Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2023
A radically new way of understanding secularism which explains why being secular can seem so strangely religious
For much of America’s rapidly growing secular population, religion is an inescapable source of skepticism and discomfort. It shows up in politics and in holidays, but also in common events like weddings and funerals. In The Secular Paradox, Joseph Blankholm argues that, despite their desire to avoid religion, nonbelievers often seem religious because Christianity influences the culture around them so deeply. Relying on several years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, the volume explores how very secular people are ambivalent toward belief, community, ritual, conversion, and tradition. As they try to embrace what they share, secular people encounter, again and again, that they are becoming too religious. And as they reject religion, they feel they have lost too much. Trying to strike the right balance, secular people alternate between the two sides of their ambiguous condition: absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like secular tradition.
Blankholm relies heavily on the voices of women and people of color to understand what it means to live with the secular paradox. The struggles of secular misfits—the people who mis-fit normative secularism in the United States—show that becoming secular means rejecting parts of life that resemble Christianity and embracing a European tradition that emphasizes reason and avoids emotion. Women, people of color, and secular people who have left non-Christian religions work against the limits and contradictions of secularism to create new ways of being secular that are transforming the American religious landscape. They are pioneering the most interesting and important forms of secular “religiosity” in America today.

"This work enriches understanding of one of the fastest growing segments of the US population, those with no religious affiliation or identity… [T]his study merits the attention of students of American religious culture at all levels." - CHOICE

"...Interesting, thought-provoking, well-researched – and written in a readable, engaging, and captivating style." - Religious Studies Review

"Pioneering. The Secular Paradox gives voice to a diverse cast of characters who can represent the increasing diversity of secular communities in the twenty-first-century United States and help to dispel views about secularism’s inherent whiteness and maleness. A must-read for scholars of American religions... sure to influence future scholarship in the field." - American Religion

"Blankholm’s writing is praiseworthy… the author clearly articulates complicated paradoxical positions and clarifies murky terms." - Reading Religion

"Perhaps the most interesting takeaway of Blankholm’s book is how White organized American secularism remains. Throughout his travels, the author encountered many secular Black, Hispanic, Muslim, and Native American people, most of whom felt uncomfortable in established secular groups due to the prevalent atmosphere of White middle class assumptions." - Nova Religio