Secularism legitimizes the nation-state through consensus or religion-independent political ethics.

Evidence

Taylor takes it for granted that the emergence of secularism is closely connected to the rise of the modern nation-state, and he identifies two ways in which secularism has legitimized it. First, there was the attempt to find the lowest common denominator among the doctrines of conflicting religious sects, and second, the attempt to define a political ethic independent of religious convictions altogether. It is this latter model that is applicable throughout the world today, but only after we have adapted to it the Rawlsian idea of an overlapping consensus, which proceeds on the assumption that there can be no universally agreed basis, whether secular or religious, for the political principles accepted in a modern, heterogeneous society. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 20

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out two secularization models: lowest-common-denominator doctrine vs. religion-independent political ethic, and how they connect to the nation-state.