Secularity

Secularity is the state of being neutral in regard to religion. It describes things that are not tied to a specific faith or religious practice. Many people confuse secularity with being against religion, but that is not necessarily true. Instead, it refers to being unrelated to religious matters. This concept helps us distinguish between different parts of human life. For example, eating or bathing are usually considered secular activities. They are normal parts of a daily routine that do not require a religious reason.

However, the line between the secular and the religious can change. Some religious traditions view everyday acts as sacraments. In those views, eating or bathing becomes a religious activity. On the other hand, activities like praying or attending a monastery are clearly religious. These are non-secular actions because they are tied to doctrine or worship.

The word "secular" has a deep history in the Latin language. It comes from the word "saeculum," which denoted a period of about one hundred years. In the New Testament, the term was used to describe the passing of ages. It could also refer to the long duration of created things from the beginning to forever. In the Middle Ages, Christian doctrine held that God exists outside of time. This led Western culture to use "secular" to describe temporal affairs. These are matters involving time and the world, rather than specifically religious affairs.

During the medieval period, the Church actually used the term to organize its own members. They identified a group called the "secular clergy." These were priests who worked within specific geographic areas called dioceses. They were distinct from the monastic orders, which were groups of monks living apart from the world. This distinction between secular and religious groups continues in the Church today. Even Martin Luther spoke of "secular work" as a vocation granted by God to most Christians.

It is important to note that secularity is a Western concept. The terms "religion" and "secular" are not universal across all cultures or time periods. Many cultures do not have a strict divide between the natural and the supernatural. In these societies, there may be no tension between religious and non-religious life. Some cultures focus more on the practice of ritual rather than on specific beliefs. Because these concepts were often imported through colonialism, defining them in non-Western societies can cause tension.

Anthropologists like Jack David Eller have studied how these ideas function. Eller suggests that secularity is best understood as being "religiously neutral." He argues that it is not the same as being "anti-religious." Many activities performed by religious bodies are actually secular in nature. Therefore, the process of secularization does not always lead to irreligiosity. Secularism is a related term, often describing an ideology that seeks no religious influence in the public sphere.

In 2007, the philosopher Charles Taylor introduced a new way to think about this. In his book, "A Secular Age," he describes three different senses of secularity. He is less interested in how much religion is in public life. Instead, he focuses on secularity as a "backdrop" or a social context. In this view, religious belief is no longer something that is simply taken for granted. It is a condition where all individuals must contend with many different worldviews.

In a Taylorian secular society, every belief becomes a choice among many options. Because there are so many competing views, each individual belief can feel more "fragile." Even people who are very religious experience their faith differently in this context. They are aware that other contradictory positions are available to them. In this sense, a society could be highly secular even if most people still believe in a god. The secularity comes from the social conditions, not from a lack of belief.