A Theological Response to Secularism as Public Policy

Abstract

Secular public policy comes in two basic versions, namely the Anglo-Saxon and the Francophone versions, roughly reflecting the two versions of the Christian religion—the Protestant and the Catholic respectively—which the public body seeks to put to one side. To the extent that these correlations do hold, a theological interrogation is called for. Such interrogation can focus on what is a constitutive element of democracy, and overlooked in both cases of secularity, namely the value of solidarity. But the enactment of solidarity is a secular religious expression, beyond any ‘closed immanence’ that might be thought to characterize the public space. In recognizing this, the Christian churches are ethically bound to move to a major reformulation of their basic doctrines and secular society to rethink its displacement of religion.