Discussing the Secular in Intimate Relationships: Nonreligious-Christian Couples

This article analyzes Christian-nonreligious couples in the Netherlands, shedding light on the various manifestations of the secular/nonreligious in the context of couple interviews. Starting from an understanding of the secular as relational and contextual, this research highlights relationality by focusing on intimate relationships. Drawing on the conceptual approach into ‘mixedness’—where what is mixed is understood to be fluid, context-bound and intersectional—this article asks to what extent these couples can be considered mixed. It explores how these couples give meaning to religious-secular difference, particularly emphasising the perspectives of nonreligious men to further understand the negotiations of Christian and secular positionalities in everyday life. The findings show that men socialised as nonreligious often remained indifferent to religion but engaged more when in a relationship with a Christian partner, while nonreligious men socialised as Christian were more explicitly negative. In all cases, the secular was the norm with science serving as a framework of truth as opposed to religion. Moreover, whilst Christian values were seen by these men as connected to a universal ethical framework, there was little awareness of the historical and present-day interconnectedness of secularity and Christianity in the Netherlands.