Michael Rectenwald's British Secularism

As I began getting back into my old notes from grad school and renewing my acquaintance with the transatlantic secular radicals I find so interesting, I discovered that in the decade I’ve been away from them, several interesting new books have been published looking at secularism and radicalism on both sides of the pond. One of these is Nineteenth-Century British Secularism by Michael Rectenwald, published in 2016.

Rectenwald was a Professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University until he found himself on the wrong end of a cancellation. He’s the author of eleven books, and although he’s apparently a communist, a google search returns a profile on the [Ludwig von] Mises Institute’s website. Probably because of his @TheAntiPCProf persona and his recent anti-woke publishing record. In any case, he sounds like an interesting guy.

I’m not entirely surprised to discover Rectenwald is not a fan of Charles Bradlaugh. The famous enmity between Bradlaugh and Marx is the main reason I don’t have much affection for the German. I was surprised, however, that he seems to like George Jacob Holyoake. In any case, his 2016 book about British secularism takes Holyoake’s side and argues that the editor of The Reasoner and not his opponent at the National Reformer should be remembered as the inaugurator of the “post-secular” society he says we now inhabit.

The very first thing Rectenwald mentions in his introduction is Charles Taylor’s secularization thesis, which describes and criticizes a widely-held understanding of social “progress” as a transition from a society based on religion to one not focused on religious guidance for normative decisions. The growth of reason and science, Rectenwald says, is typically expected to lead to the “Death of God”. This teleological belief in an inevitable and irreversible process is flawed, Rectenwald says. And pretty clearly he considers such a transition to be at least problematic, if not a straight-up bad thing.

Rectenwald seems to dislike teleology. He rejects this secularization thesis understanding that an opposition between religion and unbelief necessarily implies motion along a path from one to the other. His resistance to this thesis seems to be behind his embrace of Holyoake’s “Secularism” as a stable position between the two. The words secular, secularism, secularization, and post-secular all have very specific meanings, and although I don’t necessarily agree with the definitions Rectenwald uses I want to try to insure we’re talking about the same things. I think one of the big problems we often have (especially when social historians talk to cultural historians or literary critics) is the Inigo Montoya problem from The Princess Bride. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Rectenwald describes secularization as a transfer of power from religiously to non-religiously focused groups. He regrets that in the popular mind, this is considered “progress” and “modernization”. Rectenwald (citing Talal Asad and Charles Taylor) says the present is post-secular in the sense that religion and non-belief still coexist in the world. I find this a strange statement, since the frame we’re considering today is global, whereas in Victorian Britain the focus was typically on England alone. And it’s doubly problematic, I think, because Rectenwald’s narrative seems to confuse the secularization of society (institutional structures, law, government) with the growth of non-belief. These often happen simultaneously but I believe they are quite separate processes. Rectenwald continues the confusion by describing post-secularism as “skepticism or antagonism toward secularism in recognition of persistence or ‘resurgence’ of religion”, often “connected with post-colonialism” (6). This is not sufficiently exact. Is he talking about resistance to the decrease in religious belief (secularism defined as non-belief) or resistance to the secularization of society? Also, when he describes this as a (desired) end state, it seems to include a potential reintegration of Church and State, which I find concerning.

Rectenwald implies that European colonialism imposed Enlightenment ideas including secular states upon unwilling religious imperial subjects. While there may be some truth to this, historically many empires including the British also took advantage of (and even exacerbated) tensions between religious groups in conquered colonies, such as the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India. Also, what about a secular state’s role in navigating a multicultural society? Might this not be useful in a globalized present and future? Rectenwald makes the valuable point that during colonialism, religion often does play an important role in “constructing and defending cultural identities”. Yes: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. But in my mind, this fact does not impugn the secular as such, but rather imperialism and colonialism. Nor does it require me to appreciate these voices seeking social justice primarily based on the religious language they framed their arguments within. They spoke the language of their times and cultures.

As a fan of Carlile and Bradlaugh, I also think Rectenwald doesn’t appreciate the factors that drove these people to resist religious authority and speak against the truth-claims that upheld it. He really seems to miss the point that the issue is not so much privately-held religious beliefs, but the power of the Church. Especially when it’s the State Church, as it was in Victorian England. Rectenwald focuses on the movement named “Secularism” (he says established) by George Jacob Holyoake in 1851 that tried to accommodate freethought and religion and foster cooperation between Liberals of all creeds. He sees this leading to scientific naturalism and agnosticism. And away from the neo-Malthusianism and “vulgar” atheism of Carlile and Bradlaugh.

