In AP Euro, secularism is the growing emphasis on worldly, non-religious concerns and reason over church authority, a thread running from Renaissance humanism (KC-1.1.I.A) through the Scientific Revolution and the French Revolution's attack on traditional religious power.
Secularism is the move toward focusing on this world (politics, art, daily life, nature) instead of organizing everything around the church and the afterlife. It doesn't mean Europeans stopped believing in God. It means religion slowly lost its monopoly over education, politics, science, and culture.
The CED names secularism explicitly in Unit 1. Italian Renaissance humanists like Petrarch revived classical texts and "furthered the values of secularism and individualism" (KC-1.1.I.A). Admiration for Greek and Roman political institutions produced "secular models for individual and political behavior" in the Italian city-states (KC-1.1.I.C). From there, the idea snowballs. New monarchs claimed the right to determine their subjects' religion, putting the state above the church. Scientists like Copernicus and Newton explained the cosmos through observation rather than scripture. By the French Revolution, secularism turned aggressive, with revolutionaries directly attacking the Catholic Church's wealth and authority. Think of secularism as a dimmer switch on church power that gets turned down, gradually, from 1450 to 1815 and beyond.
Secularism is one of the great continuity-and-change threads of the entire course. It anchors Unit 1 directly, where AP Euro 1.2.A and 1.2.B ask you to explain how the revival of classical texts shifted education "away from a primary focus on theological writings toward classical texts and new methods of scientific inquiry" (KC-1.1.I.B). It also matters for the contrast in AP Euro 1.3.A, since the Northern Renaissance kept a more religious focus while Italy leaned secular. Then it resurfaces in Unit 2 (state control of religion under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I), Unit 4 (Bacon and Descartes promoting reason and experimentation under AP Euro 4.2.A), and Unit 5 (the French Revolution's challenge to traditional religious authority under AP Euro 5.5.A). If an exam question asks about declining church authority in any period, secularism is the concept doing the work.
Keep studying AP Euro Unit 1
Humanism (Unit 1)
Humanism is the engine that produces secularism. When Petrarch and other humanists revived pagan Greek and Roman texts, they found models for ethics, politics, and education that owed nothing to the church. The CED links them directly in KC-1.1.I.A.
New Monarchies (Unit 1)
Secularism isn't just an intellectual mood, it's a power grab. New monarchs gained "the right to determine the religion of their subjects" (KC-1.5.I.A), which flipped the medieval order. Now the state controlled religion instead of the other way around.
The Scientific Revolution (Unit 4)
Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton questioned "the authority of the ancients and traditional knowledge" (KC-1.1.IV.A). Explaining the universe through math and observation, not scripture, is secularism applied to nature. Bacon and Descartes gave it a method.
Effects of the French Revolution (Unit 5)
By the 1790s, secularism stops being a quiet trend and becomes revolutionary policy. Revolutionaries attacked the Catholic Church's land, clergy, and calendar, which is exactly the "disregard for traditional authority" that critics like Edmund Burke condemned (KC-2.1.IV.G).
Secularism shows up most often in multiple-choice stems built around a Renaissance text or artwork, asking what value it reflects or how Italian and Northern Renaissance attitudes differed. It's also a workhorse concept for LEQs and DBQs on continuity and change. An essay tracing declining church authority from the Renaissance through the French Revolution practically writes itself around this term. Fiveable practice questions use it in Unit 5 contexts too, like one asking what the contrasting reactions to the French Revolution reveal about the ideological divide between defenders of tradition and champions of secular, rational reform. No released FRQ has used the word verbatim, but it's exactly the kind of analytical category that earns complexity points when you connect Units 1, 4, and 5.
Secularism is not atheism, and conflating them will wreck your analysis of the Renaissance. Renaissance humanists were almost all devout Christians who simply gave more attention to worldly subjects like politics, classical literature, and portraiture. Erasmus used humanist learning to reform the church, not abolish it (KC-1.2.I.A). Atheism, the outright denial of God, was extremely rare before the late Enlightenment. On the exam, describe Renaissance figures as embracing secular values within a Christian society, not as rejecting religion.
Secularism means prioritizing worldly concerns and reason over church authority, not rejecting religion or believing in atheism.
The CED explicitly ties secularism to Italian Renaissance humanists like Petrarch, who revived classical texts that offered non-religious models for life and politics (KC-1.1.I.A).
The Northern Renaissance is the contrast case because it retained a more religious focus, so use Italy versus the North to show you understand secularism's limits (KC-1.1.III.B).
Secularism gained political teeth when new monarchies claimed the right to determine their subjects' religion, subordinating church to state (KC-1.5.I.A).
The Scientific Revolution extended secularism to nature, with Copernicus, Newton, Bacon, and Descartes replacing traditional and religious authority with observation and reason.
The French Revolution radicalized secularism into open attacks on the Catholic Church, provoking the conservative backlash voiced by Edmund Burke.
Secularism is the growing emphasis on worldly, non-religious concerns, reason, and individual achievement over church authority. The CED introduces it in Unit 1, where Italian Renaissance humanists like Petrarch "furthered the values of secularism and individualism" (KC-1.1.I.A).
No. Renaissance figures were overwhelmingly devout Christians who simply expanded their focus to classical texts, politics, and everyday life. Even popes funded secular-style art to boost their prestige, and Christian humanists like Erasmus used the new learning for religious reform.
Humanism is the intellectual movement (reviving Greek and Roman texts and celebrating human potential), while secularism is one of the values that movement produced. Per the CED, humanists like Petrarch furthered secularism, so think of humanism as the cause and secularism as an effect.
Italian humanists drew on pagan Roman models right in their backyard, producing secular models for politics and behavior in the city-states (KC-1.1.I.C). The Northern Renaissance, by contrast, "retained a more religious focus" (KC-1.1.III.B), channeling humanism into church reform through figures like Erasmus.
The Revolution pushed secularism from an attitude to a policy by seizing church lands and attacking clerical authority in the 1790s. That assault on traditional religious authority is part of why critics like Edmund Burke condemned the Revolution (KC-2.1.IV.G), a divide AP exam questions love to test.