My friend Ben Domenech and I founded The City together at Houston Baptist University. He continues to be the dominant force in the production of that journal and has gone on to found a fantastic website on politics and finance called The New Ledger. I feel very honored that Ben has seen fit to post an interview with me about the book there. And like many conversations between old friends, this one makes for good listening.
Best interview yet with the guys from the White Horse Inn. If you are crunched for time, start it up around the 20 minute mark. Great questions. And great commentary from the guys after I go off the air. (Just click on The End of Secularism under the Listen Now header.)
Highly recommended.
And, of course, here’s your obligatory link to the book.
It is fascinating to read what other people have to say about the book (The End of Secularism). So far, all the reviewers seem to like it. Some show unconditional positive regard. Others emphasize what they like or don’t like. It seems to hit different people different ways.
For any would be reviewers who are curious, here’s what I’d say up front.
1. The End of Secularism is not a prediction so much as it is an argument for secularism to retire as a supposedly neutral philosophy.
2. The book is designed to make the average reader much more aware of the complexity of the question of religion and politics. A simplistic separation approach doesn’t really do anyone much good.
3. The book is a critique of secularism much more than it is a proposal for a great system of Christian thought. I’m trying to tear one house down in the effort to clear space for a new one.
4. If you take anything away from the book, please pay attention to my arguments about the nature of science and the inadequacy of science as a basis for political thought. To me, this was one of the places where my critique strikes the deepest.
5. Understand the separation of church and state. Support the separation of church and state. DO NOT let it morph into secularism, which goes much too far.
And by the way, the talented Matt Lee Anderson has reviewed the book. I really respect his work and have enjoyed much of what he has written. You can see it here. He focuses the heavy beams on my critique of secular neutrality, but I think other parts of the book are equally important, maybe more so.
Andrew Klavan has been my favorite writer of thrillers for several years now and has provided some of the best reading moments I’ve ever enjoyed. His books have been made into films starring Michael Douglas and Clint Eastwood. He also happens to be a conservative who writes sympathetically about Christianity.
For all of those reasons, I asked my publisher to send him The End of Secularism.
Anyone who works in the writing business will understand: I don’t have time to read books sent or lent to me unrequested. What with informational reading, professional reading and reading for my craft and spirit, even books I want to get to sometimes have to wait as long as a year.
Plus I don’t remember ever having met Hunter Baker of Houston Baptist University so I don’t know why he had his publisher send me his new book The End of Secularism. But I’m startled to report I glanced at it while laying it aside, then picked it up again, then read it through. This is a very well written, concise and learned primer on the secularization of the public square. It gives a fair recital of the arguments in favor of it, and a strong but sensible and moderate outline of the arguments against. It has a firm grasp of history and neither falls for the usual “This is a Christian country!” rhetoric that makes its way onto television nor accepts the “separation of church and state,” pieties that were rendered obsolete by the state’s aggressive intrustion into what Dr. Baker calls “the life-world,” ie. our values and private lives. It’s a book you’ll be glad you read the next time you get in an argument about religion’s role in politics.
I wish I had time to write a full review of this book in a respectable venue (as opposed to this Blog of Ill Repute!). I just don’t. But if anyone from First Things or World Magazine or even the Weekly Standard or NRO is skulking through here and sees this, I think the book is well worth discovering.
At ReformedBooks.net. Here was the part I really liked:
In some of the most compelling parts of the book, Baker turns a scathing critique on the secularist movement itself, and in particular, its claims to take a solely neutral and scientific approach toward social and political science. If the secularists really employ the scientific method in sociology, where do they even come up with their cardinal rule of the equality of every person? Certainly not by scientifically quantifying the potential and actual achievements of each individual. In reality, they are on entirely borrowed ground. “If we are equal,” Baker wisely notes, “it is almost surely in the sense of being equal before God, because we are in fact equal in virtually no other way” (p. 177, emphasis original).
A big thank you to Nathan Pitchford for his very perceptive reading of the book.
And by the way, if you are looking for a place to buy The End of Secularism, then here it is.
I’ve done Al Kresta’s show before and really enjoyed the process. He is a very knowledgeable interviewer.
So, we talked about The End of Secularism. Here’s the link. I come on about five minutes in.
A fellow named David Layman (not David Goldman, who I think is THE Spengler) has reviewed The End of Secularism for the First Things website.
Wow.
This was the first full contact review by a person who doesn’t know me at all.
Pretty exhilarating.
Layman is very complimentary of the book, particularly the first half where I review the history of church and state in the west and go through the American constitutional situation. He’s a bit less on board with me when I start talking about anti-foundationalism and the impact of postmodernism on the case for secularism. I think he says what Robert George would say, which is to suggest I should talk more about the case for our values than the weaknesses in secularism as a construct.
In my defense, I did what I set out to do, which was (as inspired by C. John Sommerville) to undercut secularism by being skeptical about it. It was more about deconstructing someone else’s castle than shoring up my own.