It’s ironic that an appreciation for the role of secularism in fostering multiculturalism doesn’t seem that apparent in Holyoake’s actions during this period but is all over Bradlaugh’s support of India while in Parliament. A secular society where religiously-based positions on issues are not normative might be useful in a post-colonial, multicultural world. It’s ironic that in many circles, secularism is now denigrated as a colonial project. Rectenwald mentions that when the whole world was religious, the term secular once meant “in time” or “in this world”, as opposed to “in eternity” or “in heaven”. So the secular was distinguished from the sacred. He also says “the secular arises in response to and as a vehicle for authority and contest” (5). So he recognizes he’s describing power relationships. But he doesn’t acknowledge that non-belief also often arises in response to abuses of religious power.

In general, he seems to minimize or ignore the damage done by religious authorities to the people whom he characterizes as vulgar, militant atheists. One example of this I found particularly frustrating was when he described Bradlaugh’s election to the Commons in 1880 and “his eventual seating in 1888”, both of which he said “augmented his renown” (119). He didn’t consider it relevant that Bradlaugh was prevented from taking his seat in Parliament for eight years because he was disqualified from taking the oath of office? While it’s true there were complicated political machinations involved, the fact that a religious test was used to deprive the people of Northampton of their chosen MP seems relevant. It might also be worth exploring in greater detail how Bradlaugh and Liberalism were related (and jointly opposed by the Tories), since Rectenwald’s argument is that it was Holyoake who was making inroads in London’s politics and culture.

Rectenwald says Holyoake coined “Secularism” as a “substitute for atheism” (his italics). He seems to agree that Holyoake’s formulation is “positive”, versus the “negative” brand of freethought that defended itself by trying to undermine the truth claims upon which religious authority was built; especially the threat of eternal rewards and punishments. He seems to share Holyoake’s distaste for these loud, tacky, vulgar, aggressive, and especially fleshy atheists. Rectenwald also says Holyoake “used Bradlaugh’s atheism and neo-Malthusianism as a foil, forging and maintaining friendly relations with Huxley, Spencer, and Tyndall” (13). I think this is unfortunate for several reasons. First, it undermined the sincerity of Holyoake’s position. Second, it allowed upper-class and middle-class scientists to position themselves as less scary than the atheists in the minds of the public. It allowed them to use weasel-words like agnostic rather than acknowledging that the findings of science were making religious depictions of natural history untenable. Finally, it also may have encouraged the development of superstition-based pseudoscience like Social Darwinism.

Rectenwald insists that science is not “categorically inimical to religious belief” (10). Once again though, he ignores the historically defensive stance of science relative to religious power in history. Galileo and Giordano Bruno did not set out to burn down religion — the torches the Bishops threatened or used on these scientists belonged to the Church. I do agree with Rectenwald that “the impact of paradigm-shifting science on belief is contingent upon social contexts”. I’m just surprised that he doesn’t seem to take his own point. Science was not the problem; for a long time, religious belief was inimical to science. The comfortable world of the well-to-do scientists Holyoake hobnobbed with was largely closed to the working classes. The Knowlton controversy illustrated that the religious objection to scientific information was based on class. The better sorts could discuss and debate these new truths, but they should not be described too plainly or be sold too cheaply.

He makes a big deal about Holyoake’s working-class origins. But then he also celebrates GJH’s escape to a better class of friends. And in order to claim primacy for his preferred definition, Rectenwald calls Holyoake’s “Secularism” the “inaugural event in modern secularity and an anticipation of the Post-Secular” (11). I understand how the position Holyoake took tried to make space for both belief and non-belief, but calling this inaugural only works if we ignore the straight line from Carlile to Sharples to Bradlaugh. And if we accept that “post-secular” means a society in which we’ve given up resisting supernatural claims being used to enforce normative judgments. Some would suggest there’s a similar straight line between prosecuting authors of birth control manuals and outlawing abortion.

Finally, following Charles Taylor, Rectenwald says that “secularity is deployed to describe an abiding tensile condition comprising the coexistence of the religious and the secular in a common frame” (7). When you let it sink in, this is a huge land grab! He’s claiming there’s no longer a place in our minds or our societies that’s religious and another place that’s non-believing. If both the “religious” and the “secular” contain and embrace religion, then there’s no place left for atheists to hide. So, to return to his very first point about the secularization thesis, just when you thought faith-based normative structures were inevitably and irreversibly disappearing, religion wins the whole game just by co-opting the terminology!

In the end, although I think he covered a good deal of the history that interests me, I have two reactions. First, I think the story Rectenwald tells in the second and third chapters could have been enhanced by including American Freethought, which fills in some of the gaps in the narrative. Second, I think the story of Bradlaugh and Holyoake’s relationship is a lot about class. As is the story of freethought in both Great Britain and America.