Editing Secularism (section)

=== Secularism in late 20th century political philosophy ===
It can be seen by many of the organizations (NGOs) for secularism that they prefer to define ''secularism'' as the common ground for all [[life stance]] groups, religious or atheistic, to thrive in a society that honours freedom of speech and conscience. An example of that is the [[National Secular Society]] in the UK. This is a common understanding of what secularism stands for among many of its activists throughout the world. However, many scholars of Christianity and conservative politicians will often interpret secularism as an antithesis of religion and an attempt to push religion out of society and replace it with atheism or a void of values, [[nihilism]]. This dual aspect (as noted above in "Secular ethics") has created difficulties in political discourse on the subject. Most political theorists in philosophy following the landmark work of [[John Rawls]]' ''[[A Theory of Justice]]'' in 1971 and its following book, ''[[Political Liberalism]]'' (1993),<ref name="Rawls2011">{{Cite book|last=Rawls |first=John |author-link=John Rawls |title=Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition|date=2011-01-01|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-52753-8|pages=457|oclc=948824118}}</ref> will use the conjoined concept ''[[overlapping consensus]]'' rather than secularism. In the latter Rawls holds the idea of an overlapping consensus as one of three main ideas of [[Classical liberalism|political liberalism]]. He argues that the term ''secularism'' cannot apply; <blockquote> But what is a secular argument? Some think of any argument that is reflective and critical, publicly intelligible and rational, as a secular argument; [...], Nevertheless, a central feature of political liberalism is that it views all such arguments the same way it views religious ones, and therefore these secular philosophical doctrines do not provide public reasons. Secular concepts and reasoning of this kind belong to [[Metaphysics|first philosophy]] and [[Ethics|moral doctrine]], and fall outside the domain of the political.<ref name="Rawls2011" /></blockquote>Still, Rawl's theory is akin to Holyoake's vision of a tolerant democracy that treats all [[life stance]] groups alike. Rawl's idea is that it is in everybody's own interest to endorse "a reasonable constitutional democracy" with "principles of toleration". His work has been highly influential on scholars in political philosophy and his term, ''overlapping consensus'', seems to have for many parts replaced ''secularism'' among them. In textbooks on modern political philosophy, like Colin Farrelly's, ''An Introduction to Contemporary Political Theory'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=Contemporary political theory: a reader|last=Farrelly |first=Colin Patrick |date=2004-01-01|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-0-7619-4908-4|oclc=290530058}}</ref> and Will Kymlicka's, ''Contemporary Political Philosophy'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction |first=Will|last=Kymlicka|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-878274-2|oclc=611694157|year=2002}}</ref> the term secularism is not even indexed and in the former it can be seen only in one footnote. However, there is no shortage of discussion and coverage of the topic it involves. It is just called ''overlapping consensus, [[Pluralism (philosophy)|pluralism]]'', ''[[multiculturalism]]'' or expressed in some other way. In The ''Oxford Handbook of Political Theory'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford handbook of political theory|last1=Dryzek |first1=John S.|first2=Bonnie|last2=Honig|date=2009-01-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-927003-3|pages=636|oclc=474737332}}</ref> there is one chapter called "Political secularism", by [[Rajeev Bhargava]]. It covers secularism in a global context, and starts with this sentence: "Secularism is a beleaguered doctrine."