The religious and secular are not essentially fixed categories.

Evidence

The analyses that I offer here are intended as a counter to the triumphalist history of the secular. 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. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 103

Categorization

• DEFINE: Asad’s core methodological stance: secular/religious are historically constituted, not essential essences — neither masking each other but formed through discursive breaks.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s work on the history of the secular and to similar anti-essentialist moves in postcolonial theory and genealogy (Foucault). — connects to: Modern environmental awe of nature is secularized religious worship. — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 41; 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 religious-versus-secular millennialism dichotomy no longer holds. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 131 (+1 more)