10/23/2009--the following selection is from a manuscript that I writing that will be entitled Higher Law in the Public Square: How the Higher Law Tradition Can Resolve the Establishment Clause Crisis and Save Secularism [does anyone know a potential publisher?]. In this section, I am discussing the work of some of the New Atheists, including Victor Stenger, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens:
*************************************************
[I]n the end, I’m not sure Stenger answers the question of how we are to live in the Godless universe. Stenger does not intend to criticize the experience of depth in human life as false or an illusion. He claims that such experiences are “purely physical” but he does not seem to mean that they are therefore any less real.
Why is it that Stenger fails? He fails for the same reason that all the New Atheist writers fail. They all deny that human beings need to “fit into some grand, cosmic scheme.” But Stenger’s one example of genuine joy and fulfillment in life is Richard Dawkins, who plainly does “fit into some grand, cosmic scheme.” Here is Stenger’s quote, from Dawkin’s book, Unweaving the Rainbow, in which Dawkins describes meaning in his life:
"Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born?"
Why you were born? That question could just as well be stated as, what grand, cosmic scheme am I a part of? Dawkins is a part of a grand cosmic scheme: humanity wakes from its preEnlightenment slumber and begins the adventure of understanding the universe through the natural sciences. It is an epic story. And it is a story that gives meaning and structure to the life of the scientist.
So does the story of John 3:16 for the believer: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The point here is not to decide which story—the scientific or this religious one—is true. The point is to convince Stenger that a story is needed. Humanity lives from such stories and ultimately cannot live without them. Our religions teach us such stories. If secularism is to flourish, it must be able to do the same and not just for a scientific elite. Dawkins’ story is a grand one, but it would have to be greatly modified to be accessible to most of us. And, in any event, people like Stenger, who presumably would be doing the modifying, do not yet see the need to offer such a story to secularists.
Showing posts with label The Failure of Secularism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Failure of Secularism. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Failures of Secularism
1/1/2008--Here is an example of the trouble with secularism. My wife and I attended a small, progressive church in our neighborhood on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year. In an unassuming sermon, the minister urged those present to “be the good news of Christ to those less fortunate—the lost, the poor, the depressed.”
Patt and I belong to a neighborhood group in Pittsburgh that is very close to this church in demographics and location. In our neighborhood group, however, we do not speak of service to the community very much. We are more likely to talk about how to protect our neighborhood from the threatening forces of urban decay.
As you and I know very well, the difference in these two experiences is not that the churchgoers go out en masse to serve the world. We are all hypocrites, including churchgoers, neighborhood group members and blog authors.
There are, however, two differences between the church and my neighborhood group. First, there actually is a small difference between what the Christians do compared to the non-Christians. The church is more likely to serve the downtrodden and less likely to view them as a threat to be avoided than are the rest of us. You can’t hear the message to be Christ to my neighbor—which is what Paul meant by “Christ lives in me”—52 times a year without some effect, however small.
The second effect is more subtle. The cosmic scale that the church introduces—to be Christ is to participate in the ultimate human reality—creates the possibility of radical engagement and personal transformation. A young person might be set on fire for love and justice in the church. But this would never happen in a neighborhood group or any other secular setting I can think of.
Indeed, the New Atheists, such as Mark Lilla, distrust the promise of transformation. They feel the same way that the Seventeenth Century did about religious “enthusiasm”—that it is a harbinger of fanaticism.
But human beings need the hope of change. And beneficent, radical change is possible. The slaves are freed. Women are liberated. Human rights established. And such change becomes more possible when we are taught to be its agents.
Secularism must learn how to be open to this.
Patt and I belong to a neighborhood group in Pittsburgh that is very close to this church in demographics and location. In our neighborhood group, however, we do not speak of service to the community very much. We are more likely to talk about how to protect our neighborhood from the threatening forces of urban decay.
As you and I know very well, the difference in these two experiences is not that the churchgoers go out en masse to serve the world. We are all hypocrites, including churchgoers, neighborhood group members and blog authors.
