The Civitas Podcast Episode 40: Secularization, Social Order, and World History - A Conversation with Dr. Kevin Flatt
Feb 27, 2026
Kevin Flatt, a historian and associate dean at Redeemer University who studies secularization and Protestantism, discusses how societies organize around sacred or secular orders. He contrasts Western modern institutions with global sacred frameworks, explores contested, elite-driven secularization, and surveys contemporary resacralization movements around the world.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Religion Is A Modern Western Category
- The modern category religion is a historically specific Western invention that emerged alongside secularization and doesn't map well onto many premodern or non-Western societies.
- Kevin Flatt illustrates this with early Islam and East Asian traditions where sacred ordering (e.g., Sharia, Tao, Dharma) governs society without a separate 'religion' institution.
Teaching Early Islam Sparked The Rethink Of Religion
- Kevin Flatt recounts teaching early Islamic history and finding the label 'religion' misleading because Islam functioned as political, legal, and communal order, not a private worship domain.
- That classroom experience pushed him toward the sacred social order concept.
Reframe Secularization Research Before You Graph It
- Scholars should reframe secularization studies by critically examining core categories like religion and secularity instead of uncritically measuring 'religion' as a universal variable.
- Flatt advises integrating religious studies, history, and philosophy to produce operational concepts usable for empirical work.
