Abstract

What I wish to argue in this essay is that secularism is a state-sponsored mythology that has evolved to replace the monarchic mythology of cuius regius eius religio; that as a mythology it is culturally constructed, and that construction is always under negotiation and is therefore never complete; but as a dominant cultural mythology, its ideology has come to be believed as hegemonic; in being hegemonic it therefore flies in the face of more deeply enshrined liberal teachings on civil liberties; and, therefore it is not only counterfactual—we have never been secular—but also fundamentally incoherent