Disappointment in Secularism: Premature

The article of Peter L. Berger "Secularism in Retreat" (The National Interest, # 46, Winter 1996/97. Pp. 3-13) provokes great joy. It is highest satisfaction to see that anti-religious feeling are still alive, although dressed in academic togas. Berger, for example, cannot imagine passionate believer of the non-fundamentalist type. For him "believer" and "fanatic," "fundamentalist" are still the same, when mentions"so-called fundamentalism (which, when all is said and done, usully refers to any sort of passionate religious movement)" (3). John XXIII is for him either non-passionate religious, or passionate non-religious, or non-passionate non-religious. Curious, Berger looks on "modernists" as fundamentalists; he beforehand excludes the possibility of passion and religious feeiling in "modernist." This is just a new version of identification faith with fanaticism. Does this mean that all "modernists" are fake believers? No, it only means that secular intellectuals stillcannot think of an intelligent believer. They prefer to struggle with a fictitious opponent, with those believers who are easier to win.

Berger states (very typically): "The world today ... is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever." (3) This statement miss the point of secularism completely because secularism is not just quantative predominance of anti-religious feelings, but the uantative phenomena, orientation of society in general on secular values. The problem (for believers) is that in secular world they are behave religiously only in a very narrow field. The world never was "furiously secular." It was religiously obsessed with the idea of progress, and this different thing.

Berger only writes that "The key idea of secularization theory is simple and can be traced to the Enlightment: Modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion, both in society and in the minds of individuals." (4) This definition is false; such secularism didn�t exist. The key idea of secularism was not negative (anti-religious), but positive: human happiness can be achieved only with after destroying religion and replacing religion with science. Now everybody knows that happiness cannot be achieved neither with science or without it.

Berger cannot deny the fact that religion although more alive than secularists hoped is still of a secondary importance in the world. Secularism still has the upper hand. He refuses to explain this fact and only wonders how secularism, being a subculture, manages to dominate modern world: "While people in this subculture are relatively thin on the ground, they are very influental, as they control the institutions that provide the "official" definitions of reality(notably the educational system, the media of mass cmmunications, and the higher reaches of the legal system). ... Why it is that people with this type of education shuld be so prone to secularization is not entirely clear" (8) He calls this "exeption." But than the whole modern civilization is an exeption!

The truth is that secularism always was ideology of minority, but it was (and is) a dominating, creative minority. The role was played by Christian minority in Middle Ages (when majority was only formally Christian.) In 19-20 cc. secularism was also only formally ideology of majority. Now all masks are over: majority is semi-pagan, semi-Christian, semi-secular, and those who have some faith and any ideas are obliged to seek seek new ways.

Berger, Peter L. Secularism in Retreat. - The National Interest, # 46, Winter 1996/97. Pp. 3-13.