Published: 2022-12-28

Secularism and Multiculturalism: Interrelated Political Challenges

Tariq Modood
Christianity-World-Politics
Section: Articles
https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2022.26.1.02

Abstract

There may be various reasons to rethink political secularism but, in my view, the most significant today, certainly in Western Europe, is what I understand as the multicultural challenge. It is clear West European states are now highly challenged by the issues posed by post-immigration ethno-religious diversity, and that the new Muslim settlements of the last fifty years or so are at the centre of it. This has forced new thinking, not only about questions of social integration but also about the role of religion in relation to the state and citizenship. Accordingly, a fundamental issue that many thought had long been settled has re-emerged with new vitality and controversy, namely political secularism, especially as it articulates with questions of tolerance, recognition, and governance. My own contribution to the climate of ‘re-thinking secularism’ has been to argue that what is sometimes talked about as the ‘post-secular’ or a ‘crisis of secularism’ is, in Western Europe, quite crucially to do with the reality of multiculturalism

Keywords:

multiculturalism, secularism, Western Europe, religion

Citation rules

Modood, T. (2022). Secularism and Multiculturalism: Interrelated Political Challenges. Christianity-World-Politics, (26), 36–50. https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2022.26.1.02

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