The Pitfalls of Believing in Separation of Church and State

Secularism is an important cornerstone of America and the West more broadly. It’s how we distinguish ourselves from other nations, and how we assert ourselves as modern and others as backwards. This has led us to believe that Western nations are more progressive (in part, because of their ability to diminish the role of religion in politics) while ... See more

What kinds of power did we relinquish when we assumed that religion could be relegated to the private sector? How did our belief in this universalist claim—that there’s a separation of church and state—lead us to our current moment of religious resurgence?

Said is helpful in summarizing the key message from this section: “Ideas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied.”

The binary of the Eastern World and the Western World is particularly fraught; these very terms imply a separation of identities, borders, and ideologies. It implies that we in the West all believe in one set of values, while the others in the East believe in a different value system. The West assumes that our view of the world and its many diverse... See more

Muslim women in the mainstream media are constantly forced to show their credentials as “good Muslims” in order to be taken seriously by Western audiences who have no real conception of Islam.

The common definition of religion is fraught and can hardly capture the full range and complexities of faiths, spiritualities, and traditions all over the world. Religion itself is an imperialist construct, one that still orients us towards a Western (read: predominantly Christian) understanding of faith. We cannot just apply our rubric of religion... See more

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Our position in the world influences how we view religion, society, and other people in the world—and thus, our version of justice.

Nevertheless, the move toward secularism has allowed the white, Western world to see ourselves as modern—and any foreign land, government, or people that do not embrace secularism as not modern, and therefore, other. Secular nations view themselves as superior to nations that still have religion involved in their governments—even if those cultures’... See more