{"id":6333,"date":"2015-02-16T09:26:19","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T15:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/?p=6333"},"modified":"2015-02-16T09:26:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T15:26:19","slug":"christian-roots-of-secularism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/christian-roots-of-secularism\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian roots of secularism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674417533\" target=\"_blank\">Larry Siedentop, &#8220;Inventing the Individual &#8211; The Origins of Western Liberalism&#8221;<\/a>, 2014, p. 361.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What is the crux of secularism? It is that belief in an underlying or moral equality of humans implies that there is a sphere in which each should be free to make his or her own decisions, a sphere of conscience and free action. That belief is summarized in the central value of classical liberalism: the commitment to &#8216;equal liberty&#8217;. Is this indifference or non-belief? Not at all. It rests on the firm belief that to be human means being a rational moral agent, a free chooser with responsibility for one&#8217;s actions. It puts a premium on conscience rather than the &#8216;blind&#8217; following of rules. It joins rights with duties to others.<\/p>\n<p>This is also the central egalitarian moral insight of Christianity. It stands out from St Paul&#8217;s contrast between &#8216;Christian liberty&#8217; and observance of the Jewish law. Enforced belief was, for Paul and many early Christians, a contradiction in terms. Strikingly, in its first centuries Christianity spread by persuasion, not by force of arms &#8211; a contrast to the early spread of Islam.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Larry Siedentop, &#8220;Inventing the Individual &#8211; The Origins of Western Liberalism&#8221;, 2014, p. 361. &#8220;What is the crux of secularism? It is that belief in an underlying or moral equality of humans implies that there is a sphere in which each should be free to make his or her own decisions, a sphere of conscience [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,62,71,58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-christianity","7":"category-freedom","8":"category-individualism","9":"category-islam","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6336,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions\/6336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}