There are, however, two differences between the church and my neighborhood group. First, there actually is a small difference between what the Christians do compared to the non-Christians. The church is more likely to serve the downtrodden and less likely to view them as a threat to be avoided than are the rest of us. You can’t hear the message to be Christ to my neighbor—which is what Paul meant by “Christ lives in me”—52 times a year without some effect, however small.
The second effect is more subtle. The cosmic scale that the church introduces—to be Christ is to participate in the ultimate human reality—creates the possibility of radical engagement and personal transformation. A young person might be set on fire for love and justice in the church. But this would never happen in a neighborhood group or any other secular setting I can think of.
Indeed, the New Atheists, such as Mark Lilla, distrust the promise of transformation. They feel the same way that the Seventeenth Century did about religious “enthusiasm”—that it is a harbinger of fanaticism.
But human beings need the hope of change. And beneficent, radical change is possible. The slaves are freed. Women are liberated. Human rights established. And such change becomes more possible when we are taught to be its agents.
Secularism must learn how to be open to this.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
More on Craig Unger the Neocons and Religion
12/29/2007--Generally I would not comment on a comment to this blog, but Craig Unger objected to my comment yesterday concerning his book: The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future ( 2007). Mr. Unger objected to my critiquing his book when, as I admitted, I had not read it. This would be a reasonable objection except that I was not critiquing his book, or at least I didn’t think I was doing so, but the reception of it by the secular left. Maybe Mr. Unger did not link the neocons and the religious right, or religion in general. But that is how his book has been received—and praised. They are all true believers who don’t care about facts.
My point was and is that the neocons as a group are not religious persons. Their ideology is not religious. Religion has enough to apologize for without being blamed for the war in Iraq. It is true that many of President Bush’s allies supported the war, including many on the religious right, but that does not link the neocons, who came up with the idea and pressed it within the Administration, to religious themes.
My point was and is that the neocons as a group are not religious persons. Their ideology is not religious. Religion has enough to apologize for without being blamed for the war in Iraq. It is true that many of President Bush’s allies supported the war, including many on the religious right, but that does not link the neocons, who came up with the idea and pressed it within the Administration, to religious themes.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Neocons and Religion
12/28/2007--Craig Unger, whose previous book, House of Bush, House of Saud (2004), exposed the links between the Bush family and the Saudi Royal family, has a new book that purports to show the role of true believers in the Bush Administration: The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future ( 2007).
The secular left is trumpeting the book because it links two favorite themes: the evil of the neocon architects of the war in Iraq and the evil of the Christian Right. Both are true believers. Here is one such blurb—from the magazine Radar—“Unger’s subject is the war that really matters: the one between Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists on one side, and the scientific (reality-based!) post-Enlightenment world that some of us still prefer to inhabit.”
Now, I have not read Unger’s book, but the excerpts in Salon suggests that there are three main themes: that President Bush’s father opposed the war; that Bush’s religious conversion experience was not sincere and that Dick Cheney took over the Administration’s foreign policy.
Those items are not much of a story of the influence of the religious right. In fact, Unger suggests that President Bush’s commitment to Christianity might be politically manipulative, a suggestion that is consonant with the experience of David Kuo in the Administration Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction).
The neocons are simply not religious people. Think of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. These are secular people, not warriors for Christ. Their vision of the Middle East is one of secular democracy and market capitalism. They are not envisioning the Kingdom of God.
Some of the neocons are Jewish: Paul Wolfowitz, for example, and Richard Perle. These men may be committed to the interests of the State of Israel and certainly they believe that those interests and the interests of America are consonant. But you would hardly call them spiritual.
The failed neocon vision was from the start secular and economic. I don’t mean it was evil. There is nothing wrong with the desire to bring democracy to millions of people who live under dictatorship. But its failure should in no way be blamed on religion. Indeed, it should be remembered that the same Christopher Hitchens who attacks religion, supported the Iraq War.
If you want to see persons of genuine piety grapple with the violent realities of the world, in their different ways, look to the proposals of Barak Obama and Mike Huckabee.
