, 1993:233). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3522

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the linear secularization narrative familiar from modernization theory and connects to debates about whether religiosity is a lagging indicator or an alternative modernity.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘Secularization was never the only road to modernity’ — surveying cases where religious politics coexists with modern institutions and technologies.