Is critique secular?

No, obviously not; or, hell no! I am not so much interested in what the book says on the matter, I just want to answer the title question.

I don’t think critique is secular for a few (not-so-)simple reasons. First, in critique we engage with the discourses that surround us, yes? Or, perhaps you don’t and live in your insulated, academic bubble in which you never come up for air. While I think “dominant discourses” is a term that gets thrown around so much as to be almost inconsequential, the dominant discourses of a large portion of the world are shaped by and through Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These traditions do come into contact with other religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) but Western scholars tend to take-up a lot ideologies that Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition has put forth. So, there is always a relationship to these religions, and although critique is not in the service of glorifying God, it is in the service of debunking what his followers say and uphold. Religious narratives and themes are everywhere in literature and popular culture, and their dissemination is taken up by those that both support and are against these traditions (Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen is an example of a text that engages Christianity but does not glorify it).

Also, since religions are some of the most “traditional” institutions in the world, they are often under the most vehement criticism or critique. Religions are applauded when they change their traditions (such as the Anglican church’s female bishops) and attacked when they do not (such as the very rigid dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church). We like to see religions change with current theories on what it means to be a subject, but we’re really willing to admit the influence religion and religious rhetoric has over our current academic predicament.

What would academia look like if we left every narrative, and every ideology that grew out of religion, and thus became truly secular?