Modernity has been largely shaped for Jews by three momentous experiences: the acquisition of citizenship by individual Jews in secular nation-states, the destruction of one-third of Jewry in the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel.
The road to the sacred leads through the secular.
You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It's OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid's face? OK with them. And I'm not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for.
Whether you're an opera singer, a legislator or customer service operator, there is a way that we can find common ground with our audience - be they young or old, Democrats or Republicans, rich or poor, religious or secular.
No secular state ever existed and none would exist until the end of the French Revolution, and so we understand that America was built on the Judeo-Christian ethic and we believe that this nominee is going to see to it that those truths are upheld.
The yeshiva where I studied considers itself modern Orthodox, not ultra-Orthodox. We followed a rigorous secular curriculum alongside traditional Talmud and Bible study.
Bear in mind how valuable a secular Turkey is for the world.
It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980.
More recently, as faith gave way to materialism, anti-Semitism assumed a secular mode, harnessing itself to the dominant ideologies of both the Left and the Right.
Strong Islamist trends make a fundamentalist Palestine more likely than a small state under a secular government.
One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism.
When I was in my early teens, I joined a cult. And we weren't allowed to listen to secular music or anything that wasn't made by us. So I spent a lot of time not listening to music, and by the time I could, I just didn't get into it.
We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.
The public school has become the established church of secular society.
I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular, liberal people, I ignored it for a long time. Lately, of course, just from a political perspective, it's impossible to ignore.
Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist. He's not a radical jihadist. He's not a radical Muslim. I mean, he was a - he was a Baathist. He was a secular - even though he professed to be a good and devout Muslim.
Can a secular artist be used as a vessel to bring souls to Christ? Of course... this is God we are talking about!
There are people in our world today and unfortunately in our political system, they do not believe in evil. They have the modern, western, secular mind set. They don't believe evil exists. They are exactly the ones who are in danger of getting blindsided by evil. Because they're not prepared for it.
In our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out.
I believe people who are looking for a fresh idea and spirit have received Danielson. The conservative Christian press have been quite mean to us, but the mainstream 'secular' press has been very, very nice.
We are not wedded to anyone in Syria. We are not concerned with any personality. We are concerned with keeping Syria in one piece, territorially integral, sovereign, independent and secular, where the rights of all groups, ethnic and others, are fully respected.
Secret government programs that pry into people's private affairs are bound up with ideas about secrecy and privacy that arose during the process by which the mysterious became secular.
I now attend non-orthodox synagogues, and study little during the secular week.
It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government.
Sports are the ultimate secular religion. Instead of being worried about whether your kids will be okay or how your job is going, you have your team, and you can focus all of your angst and your hopes and dreams on your team. I am in no way saying it always relieves any of this!
It was a secular cathedral, dedicated to the rites of travel.
More people need to understand the games secular liberals play. Here's one rule-of-thumb: No matter how bad a story sounds - particularly if it sounds bad - recognize the pattern of defamation.
In a secular age, an authentic miracle must purport to be a hoax, in order to gain credit in the world.
Much to the chagrin of the staunchly secular among us, religion shows no sign of going away. Predictions of the demise of religion, faith, tradition - and even God - have consistently been proven wrong.
I grew up pretty secular. I went to public school, and all the Jews that I knew, none of them were religious. While probably half of my friends were Jewish, they were all secular Jews. We went to Hebrew school, we knew we were Jewish, but it wasn't a major part of our existence.
I sometimes think that Thomas Cook should be numbered among the secular saints. He took travel from the privileged and gave it to the people.
The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.
Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about resisting the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to it.
There's a group of people - maybe the secular Taliban is a good name for them - who have morphed this idea, that you have to accept my values being every bit as cherished as your values. That's not tolerance... There are too many things in this world which we sit back and tolerate.
Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.
I've received a lot of positive feedback from both the secular and Christian markets. People seem to be receiving it with open arms and hearts, and are interested in the stories I want to share about my relationship with God and my faith.
