Commonly, the rise of the Secular
Big Story is described in respect to a dramatic, revolutionary shift
in the justification for and exercise of political power.
Secularism was a move away from vesting political authority
in the Divine
Right of a monarch, e. g., the Catholic Pope or King, to
vesting it in the Will of a People. Symbolically, the move involved
the beheading of the French monarch, Louis XVI. Then, as an exercise
of Revolutionary “Egalite!” the Queen, Marie Antoinette, also lost her head.
Secularists focused
on removing anything related to the nobility and Christianity or
churchly pomp and ceremony from the government and the public
space.
Secularism and Scientism’s Big Stories cross-fertilized and
energized each other as both moved beyond the Abrahamic Big Story.
Each is a relatively “modern” Big
Story, the emergence of which for many scholars actually defines
the opening of the Modern
Age. How these Big Stories arose and intertwined has been the
subject of much scholarly research for several centuries.
The Secular Big Story's defining characteristic is
that it develops its Big Answers primarily as a negative
reaction to central
claims of the Abrahamic Big Story.
In contrast to the Abrahamic Big
Story, the Secular has not evolved
a tradition with well defined doctrines and
required dogmas, nor a profusion
of ceremonial rituals, nor authoritative institutions.
While individuals will claim to be secular, and scholars will
cite a “secularizing” influence
or trend, there is no indisputable
definition of “secular” or “secularizing.”
Continue—Secularism
