Locke and the Politicai Origins of Secularism

The paper tries to show the importance of the writings of John Locke in preparing the way for secularism. He provides a theory for disentangling religion and the state for several main reasons, including the avoidance of religious persecution of minorties; the avoidance of civil strife; and the need to leave it to individuals to work out their own salvation by exercising their conscience free of state interference. Locke is a creative theorist; his creativity shows itself in the new arguments he formulates and publishes (sometimes anonymously) on behalf of the freedom of religion from the state and the freedom of the state from religion. The influence of his Letter on Toleration and the Second Treatise in Two Treatises of Government (both works published in 1689) has proved worldwide and lasting. The paper also takes up a later work by Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, where Locke retreats to some extent from the religious individualism, but not the religious toleration, of his most famous works. But even that retreat gives only a little comfort to those who deplore secularism.