Below is an extract from an interview in which Argentinian historian Mariano Fazio explains the positive aspects of secularisation, from a Christian viewpoint, and why secularisation rose out of the Christian world. Professor Fazio is the head of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. He recently published a book called “A History of Contemporary Ideas: a reading of the process of secularisation”. Extract:

MercatorNet: In your recent book, you distinguish between “strong” secularisation and “weak” secularisation? What do you mean by this?

Mariano Fazio: “Strong” secularisation implies that man has absolute autonomy. That is, it contends that man, and more generally speaking, earthly realities, are self-sufficient. They have no need for transcendence, for God. By “weak” secularisation I mean the growing awareness since the 16th century of the relative autonomy of the secular world. The distinction is between “absolute autonomy”, as represented by Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche, and “relative autonomy”, and “relative autonomy”, as understood by the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church, especially in the document Gaudium et Spes. The latter means that earthly realities have their own laws, but that at the same time, these laws ultimately have their source in God.

MercatorNet: Is it possible to see a positive side to secularisation?

Mariano Fazio: From a Christian standpoint, the positive aspect of secularisation is “declericalisation”. Let me explain. Clericalism asserts that there is no distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order, between political power and spiritual power. This clericalism was a common feature of the Middle Ages. Modernity as “weak” secularisation implies that we are applying the Gospel injunction to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.

[..]
MercatorNet: It seem curious that secularisation sprang from within Christendom, and not in, say India or Saudi Arabia. How can this be the case?

Mariano Fazio: The doctrine of creation, one of the pillars of Christianity, underlies secularisation correctly understood. The world has been created by God and God himself has given it natural laws. God has given reason to men so that they can discover the structure of reality. It also makes it possible to access the deepest realities of life through faith. Harmony between faith and reason — a key theme of the teaching of Benedict XVI — leads to respect for the relative autonomy of earthly realities.

True, in traditionally Christian societies a radical separation between faith and reason has often appeared. This has led to secularisation in its “strong” sense, ie, to laicism and moral relativism. But such are the risks of freedom.

In other religions this is not even possible. They tend to be sceptical about man’s capacity for reason and man’s role is merely to accept revelation; there is no room for rational inquiry. This is what happens in Islamic fundamentalism (which need not be said of all Islam): citizenship in the political order is equated to citizenship in the heavenly order and political laws are derived directly from religious revelation. In such an environment, the possibility of secularisation is eliminated by a religious totalitarianism which denies the fundamental human rights.

[..]

You can read the whole thing at MercatorNet.

I mentioned Bernard Lewis’ (”the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East.”) speech at the AIE dinner recently, you can read the full text here.

Here are some editted extracts the AIE also posted for those lacking the patience to read the whole thing, “Islam and Europe”:

The Muslim attack on Christendom . . . has gone through three phases. The first is from the very beginning of Islam, when the new faith spilled out of the Arabian Peninsula, where it was born, into the Middle East and beyond. It was then that the Muslims conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa–all at that time part of the Christian world–and went beyond into Europe, conquering a sizable part of southwestern Europe and occupying for a while parts of France.

After a long and bitter struggle, the Christians managed to retake part, but not all, of the territory they had lost. They succeeded in Europe, and in a sense Europe was defined by the limits of that success. They failed to retake North Africa or the Middle East, which were lost to Christendom. Notably, they failed to recapture the Holy Land. . . .

That was not the end of the matter. The Islamic world, having failed the first time, was bracing for the second attack, this time conducted not by Arabs and Moors, but by Turks and Tatars. They conquered Anatolia and Russia and captured the ancient Christian citadel of Constantinople. They conquered a large part of the Balkans. Twice they conquered half of Hungary. Twice they reached as far as Vienna. Barbary corsairs from North Africa–well known to historians of the United States–were raiding Western Europe. They went to Iceland–the uttermost limit.

Again, Europe counterattacked, this time more successfully and more rapidly. They succeeded in recovering Russia and the Balkan Peninsula, and in advancing farther into the Islamic lands, chasing their former rulers from whence they had come. For this phase of European counterattack, a new term was invented: imperialism. When the peoples of Asia and Africa invaded Europe, this was not imperialism. When Europe attacked Asia and Africa, it was.
This European counterattack began a new phase which brought the European attack into the very heart of the Middle East. In our own time, we have seen the end of that domination.

***

Osama bin Laden had this to say about the war in Afghanistan, the war which led to the defeat and retreat of the Red Army and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We tend to see that as a Western victory–more specifically an American victory–in the Cold War against the Soviets. For Osama bin Laden, it was nothing of the kind. It was a Muslim victory in a jihad. . . . As bin Laden put it, “We have met, defeated, and destroyed the more dangerous and the more deadly of the two infidel superpowers. Dealing with the soft, pampered and effeminate Americans will be an easy matter.”

