Historicising Paradox and Secularisation

What is it about?

This article examines the idea of paradox as outlined by Joseph Blankholm. He argues that secularists 'live' the paradox of trying to escape religion whilst its footprint confronts them in their own organisations and activist lives. This article argues that Blankholm's work is valuable for analysing individual mopments and is indeed useful for studying other contexts. In this article the idea of paradox is used to examine the campaigns of freethinkers in nineteenth century England. These attacked religion, but in doing so were keen to demonstrate that there was a Christian paradox. I.E. the central idea that relgion remined powerful and supported by the state in a country where support for its structures and status as truth were fundamentally waning. The article finished by suggesting that paradox is at the centre of interractiosn between the religious and the secular - with many contemporary instances showing the enduring nature of this.

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