From an article by Craig Calhoun in the fall 2008 issue of The Hedgehog Review:

<br />Rethinking the implicit secularism in conceptions of citizenship is important for a variety of reasons from academic soundness to practical fairness. It is all the more important because continuing to articulate norms of citizen participation that seem biased against religious views will needlessly drive a wedge between religious and nonreligious citizens. This would be most unfortunate at a time when religious engagement in public life is particularly active, and when globalization, migration, economic stresses and insecurity all make strengthening commitments to citizenship and participation in shared public discourse vital.

Rethinking secularism need not mean abandoning norms of fairness or state neutrality among religions. It does mean working through the debates of the public sphere to find common ground for citizenship, rather than trying to mandate the common ground by limiting the kinds of reason citizens can bring to their public discussions with each other.

Find the full issue here.