Lisa Miller, Newsweek's religion editor, comes out “In Defense of Secularism” in her "Belief Watch" column this week, and I was happy to discuss this complex subject with her. Secularism is a huge topic for a 600- word column. Charles Taylor recently gave us 900 pages on the topic and I challenge you to tell me exactly what he is trying to say. But I wonder if the limited context the column provides around my statement that the word “secularists” is “red meat for the pundits” would leave anyone equally baffled as to what I meant.

My point to Miller was: the words secular/secularist/secularism have two popular meanings as currently used in English. The first denotes everything that falls outside of religion's control. American politics requires "secular" arguments for laws, explaining how they benefit people in this world. The "religious" argument "abortion must be illegal because god forbids it" is unacceptable, although one can make a secular argument towards the same end, such as "abortion must be illegal because it kills fetuses which should scientifically be considered human beings." The latter claim is subject to empirical testing and debate, the former is not. Only extremists want a society where we could simply claim god as the reason we should get whatever we want, without having to argue the practical merits of our case. In this sense, all Americans (and others) who support the separation of church and state are "secularists."

On the other hand, today we have great organizations such as the Secular Coalition for America, the Secular Student Alliance and even my own students, the Harvard Secular Society. These take the word “secularist” several steps farther. For them, it is a synonym for atheist/Humanist/freethinker: one who actively lives without religion or belief in god. I don’t have a problem with this use of the word. As I’ll argue in my upcoming book, there cannot be one perfect term for us: like the GLBT movement, we have to unite beyond differences in preferred nomenclature. But when we use the word “secular” in the latter sense we must make clear we aren’t claiming exclusive rights to it. Pundits and politicos like Bill O’Reilly or Mitt Romney would have a harder time vilifying America’s so-called “secular religion” if forced to grasp that in so doing they alienate not just atheists but all who stand guard at Jefferson’s Wall of Separation between state and religion.

We Humanists and atheists must embrace our many millions of allies in “secularism” who happen to be theists. They know religion is so much more successful in the US than the UK precisely because the US never had an established church. The UK chose to enter modernity with an official Anglican church still ostensibly looming large, and where did it get them? Richard Dawkins is Britain’s most popular public intellectual. And the Archbishop is reduced to pandering to the worst elements in Islamic society when he could instead welcome all Muslims to worship, or not, blessed by the safety and liberty that only secularism provides.