This article surveys the role of religion in postcolonial theory and the role of colonialism in studies of secularism. Despite a secularist image, postcolonial theory from its start has critically engaged with questions of religion. Similarly, despite secularism’s Eurocentric image, some studies of secularism have reflected on the way the category of religion is constructed in colonial encounters. Bringing these conversations together, we examine the secular–modern–colonial conceptual knot. The article concludes that close study of specific examples of the intersection of the modern, the colonial, and the secular is the most effective method of answering the article’s animating question.
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