Word: secularization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Obama was right, however—religion is no stranger to the political realm, nor is this inherently a bad thing. For better or worse, the two are constantly intertwined. America is not a purely secular democracy, and this is something we need to acknowledge...
...willfully maintaining that our nation is above religion can lead to dangerous results. Our nation is unhealthily divided over the issue, with some Americans frustrated by what they see as one particular religious group gaining dominance and others reacting to what they see as a secular onslaught on their faith...
...Some argue that, if we acknowledge our less-than-secular state, powerful religious groups in America might use this as an excuse to dominate American politics. It is apparent, however, that they do this anyway. Freedom lovers worldwide who look on American secularism with adoration would be repulsed by the revelation of how great an influence religious and pseudo-religious parties have in the United States. Failing to acknowledge this relationship will prove detrimental to our domestic as well as our foreign policy...
...Under the charade that we ourselves are a secular democracy, we condemn groups that adhere to a brand of democracy that—like ours—is not quite “secular.” And, in order to prevent religious parties from coming to power, we enable far greater evils, such as sustaining dictators like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. The result is that we fail both to suppress religious groups and to promote democracy; religious groups merely become more popular, and Mubarak tightens his restrictions on freedoms. Yet our narrow mindset leads us to continue...
...Serbis.” Rather than exposing the unseen underworld of the sex-for-sale industry, the film—shot in Tagalog with English subtitles—explores the complex moral conflicts that all-too-guilty pleasures cause in a country like the Philippines, itself conflicted by the secular influences left by decades as a Western territory on its actively religious tradition. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and showing at the Brattle Theatre through Sunday, Mendoza’s creation, despite lacking a distinctive plot or any particular innovation...