The Conflicts of American Secularism

The controversy surrounding the decision to build a Muslim community center near the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York goes beyond a mere disagreement. Indeed, it is entangled with the relationship between religion and state in the United States — or, to be exact, the nature of the American model of secularism. This issue would not be able to seize American society, which is racially and politically diverse, if it had not been for the sensitivity that has come to dominate the American view of Islam and Muslims, both inside and outside the United States.

More than 200 years ago, the United States set a goal to guarantee freedom of belief and religious practice for all faiths, especially for those who had been oppressed in their countries of origin. To ensure that the unhappy European experience with freedom of religion would not be repeated, America’s Founding Fathers made the Constitution a genuine expression of liberalism. They sanctified religious freedom and forbid violations of that freedom in any way, thereby distinguishing the American model of secularism from its European counterparts.

In brief, American secularism is consistently characterized by three traits: First, to borrow the famous phrase of the late Dr. Abd al-Wahhab al-Messiri, it is a partial secularism. That is, even though this model separates religion from state in terms of operations, it does not separate religion from society in terms of practice. This leaves each individual the freedom to embrace (or not embrace) any religion he chooses, tacitly ensuring the protection of and respect for religious belief, practice and symbols.

Second, it is a secularist model, because although it forbids the state from officially adopting or favoring any one religion, it also acknowledges rights for all religious sects and guarantees each the right to worship without restriction through the establishment of places of worship. These rights were enumerated in 1791 in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, alongside the prohibition on Congress from bias toward any one religion.

Third, it is a secularism of faith, meaning that this model takes a negative stance toward atheism even if it does not forbid it. Perhaps this goes back to the genesis of the United States itself, as a place of refuge for the many devout Protestants who sought to escape the religious persecution they faced in Europe at the end of the 17th century.

Secularism in this form could provide a source of calm and support coexistence within American society. However, a fundamental problem has remained hidden in this model’s political sensitivity. The door was left wide open for religious issues to be employed in the service of ideological and political goals under the banner of religious freedom. This is the other face of American secularism and what distinguishes it from its European counterparts.

French secularism, for example, takes an openly hostile position toward religion, its symbols and its institutions; British secularism guarantees freedom of religion and the practice of faith, but does not allow the politicization of religious issues in the public sphere.

American secularism represents the middle path between these two, for despite the state’s neutrality toward religion and religious institutions, religious issues occupy considerable space in the political sphere, thus making them the target of a great deal of tension. During the last three decades, the socio-political presence of religion in everyday life has increased; this was a primary reason for the downfall of many of the arguments for secularism and modernity. The revival of the evangelical religious right in the United States over the last three decades was a turning point in the trajectory of American secularism, not only because of the increase in society’s demand for religion, but also because of religion’s increasing political role in American society.

It is true that the appearance of this socio-political current was a reaction to the encroachment of atheist-secularist, or humanist, movements that had controlled the United States since the start of the previous century. The sensitivity of many Americans, who have a wide variety of religious beliefs, toward the question of religion made the former movements a sacrifice to political competition. It is because of this that the crisis over the Muslim community center has generated such an unprecedented amount of political controversy in both the public and private spheres. This situation is a prime example of religion entering the political sphere. President Obama’s entry into the debate only increased the uproar, a fact that his opponents exploited with superior skill. Perhaps this is the first time in American history that a religious issue has become the impetus for divisive controversy so intense that it threatens the continuation of domestic coexistence in the United States.

Regarding the impact of the Muslim community center crisis on American secularism, there are three points that should be discussed briefly: First, the current controversy has given this model a severe shock. The commentary on the crisis, whether articulated by politicians, journalists or ordinary citizens, demonstrates the confusion the American public feels when it comes to taking a clear position. Obama fell into this confusion when he initially supported the establishment of the center and then retracted his position, thus appearing weak and uncertain. Second, the importance of American secularism for culture and identity, as well as its unifying ability, has begun to decline, which will harm the model in the long term. Third, the impartiality of this model (a quality which is inherent to the spirit of the Constitution) and its ability to solve religious conflicts has become highly uncertain. This translates into a greater likelihood of religious conflict — at least in symbolic terms, as is the case with the Muslim community center.

This raises a further question: Has the Clash of Civilizations thesis* been transferred from the international stage to the domestic? What is striking about the Muslim community center crisis is that it coincides with the growth of hostility toward Islam and Muslims within the United States. This hostility extends beyond geography and political discord to arrive at the front lines of civilizational identity and belonging. Many Americans, or at least those covered by opinion polls, have a completely distorted picture of Islam and Muslims. If this is an understandable perception of foreign Muslims, it is a provocative change in attitude toward American Muslims, who are radically different from their coreligionists, especially European Muslims. American Muslims consider themselves, not as a Muslim minority within a Christian majority, but rather as Americans first and Muslims second.

This issue will become more complicated if foreign Muslims enter the debate, as happened recently when a group of scholars from Al-Azhar University rejected the establishment of the Muslim community center in the current location. These scholars argued that the center is really a Zionist conspiracy aimed at distorting the image of Muslims and Islam and prolonging the battle between the United States and the Muslim world. They also feared the crisis could further recruitment to extremist ideology.

The curious part of this crisis is that the person responsible for the establishment of the center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, works for the U.S. State Department on a project promoting dialogue between civilizations and the improvement of relations between America and the Muslim world. He is a true American, who feels a sense of belonging in this nation. This does not, however, prevent many from suspecting his allegiance and believing that he represents, as someone said recently, “the Islamic vanguard for the establishment of Sharia in the United States as a preliminary step toward the launch of an Islamic caliphate.”

The symbolism of the current crisis lies not only in its religious aspect, but also in its significance for culture and identity. In this, it differs little from many similar issues that have arisen recently in the West, such as the minaret and the veil. It seems as though we are heading toward a new phase of tensions between Islam and the West, against a background of disinformation and political disorder that comes without a true understanding of the dimensions of this issue or its context.

*Editor’s Note: Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations theory first appeared in a Foreign Affairs article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” in 1993. In 1996, Huntington published the book "The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of the World Order."