The narrative of progress from religious to secular is now untenable

Evidence

The “resurgence of religion” has been welcomed by many as a means of supplying what they see as a needed moral dimension to secular politics and environmental concerns. It has been regarded by others with alarm as a symptom of growing irrationality and intolerance in everyday life. The question of secularism has emerged as an object of academic argument and of practical dispute. If anything is agreed upon, it is that a straightforward narrative of progress from the religious to the secular is no longer acceptable. But does it follow that secularism is not universally valid? — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 17

Categorization

• XREF: Directly invokes Cooper’s question of whether secular modernity genuinely supersedes or quietly preserves its religious roots. — connects to: The Land in Israeli education has no secular history beyond the Bible — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 355; Scientific progress required expelling religious and classical textual authority — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1621; The religious-versus-secular millennialism dichotomy no longer holds. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 131 (+1 more)