Still, a wonderful experience. And thank you to David Layman.
At 5pm central today in Chicago and elsewhere. Listen live here.
Discussing The End of Secularism, by the way . . .
Well, the book by the same name is, anyway. The End of Secularism is now in stock at Amazon.com and should be available in stores, too. Help me, faithful readers.
I don’t think I’ll disappoint you. Francis Beckwith, David Dockery, Russell Moore (of Touchstone fame), Father Robert Sirico, Herb London, Jennifer Morse Roback, and Glenn Stanton all liked it. I hope you will, too.
Here are some ad styles you can use on your website. Please link to Amazon.com.
“Secularism was supposed to have displaced religion before the end of the last century. It failed. Hunter Baker has done every Christian interested in a faithful life in the public square an immense favor. As an important and emerging young evangelical scholar and public thinker, Baker doesn’t cower at the seemingly imposing face of secularism but intelligently reads its vital signs and confidently declares its inherent weaknesses.”
Glenn T. Stanton, cultural researcher, speaker and author of Marriage on Trial and My Crazy Imperfect Christian Family.
Browse or pre-order from Crossway here or from Amazon here. Available in bookstores everywhere starting August 31.
I’m excited. Crossway has created a product page for the book with lots of features. Here is the back cover:
The product page also allows you to browse the book. Check it out.
Here’s what you’ll see at the Amazon.com page for The End of Secularism:
This ambitious work offers one of the most comprehensive attacks on secularism yet attempted. Hunter Baker argues that advocates of secularism misunderstand the borders between science, religion, and politics and cannot solve the problem of religious difference.
University scholars have spent decades subjecting religion to critical scrutiny. But what would happen if they turned their focus on secularism? Hunter Baker seeks the answer to that question by putting secularism under the microscope and carefully examining its origins, its context, its claims, and the viability of those claims.
The result of Baker’s analysis is The End of Secularism. He reveals that secularism fails as an instrument designed to create superior social harmony and political rationality to that which is available with theistic alternatives. Baker also demonstrates that secularism is far from the best or only way to enjoy modernity’s fruits of religious liberty, free speech, and democracy. The End of Secularism declares the demise of secularism as a useful social construct and upholds the value of a public square that welcomes all comers, religious and otherwise, into the discussion. The message of The End of Secularism is that the marketplace of ideas depends on open and honest discussion rather than on religious content or the lack thereof.
And by the way, if you haven’t yet, please join the Facebook page for The End of Secularism so I can notify everybody upon publication in August.
“Hunter Baker’s volume is a much-welcomed addition to the debate on the role of religion and faith in the public square. To the confusion regarding matters of religion and politics, Baker brings illuminating clarity. To the ambiguity regarding the meaning and place of pluralism, he provides thoughtful analysis. To the directionless arguments for secularization, he offers an insightful and discerning response. This much-needed volume provides a readable, historically-informed, and carefully-reasoned case for the place of faith in our public deliberations. It is with great enthusiasm that I recommend it.”
—David S. Dockery, President, Union University
“Hunter Baker is a gifted writer who knows how to communicate the issue of secularism to an audience that desperately needs to hear a critical though winsome voice on this matter. In many ways, the book is a twenty-first-century sequel to the late Richard John Neuhaus’s classic, The Naked Public Square. Baker understands the issues that percolate beneath the culture wars. They are not merely political but theological and philosophical, and they are rarely unpacked in an articulate way so that the ordinary citizen can gain clarity. Baker offers his readers that clarity.”
—Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Baylor University; author, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice
“Hunter Baker is one of the sharpest thinkers in contemporary American Christianity. This work will provoke the same kind of conversation ignited by Richard John Neuhaus’s The Naked Public Square. Read this book slowly with a highlighter and a pen in hand as you think about questions ranging from whether the Ten Commandments ought to hang in your local courthouse to whether there’s a future for public Christianity.”
—Russell D. Moore, Dean, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“The task of discerning the alternative to practical atheism lived by many nominal Christians and the pretense of a neutral secularism has been made easier by this rich study. Once authentic Christians grasp the ramifications of the incarnation of Christ, then and only then will it be apparent that, as Baker argues, “secularism only makes sense in relation to religion.”
—Robert A. Sirico, President, Acton Institute
“The End of Secularism debunks the widespread myth that secularism is the inevitable wave of the future, coming at us like an unstoppable force of nature. Baker shows instead that the secularization of society was the result of deliberate planning and concerted effort by a relatively few determined ideologues. Baker makes it clear that what they did can be undone. We shall be hearing more from this promising young man.”
—Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President, The Ruth Institute
“Hunter Baker has produced a powerful and carefully constructed argument against the secularists in our midst who are attempting to subvert the traditions that gave birth to our unique national enterprise.”
—Herbert London, President, Hudson Institute; author, America’s Secular Challenge
