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It has been more than a century since Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God. The prophecy was widely accepted as referring to an alleged fact about increasing disbelief in religion, both by those who rejoiced in it and those who deplored it. As the twentieth century proceeded, however, the alleged fact became increasingly dubious. And it is very dubious indeed as a description of our point in time at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Religion has not been declining. On the contrary, in much of the world there has been a veritable explosion of religious faith.
Ever since the Enlightenment intellectuals of every stripe have believed that the inevitable consequence of modernity is the decline of religion. The reason was supposed to be the progress of science and its concomitant rationality, replacing the irrationality and superstition of religion. Not only Nietzsche but other seminal modern thinkers thought so-notably Marx (religion as opiate of the masses) and Freud (religion as illusion).
So did the two great figures of classical sociology. Emile Durkheim explained religion as nothing but a metaphor of social order. Max Weber believed that what he called "rationalization"-the increasing dominance of a scientific mindset-would destroy the "magical garden" of premodern worldviews. To be sure, the two had different attitudes toward this alleged insight. Durkheim, an Enlightened atheist saw modern secularity as progress. Weber was not happy about what he saw-ostensibly the imprisonment of modern man in the "iron cage" of rationality. But happily or nostalgically, both agreed on what was supposedly happening.
Not to put too fine a point on it they were mistaken. Modernity is not intrinsically secularizing, though it has been so in particular cases (one of which, as I will argue in a moment is very relevant for the phenomenon of secularism).
The mistake, I think, can be described as a confusion of categories: Modernity is not necessarily secularizing; it is necessarily pluralizing. Modernity is characterized by an increasing plurality, within the same society, of different beliefs, values, and worldviews. Plurality does indeed pose a challenge to all religious traditions-each one must cope with the fact that there are "all these others," not just in a faraway country but right next door. This challenge, however, is not the one...