Secular and religious categories are constructed to structure how modern people must live

Evidence

Modernity is not primarily a matter of cognizing the real but of living-in-the-world. Since this is true of every epoch, what is distinctive about modernity as a historical epoch includes modernity as a politicaleconomic project. What interests me particularly is the attempt to construct categories of the secular and the religious in terms of which modern living is required to take place, and nonmodern peoples are invited to assess their adequacy. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 66 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But there are questions that need to be systematically addressed beyond this obvious fact. How, when, and by whom are the categories of religion and the secular defined? What assumptions are presupposed in the acts that define them? Does the shift from a religious political order to one that is governed by a secular state simply involve the setting aside of divine authority in favor of human law? — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 976 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

I take the view, as others have done, that the “religious” and the “secular” are not essentially fixed categories. However, I do not claim that if one stripped appearances one would see that some apparently secular institutions were really religious. I assume, on the contrary, that there is nothing essentially religious, nor any universal essence that defines “sacred language” or “sacred experience.” But I also assume that there were breaks between Christian and secular life in which words and practices were rearranged, and new discursive grammars replaced previous ones. … I dwell briefly on how religious myth contributed to the formation of modern historical knowledge and modern poetic sensibility (touching on the way they have been adopted by some contemporary Arab poets), but I argue that this did not make history or poetry essentially “religious.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 103 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Theology and philosophy together produced the modern subject concept.; Religion and nationalism are modern categories co-created by the secular order, not ancient givens. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 306; The secular-religious categories that define modern living are constructed, not discovered — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 66 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The secular-religious categories that define modern living are constructed, not discovered #corroborates (1.00) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 66
• The categories of religion and secular are socially constructed through definitional acts. #corroborates (0.97) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 976
• Secular and religious categories are historically constructed, not essential. #corroborates (0.95) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 103
• The religious and secular are not essentially fixed categories. #corroborates (0.92) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 103