The secular left is trumpeting the book because it links two favorite themes: the evil of the neocon architects of the war in Iraq and the evil of the Christian Right. Both are true believers. Here is one such blurb—from the magazine Radar—“Unger’s subject is the war that really matters: the one between Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists on one side, and the scientific (reality-based!) post-Enlightenment world that some of us still prefer to inhabit.”
Now, I have not read Unger’s book, but the excerpts in Salon suggests that there are three main themes: that President Bush’s father opposed the war; that Bush’s religious conversion experience was not sincere and that Dick Cheney took over the Administration’s foreign policy.
Those items are not much of a story of the influence of the religious right. In fact, Unger suggests that President Bush’s commitment to Christianity might be politically manipulative, a suggestion that is consonant with the experience of David Kuo in the Administration Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction).
The neocons are simply not religious people. Think of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. These are secular people, not warriors for Christ. Their vision of the Middle East is one of secular democracy and market capitalism. They are not envisioning the Kingdom of God.
Some of the neocons are Jewish: Paul Wolfowitz, for example, and Richard Perle. These men may be committed to the interests of the State of Israel and certainly they believe that those interests and the interests of America are consonant. But you would hardly call them spiritual.
The failed neocon vision was from the start secular and economic. I don’t mean it was evil. There is nothing wrong with the desire to bring democracy to millions of people who live under dictatorship. But its failure should in no way be blamed on religion. Indeed, it should be remembered that the same Christopher Hitchens who attacks religion, supported the Iraq War.
If you want to see persons of genuine piety grapple with the violent realities of the world, in their different ways, look to the proposals of Barak Obama and Mike Huckabee.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Comfort at a Funeral
12/20/2007--Philip Kitcher writes, in Living With Darwin, that the atheist case is no comfort at a funeral. This, he thinks, is part of the reason that atheism does not catch on.
Kitcher is thinking about Christianity. At a Christian funeral, one would expect to hear both that the deceased is now in heaven, where the living might expect one day to be reunited, and that on the last great day, all believers will be all be resurrected.
Kitcher considers that a false hope and he recognizes that he has no alternative hope to offer.
But last night there was a memorial service for my Mom. At this service, there was no talk of heaven or resurrection. We did not expect to meet Mom again. We don’t think of her as now young and healthy.
The theme was her life of service and family and how remarkable she was. She was a blessing.
And this is how the Old Testament, the Torah, regarded the life of Abraham. He was not in heaven or to be resurrected. Abraham’s immortality lay in the promise for his descendents.
Nor was the tone of my Mom’s funeral much different from that of an orthodox Jewish funeral. And there are other religious traditions that would not promise future life, but which are a comfort at a funeral.
The point is that, as usual, atheism both underestimates religion and is complacent toward itself. Religion is not inherently a fairy tale that grown people should not believe. It is potentially a real and positive way of life. And atheism is empty because it refuses to address candidly the question of human life—why, which just means toward what end, are we here? What is our meaning?
Kitcher is right that religion is a comfort at a funeral and atheism is not. But the reason is that religion is engaged in the human condition and atheism is a bystander.
Kitcher is thinking about Christianity. At a Christian funeral, one would expect to hear both that the deceased is now in heaven, where the living might expect one day to be reunited, and that on the last great day, all believers will be all be resurrected.
Kitcher considers that a false hope and he recognizes that he has no alternative hope to offer.
But last night there was a memorial service for my Mom. At this service, there was no talk of heaven or resurrection. We did not expect to meet Mom again. We don’t think of her as now young and healthy.
The theme was her life of service and family and how remarkable she was. She was a blessing.
And this is how the Old Testament, the Torah, regarded the life of Abraham. He was not in heaven or to be resurrected. Abraham’s immortality lay in the promise for his descendents.
Nor was the tone of my Mom’s funeral much different from that of an orthodox Jewish funeral. And there are other religious traditions that would not promise future life, but which are a comfort at a funeral.
The point is that, as usual, atheism both underestimates religion and is complacent toward itself. Religion is not inherently a fairy tale that grown people should not believe. It is potentially a real and positive way of life. And atheism is empty because it refuses to address candidly the question of human life—why, which just means toward what end, are we here? What is our meaning?
