Secularism and suffering

Talal Asad suggests that secularism assumes that human beings live and choose on the basis of a “calculus of pleasure and pain.” Pain is unredeemable, and so secularism can respond to suffering only by trying to minimize it – soothing it with drugs, distracting through narcotic entertainment, reducing risk through gargantuan social programs.

At its heart, secularism is denial of the redemptive power of suffering, and particularly the Christian confession of the redemptive power of the cross. Nothing good can come from an earthquake in Lisbon, no new life can arise after Katrina.

In its haste to flee suffering, however, secularism discovers nothing but death. For only dead things feel no pain. To live is to be vulnerable to suffering. Every living thing can die, and secularism’s cocoon of safety suffocates. Secularism’s cross-avoidance is a death wish.