A Swinging Pendulum and Future Possibilities

Abstract This essay is the author’s response to a forum focused on The Secular Paradox: On the Religiosity of the Not Religious (Blankholm 2022), which was published in Secular Studies in December 2024. The essay has three parts. The first part summarizes The Secular Paradox as the author sees it today. It emphasizes the importance of taking the titular “paradox” seriously, as an ostensible contradiction rather than mere confusion. It also considers the persistent challenges we face when trying to study something paradoxical. Our language and concepts fail us, and The Secular Paradox diagnoses that failure. The second part summarizes the essays in the forum and engages with each of them to highlight their insights and draw attention to the important projects from which they’re drawn. The final part describes several future directions in the study of secularism, secularity, and secular people.