ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores the global character and normative roots of the religious-secular conflicts in legal arena and elaborates on some of the more important critiques of modern law in its approaches to religions. The main goal of the essay, however, is constructive: the author concurs with those scholars who argue for the need to rethink the reified understanding of religious-secular boundaries but she also stresses the democratic potential of deep religious-secular differences. Firstly, she maintains that we can discern the complexities and possibilities of religious-secular differences if we move beyond the realm of law and look at civil society. Secondly, the author points to the ethics and the practices of solidarity as new trajectories for thinking about the religious-secular relations in pluralistic societies. She explores the case of Solidarno?? in Poland to show how solidarity creates the ethical and political spaces in which those who hold religious and secular orientations can maintain their differences while also recognising their shared moral dispositions.