Kitcher is right that religion is a comfort at a funeral and atheism is not. But the reason is that religion is engaged in the human condition and atheism is a bystander.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Secularism and Religion
10/20/2007--Cardozo Law School and NYU Law School are teaming up for an academic conference entitled “Rethinking Constitutionalism in an Era of Globalization and Privatization”. Presenters are coming from all over the world. [The dates are November 4-5,2007].
One of the sessions is particularly relevant to Hallowed Secularism: “Constitutionalism and Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival”.
But, revealingly, in the pamphlet describing the Conference, the session is described in different terms: “How should we understand constitutionalism in an age of religious fundamentalism?”
This switch tells us two things about the essentially secular mindset of Cardozo and NYU law schools. First, the issue these legal academics are thinking about is how to protect liberty from religion. And this is by no means an insignificant question in a world in which religious thugs beat up women for driving cars. But it is not the only question. The original formulation of religious revival would have also addressed the issue of how to ensure the right to practice religion where it is threatened: for example, in China, in France, in Turkey and in the United States under the potentially oppressive regime of Employment Division v. Smith (1990). Conversely, one is not likely to worry about the constitutional right to practice fundamentalism.
The second implication of the unthinking switch from the term religious revival to religious fundamentalism is that the secularist has a very hard time thinking of religious practice in positive terms. Religious liberty is a human right and many secularists have fought to protect it. But as this small instance demonstrates, secularists just cannot see that religious practice might enhance human life.
Hallowed Secularism both seeks to teach secularism about religion and requires a change in secular orientation if it is to be possible. The Hallowed Secularist, if there is ever going to be one, will not fear religion.
One of the sessions is particularly relevant to Hallowed Secularism: “Constitutionalism and Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival”.
But, revealingly, in the pamphlet describing the Conference, the session is described in different terms: “How should we understand constitutionalism in an age of religious fundamentalism?”
This switch tells us two things about the essentially secular mindset of Cardozo and NYU law schools. First, the issue these legal academics are thinking about is how to protect liberty from religion. And this is by no means an insignificant question in a world in which religious thugs beat up women for driving cars. But it is not the only question. The original formulation of religious revival would have also addressed the issue of how to ensure the right to practice religion where it is threatened: for example, in China, in France, in Turkey and in the United States under the potentially oppressive regime of Employment Division v. Smith (1990). Conversely, one is not likely to worry about the constitutional right to practice fundamentalism.
The second implication of the unthinking switch from the term religious revival to religious fundamentalism is that the secularist has a very hard time thinking of religious practice in positive terms. Religious liberty is a human right and many secularists have fought to protect it. But as this small instance demonstrates, secularists just cannot see that religious practice might enhance human life.
Hallowed Secularism both seeks to teach secularism about religion and requires a change in secular orientation if it is to be possible. The Hallowed Secularist, if there is ever going to be one, will not fear religion.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Secularism Needs to Become a Way of Life
8/5/2007--The greatest failing of secularism today is its failure to be a way of life. Secularists do not even understand the need for secularism to be a way of life. They do not realize that they are missing anything. This is why, though we don’t believe, we drift back to Church and Synagogue, our kids are confirmed, baptized and bar mitzvahed, and ministers, priests and rabbis end up at our funerals. The most courageous among us do without these things, but have nothing to put in its place. We just do without.
Because secularism is not a way of life, we cannot even say for certain what it means to be secular and who is secular and who is not. This is actually not a new situation. Glenn Olsen says that it was Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century who started the process of secularization that led to the rise of commerce and science as domains separate from Church control. But because this is so early in European history and so odd a source from today’s perspective, “[t]he entire process raises…the question of what a proper secularization looks like.”
This question of what is secular and what is not is elusive. American society, for example, is clearly secular. Yet, the Catholic Church tried to force Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential campaign to change his position on abortion by threatening the loss of communion. How different is this from Pope Gregory’s pronouncement of excommunication against the German king Henry IV in 1076? Certainly President George W. Bush owed his reelection at least in part to the clear, if not express, support of much of the Catholic hierarchy. This mix of religion and politics is partly what my book, American Religious Democracy, chronicles.