This belief was confirmed in the 1990s when we saw attacks on American bases and installations with virtually no effective response of any kind–only angry words and expensive missiles dispatched to remote and uninhabited places. This was a sequence leading up to 9/11. It was clearly intended to be the completion of the first sequence and the beginning of the new one, taking the war into the heart of the enemy camp.

The third phase has clearly begun. We should not delude ourselves as to what it is and what it means. This time it is taking different forms–two in particular–terror and migration.

***

Where do we stand now? The Muslims have certain advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important, they have demography, the combination of natural increase and migration leading to major population changes which could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in some European countries.

But we also have some advantages, the most important of which are knowledge and freedom. The appeal of genuine modern knowledge to a society which, in the more distant past, had a long record of scientific and scholarly achievement, is obvious. They are keenly and painfully aware of their relative backwardness and welcome the opportunity to rectify it.

Less obvious but also powerful is the appeal of freedom. In the past, in the Islamic world the word “freedom” was not used in a political sense. Freedom was a legal concept, not a political concept as in the West. But the idea of freedom in its Western interpretation is making headway. It is becoming more and more understood, more and more appreciated, and more and more desired. It is perhaps in the long run our best hope–perhaps even our only hope–of surviving this developing struggle.

An eye-opening post at A Western Heart on Atheist Conservatives and the history of Christian religious tolerance.

Thats me, apparently.

So what would happen if a war was called and nobody came? Forty eight hours since the gauntlet throw-down and the total number of hits deployed against TOD via the Tinfoil Soldier’s outpost of militant Idiotism: 0.

I disagree with Socialism, so I mock it. Kip here disagrees with Libertarianism, so he has a tourette’s episode and declares a war. Not because Libertarians are “wrong”, though, but because Libertarianism is “a deluded and horrible ideology” (but not wrong!) and Libertarians are “c#nts”. Go figure. Perhaps a war on C#ntism would have been more appropriate?

Is he a lead soldered tin soldier, perhaps? That would at least explain his statement that “the problem with the terrorists and the Muslims is a poisonous soup with leftovers from just about every international disaster of the last 200 years”. This little ‘terrorists-as-victims’ insight also gives him away as a closet Socialist, which would explain the hissy fit. What it doesn’t explain is what gave me away as a Libertarian, considering I’ve never used the term on this site. Communist and c#nt, I can understand. But Libertarian? I can only blame the lead poisoning. A soup of it.

In other comment shenanigans last week:

John asks:

And how much is the Serbian government paying you two [thats me and Julia Gorin] to spread propaganda?

Not as much as the Illuminati do to spread theirs, pal, but thanks for asking. The Vast Right-wing Conspiracy doesn’t fund itself, you know. Memo to Belgrade: send guns and money, I am under attack!

Finally, a young Muslim fella called Ibrahim trots out that silly old “monotheism” argument against Christianity:

Your comment regarding the trinity being too hard for the Prophet to understand are quite accurate- not a single person on this planet could make 3 things add upto 1. besides even the bible doesnt support it.

Sorry, but who’s adding? Is it that hard to get the concept of 3 aspects of the one? Do “mind, body and soul” add up to 3 people?

Everything in the world has the same three aspects - substance, form and purpose. So does God. No surprise there. If an electron can be both a particle and a wave at the same time, I think God can pull off this Trinity thing. Muslims claim Allah is “unknowable” than whine that the Christian Trinity cannot be understood. Look, if you can convince yourself that there is science in the Koran, than sure as raisins you can grasp this Triune God business. Its not that hard. Think of it as Quantum Theology. By “Koran science” logic Quantum Mechanics is predicted in the Bible, which by the way does too support the Trinity:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,… (Matthew 28:19)

I believe St Augustine described it quite well when he used the analogy of love that involves a lover, the loved one and a spirit of love between them.

For further explanation go here and here.

What I’d love to hear is an explanation of how on Earth Muhammed came to the conclusion that the Trinity consists of God, Mary and Jesus (see Suras 5:119, 4:171 and 5:75-76).
Hardly puts him (or his followers) in a position of authority from which to criticise Christianity.

I found the following maps quite fascinating.

“Imperial History of the Middle East
“Who has conquered the Middle East over the course of world events? See 5,000 years of history in 90 seconds”:

“History of Religion: The geography of faith and its wars across history. See 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds”:

The above two are from the Maps of War site. They have some more maps here.

“Animation of the spread of religions across Afro-Eurasia over centuries.”
This one covers the last 2,000 years:

You can also see a more detailed map of the current geographical spread of the world’s religions (not just the 5 above) on Spiegel Online.