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En 1985, l’intellectuel français Marcel Gauchet publiait un ouvrage intitulé Le Désenchantement du Monde. Renouant délibérément, par delà presque un siècle de négligence, avec des perspectives inaugurées par Max Weber en matière de sociologie des religions, l’auteur y décrivait le christianisme comme ayant constitué éminemment « la religion de la sortie de la religion », voyant en lui cette forme particulière de croyance dont la dynamique interne et les potentialités de développement avaient permis une « sortie » de plus en plus marquée du régime inaugural et fondateur de l’hétéronomie radicale. On s’efforcera de montrer que ce sont les perspectives développées initialement par Marcel Gauchet qui restent les plus prometteuses aujourd’hui, non seulement afin de comprendre les origines de l’Etat mais aussi afin d’envisager une redéfinition de la notion sécularisation dans la perspective de ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « dialectique de la préservation et du dépassement ».

Religious faith connects strongly held ethical ideals to the belief that these are the commands of God, or a power above human reason. This can make people of hard religious belief to be intensely intolerant. How can we easily accept those who violate or dismiss principles that we consider the foundational to the moral order of the universe? Thus it is quite possible that religious people might be pious inside their own religion, but hateful towards others. Though most religious faiths set down often similar principles of moral conduct, and encourage adherents to live by principles of fellowship, kindness, and love, these injunctions often get circumscribed by the larger idea of their religion being the only ‘true’ religion...

A peculiar feature of the modern world is the asymmetry in the knowledge of the other between the West and the non-West. Nonwestern societies know a great deal more about Western history than Western societies know about theirs. Religious principles clearly possess a peculiar quality: because they are held with particular reverence by religious individuals who see them as principles created, or at least sanctioned by God rather than men. Their denial by others consequently can cause unusually intense offense. Not observing a principle of a particular religion is considered by strict adherents of that religion as sacrilege. This is why conflict of religious principles gives rise to conflict of particular intensity and severity: it can also give rise to spectacular cruelty, because the object of one’s attack are entirely dehumanized, and considered enemies not of man or king or nation but of God himself.

Secularism has long been seen as a solution to problems of religion. Yet today, secularism (laïcité) itself is a political problem alongside religion. In some versions, secularism has become an obstacle to political and social projects potentially shared among members of different religions and the non-religious. It has been politicized in relation to migration, insurgency, and religious renewal. As ideology, it is sometimes the basis for new forms of intolerance. Both secularism and religion are sometimes made the bases for prescriptive demands on others as well as self-understandings. A central issue is the transformation of secularism and laïcité – in some versions – from formulations focused on freedom to ideologies mobilized to impose cultural values. Yet this need not be so. The problems are not with religion and secularism as such, but with how “fundamentalist” versions of each are deployed.

L'installation dans les régions industrielles d'Ecosse de larges communautés d'Irlandais a souvent généré des tensions importantes entre communautés catholique et protestante. A Glasgow, les confrontations entre les deux plus grands clubs de football de la ville, le Celtic F.C. et le Rangers F.C., sont très rapidement devenues un terrain d'expression privilégié et violent de ces tensions communautaires. Malgré la sécularisation de la société et des mesures institutionnelles, cela reste aujourd'hui un sujet de préoccupation de la population et des dirigeants.