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Christian Bioethics Advance Access originally published online on March 17, 2009
Christian Bioethics 2009 15(1):74-85; doi:10.1093/cb/cbp002
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of The Journal of Christian Bioethics, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Christian Bioethics issue: European Bioethics II-Disparate Hopes and Fears [View the issue table of contents]

Open "Laicity" and Secularity versus Ideological Secularism: Lessons from Switzerland

Denis Müller

Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Address correspondence to: Denis Müller, Faculté de théologie et de sciences des religions, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switerzland. E-mail: denis.muller{at}unil.ch.


  Abstract

In order to avoid both religious intolerance and religious indifference, we need to develop a positive notion of an open laicity or secularity that permits us to respect our religiously plural as well as secular contemporary situation. Open laicity or secularity is the practical and political consequence of a Protestant theology and spirituality. It represents a critical answer to the disaster of secularism and laicism. Most of the difficulties in the discussion between traditionalist Christians (Orthodox, Catholic, or Evangelical!) and modern, critical Christians (Protestant, Catholic, and maybe some Orthodox too!) come from a confusion between the danger of secularism and laicism, that this article criticizes very deeply, and the positive reality of a secular world, grounded in the very biblical and theological understanding of a created world, in which God has given to all human beings the task to behave in a rational, responsible, creative, and respectful way.

Keywords: bioethics, Christian ethics, churches, laicity, plurality, secularism, secularity, universality


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