The Myth of Secularity: Nonreligious Culture in Contemporary Britain

One of the largest ‘religious’ groups in Britain today is of those who regard themselves as neither religious nor actively nonreligious. They don’t believe in God but they don’t like to describe themselves as ‘atheist’ either. They might make use of Humanist ceremonies but they don’t like to describe themselves as ‘humanist’. They think of themselves as essentially indifferent to religion; as not so much religious or nonreligious as secular. But is this ‘indifference’ all that it seems? In this Sunday Lecture Dr Lois Lee argues that ‘secularity’ or ‘indifference to religion’ is a myth – perhaps one of the most widely held myths concerning the contemporary ‘religious’ landscape. Whilst large numbers of Britons think of themselves in this way push further and you discover that these same people hold strong views about religion and nonreligion – about the ‘proper’ role of religion (and nonreligion) in society about the role of religion (and nonreligion) in their choice of partner and the raising of their children about the meaning of life and death. Like religious people ‘secular people’ are in fact embedded in nonreligious cultures that matter to them dearly. They are anything but indifferent. However complex we all have an age a gender a sexual orientation a socio-economic position a nationality – so why do we persist in treating religion as different as something that only some humans have? Treating religion as different in this way means conferring on it a ‘special status’ one that can be used to protect religion unfairly or marginalise it equally unfairly. Drawing on the latest social scientific research Lois calls for a radical shift in our thinking about ‘religious culture’. Instead of thinking about it as something that some people have and others oppose we need to recognise religion as just one manifestation of something that we all share.; Dr Lois Lee is Associate Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent and founding director of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network. She is an editor of the academic journals Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism and Secularism and Nonreligion and of NSRN Online. Between 2011 and 2012 she had a Blackham Fellowship to complete her first monograph Nonreligion Secularity and Society (forthcoming). She has published widely on the topics of secularity nonreligion and atheism.; 11.00 £3 on the door/free to members