If You're Not Religious, for God's Sake SAY so! Agonism in Secularist Activism

When secularists talk about God, how does it sound? What do they hope to achieve? Grounded in fieldwork among British and American activists, this paper suggests that Anglo-American secularists talk to the pious to "constitute adversaries worthy of agonistic respect" (Connolly 2008) and not in search of consensus. I offer key ethnographic examples of agonistic interactions between secularists and their pious audiences, examining how ideas about language and communication - rather than ideas about God – drive discussions about faith, doubt and social cooperation.

New Atheism increasingly demands public recognition: The British Humanist Association's 2011 census campaign cheekily encouraged Britons to tick “no religion:” "If you're not religious, for God's sake say so!" Another campaign responded to Christian adverts threatening sinners with eternal damnation by posting a counter-message on UK busses: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Protesters in Jesus costumes at the 2012 Reason Rally in Washington D.C. carried placards reading “Atheists do it better!” Comparing secularism in the UK and the US, Richard Dawkins opened the rally by critiquing the way we talk, not what we believe: "Don’t fall for the convention that we’re all too polite to talk about religion. Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated and need to be challenged and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt."

Following Cannell's call for more evidence-based studies of secularist practices (2010), my sociolinguistic and ethnographic analysis chronicles the polysemy (Taylor 2009) of the term "secularist," recording its use and meaning among Anglo-American activists [atheists, humanists, brights, skeptics and universalists]. Focusing on one small part of the project's overall findings about communication across faith and non-faith groups, this paper presents ethnographic evidence pointing to the heavy value secularists place on agonism in public discussions about religion.