The Challenge of Defining the Secular

Georgina Clarke and Renae Barker ()
Additional contact information
Georgina Clarke: Law School, University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
Renae Barker: Law School, University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia

Laws, 2024, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: Judges have long wrestled with the gigantean task of defining religion, with some describing the task as being ‘called upon to ponder the imponderable’, an impossible task, and even misguided. Despite these sentiments, and comments in almost every legal definition expressing the impossibility of the task, judges have, in fact, been able to come up with numerous legal definitions for religion. These have been applied in myriad circumstances to define the outer limits of the rights and responsibilities of states, religious communities, organisations, and individuals. By contrast, the term secular has rarely been judicially defined. However, it is no-less important in defining the rights and responsibilities of states and their citizens and residents, particularly in light of the number of states that claim, implicitly or explicitly, to be secular. This paper, therefore, (re)examines the definition of the secular as it pertains to the concept of the secular state. It considers the need for a legal definition of the secular with particular reference to constitutional and other legal instruments that include the term. It then examines the difference between the terms secular, secularisation and secularism, noting the often erroneous conflation as well as the inevitable interaction and overlap between these key concepts. Finally, drawing on existing classifications of legal definitions of religion, the paper classifies definitions of the secular into three overarching classifications, namely ‘historical’, ‘substantive’ and ‘characteristic’.

Keywords: secular state; secularism; legal theory; law and religion; church and state; state and religion; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/13/3/28/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/13/3/28/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:13:y:2024:i:3:p:28-:d:1387751

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().