Not only that, but the culture in America is still interwoven with a religious calendar. Sunday is still more or less a day of rest from business, for many people anyway. Halloween, Christmas and Easter still dominate the seasons of life. Thanksgiving resonates with religious history and themes. Even the Jewish High Holy Days change daily life where large concentrations of Jews live. And as other religious groups gain in numbers, their calendars will contribute to American religious consciousness.
Yet consider also how different the religious situation is today from the past. The Pope has no power here. If Senator Kerry had made the matter of foreign interference with an American election a major issue, he doubtless would have gained political support. And, of course, President Bush is a Protestant. He literally owes the Pope nothing in an institutional religious sense.
The Pope’s power in America is dependent on ordinary democratic forces. The question is the same whether it is the Pope’s desire for change on abortion or that of the Sierra Club seeking a change on global warming. It is a question of how many votes are at stake if the candidate moves one way or another. The Church in other words, though very powerful, is powerful only as another interest group.
Furthermore, our religious calendar lacks the feel of religious time, of eternity. Often, Sunday is spent at the mall and the baseball game. Christmas is a time of Charlie Brown and buying presents. Easter is losing the cultural sense of the risen Christ.
To see the degree of secularism present in our society, you must ask to what extent Christianity in particular or religion in general is the “ordering principle of human life,” as Olsen puts it. Whether the world stands under the dominion of Christ or is proudly autonomous. Put in these terms, even the most paranoid secularist must see how secular we are.
What then is the ordering principle in America and in the West? Upon what are we dependent? Where is our center of gravity?
The answer seems to me to be political, scientific and economic. Our lives are really organized around human self-determination—democracy collectively and self-help individually; instrumental rationality—science in its many guises; and commerce—the world market. These are our sources of meaning—you can substitute self-understanding if “meaning” is too religious for you. And of the three, which do you think is dominant? Is it not the market? Do you doubt that money makes our world go round? This is secularism today.
This is no way of life. It is a world without worship, without gratitude, without mystery and without love. Perhaps I should say, instead, that I don’t think it is a way of life. Maybe it is. I do know that secularists have no idea whether this is a way of life or not because it is also a world without thought. Secularism has drifted into this situation.
I think secularism needs a very different kind of life. This is what I mean by Hallowed Secularism. It is not clear to me yet what its features would be. The first step though must be collective engagement. Secular society must begin a deep, democratic reevaluation of our way of life. In other words we must come to grips with our secularism as a people. Obviously I do not mean “politics” when I say democratic. Politics is narrowly divisive. This process must be broadly inclusive. That is why the politicized religion of activist liberal churches seems to me a dead end. We need collective study and thought, and finally decision, as to who and what we are to be in this secular age.
To put this another way, since our sources are political, scientific and economic, we must give a new and deeper meaning to human self-determination. Without impoverishing ourselves economically and without disdaining human reason scientifically, we must come to see democratic self-examination as the new center of society. Only in that way, can we come back to the deeper sources of meaning in the universe that are outside human control. Only by taking control of our destiny can we move beyond human control. This book is meant to be a marker on the way to that undertaking.
Because secularism is not a way of life, we cannot even say for certain what it means to be secular and who is secular and who is not. This is actually not a new situation. Glenn Olsen says that it was Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century who started the process of secularization that led to the rise of commerce and science as domains separate from Church control. But because this is so early in European history and so odd a source from today’s perspective, “[t]he entire process raises…the question of what a proper secularization looks like.”
This question of what is secular and what is not is elusive. American society, for example, is clearly secular. Yet, the Catholic Church tried to force Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential campaign to change his position on abortion by threatening the loss of communion. How different is this from Pope Gregory’s pronouncement of excommunication against the German king Henry IV in 1076? Certainly President George W. Bush owed his reelection at least in part to the clear, if not express, support of much of the Catholic hierarchy. This mix of religion and politics is partly what my book, American Religious Democracy, chronicles.
Not only that, but the culture in America is still interwoven with a religious calendar. Sunday is still more or less a day of rest from business, for many people anyway. Halloween, Christmas and Easter still dominate the seasons of life. Thanksgiving resonates with religious history and themes. Even the Jewish High Holy Days change daily life where large concentrations of Jews live. And as other religious groups gain in numbers, their calendars will contribute to American religious consciousness.
