Secular fundamentalists deny religious people opportunities for public expressions of their faith – even forcing faith-based organisations to hire irreligious people.
Secularism is often presented as the most neutral of worldviews. Its advocates say that secularism guards the public square from religious fundamentalists that might be intolerant of agnostics and atheists. They worry (with some historical justification) that religious people might persecute non-believers. They forget, however, that persecution is just one manifestation of the fallenness of all men – secular and religious. It was, after all, the secular worldviews of communism and Nazism that filled the graves of the twentieth century. Nonetheless secularists have continued to argue that their belief system best provides other worldviews with ‘free and fair space’ within the public square. Until recently that view was largely unchallenged.
Dhimmitude status in secular Europe
The Rocco Buttiglione affair has alerted people of religious faith to the reality of a more menacing – even missionary - secularism, however. Mr Buttiglione promised to defend the legal rights of gay people if confirmed as an EU Commissioner – even though he agreed with Catholic teaching on homosexuality. That wasn’t enough for a majority of the EU’s MEPs. Other EU legislation is making it more difficult for religious organizations to employ people who support their belief system. Jewish charities fear they may end up having to employ Christians and Muslim organisations might be required to hire atheists.
The Vatican’s Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger fears that Christian faith, in particular, is being driven to the margins of the EU by secular totalitolerants who want religious people to adopt a form of dhimmitude where all of their beliefs must be kept private and confidential.
Cardinal Ratzinger has warned:
"Secularism is no longer that element of neutrality, which opens up space for freedom for all. It is beginning to change into an ideology which, through politics, is being imposed. It concedes no public space to the Catholic and Christian vision, which as a result runs the risk of turning into a purely private matter, so that deep down it is no longer the same.”
An opportunity for religious co-belligerence?
Secular fundamentalism’s intolerance of public manifestations of faith may embolden religious conservatives. Co-belligerent networks of evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims and Jews might develop in order to protect, for example, opportunities to send children to religious schools and promote pro-life, pro-family views within the public square.
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