Religion, Secularism, and a Democratic Politics of “As If”

"The religious" and "the secular" are often posed as a divide; a narrative which poses religion and secularism as antagonists. This long-standing habit of thought remains active in the contemporary United States, polarizing public debates and generating misunderstanding. Are there other ways of talking about and enacting the relations between "religion" and "secularism" that can avoid balkanization and stereotypification? This paper examines the need to complicate the terms of the secularization narrative that we have inherited from the Enlightenment, explores the power dynamics involved, and suggests an approach to democratic moral engagement as a social bargain we make with each other, an "as if."