Secularisation and the securitisation of the sacred a response to Lewin’s framing of the Gearon–Jackson debate

Journal article

In this article, I make a response to Lewin’s insightful and judicious contribution to the Author–Jackson debate. I address the central and important arguments made by Lewin in relation to three aspects of my theoretical orientations on religion in education: (1) what Lewin rightly identifies as my ‘propositional’ interpretation of religion; (2) the politicisation of religion as secularisation; and (3) the securitisation of religion in education as a ‘securitisation of the sacred’. I argue some theoretical framing for this is necessary and that an engagement with the (propositional) realities more helpful than their denial, and that precisely because religion is propositional it can be so used or directed to political and security purposes. In sum, to ensure there is no sense of equivocation in my response I greatly welcome Levin’s intervention, but defend my propositional interpretation of religion and defend too my conceptualisation of the politicisation and securitisation of religion in education. Prompted by Jackson’s critique and Lewin’s subsequent intervention, this response is offered then as a bridge to facilitate further theorisation of the politicisation and securitisation of religion in education as an aspect of secularisation.

Authors: Gearon, L

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Routledge
• Journal: British Journal of Educational Studies
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 469-480
• Publication date: 2017-08-10
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-01
• DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2017.1363375
• EISSN: 1467-8527
• ISSN: 0007-1005
• Keywords: education; securitisation; Gearon–Jackson debate; religion; theory; secularisation