Yet consider also how different the religious situation is today from the past. The Pope has no power here. If Senator Kerry had made the matter of foreign interference with an American election a major issue, he doubtless would have gained political support. And, of course, President Bush is a Protestant. He literally owes the Pope nothing in an institutional religious sense.
The Pope’s power in America is dependent on ordinary democratic forces. The question is the same whether it is the Pope’s desire for change on abortion or that of the Sierra Club seeking a change on global warming. It is a question of how many votes are at stake if the candidate moves one way or another. The Church in other words, though very powerful, is powerful only as another interest group.
Furthermore, our religious calendar lacks the feel of religious time, of eternity. Often, Sunday is spent at the mall and the baseball game. Christmas is a time of Charlie Brown and buying presents. Easter is losing the cultural sense of the risen Christ.
To see the degree of secularism present in our society, you must ask to what extent Christianity in particular or religion in general is the “ordering principle of human life,” as Olsen puts it. Whether the world stands under the dominion of Christ or is proudly autonomous. Put in these terms, even the most paranoid secularist must see how secular we are.
What then is the ordering principle in America and in the West? Upon what are we dependent? Where is our center of gravity?
The answer seems to me to be political, scientific and economic. Our lives are really organized around human self-determination—democracy collectively and self-help individually; instrumental rationality—science in its many guises; and commerce—the world market. These are our sources of meaning—you can substitute self-understanding if “meaning” is too religious for you. And of the three, which do you think is dominant? Is it not the market? Do you doubt that money makes our world go round? This is secularism today.
This is no way of life. It is a world without worship, without gratitude, without mystery and without love. Perhaps I should say, instead, that I don’t think it is a way of life. Maybe it is. I do know that secularists have no idea whether this is a way of life or not because it is also a world without thought. Secularism has drifted into this situation.
I think secularism needs a very different kind of life. This is what I mean by Hallowed Secularism. It is not clear to me yet what its features would be. The first step though must be collective engagement. Secular society must begin a deep, democratic reevaluation of our way of life. In other words we must come to grips with our secularism as a people. Obviously I do not mean “politics” when I say democratic. Politics is narrowly divisive. This process must be broadly inclusive. That is why the politicized religion of activist liberal churches seems to me a dead end. We need collective study and thought, and finally decision, as to who and what we are to be in this secular age.
To put this another way, since our sources are political, scientific and economic, we must give a new and deeper meaning to human self-determination. Without impoverishing ourselves economically and without disdaining human reason scientifically, we must come to see democratic self-examination as the new center of society. Only in that way, can we come back to the deeper sources of meaning in the universe that are outside human control. Only by taking control of our destiny can we move beyond human control. This book is meant to be a marker on the way to that undertaking.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The Failure of Secularism
8/3/2007--In 2006, Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan published Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World.[1] In the book, several scholars tried to come to terms with a new political/religious reality—that the Enlightenment effort to relegate religion to the private sphere seemed to have ground to a halt. The same recognition constituted the shared starting point for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the German political philosopher Jurgen Habermas in their 2004 debate concerning the moral foundations of the liberal state. And, I must say, my own book, American Religious Democracy,[2] is also part of this growing recognition of an altered relationship between religion and public life.
The change is not so much a reinvigoration of institutional religion, nor a lessening of secularization itself. Rather, what has come into question is whether a genuinely religion-free public life is possible or desirable. We are beginning to see that the answer is no.
Something has happened to secularism. A number of thinkers are now questioning a separation of religion and public life that had been taken for granted. Further, it is not necessarily just public life in which religion is receiving new attention. Perhaps secular life has not generated human satisfaction in private life either.
Hallowed Secularism is an alternative to a failed secularism. But in the next few posts, I will be setting forth the failure of our current secularism. Then I will turn to the more positive alternative.
[1] Fordham University Press (November 15, 2006).
[2] (Praeger 2007).
The change is not so much a reinvigoration of institutional religion, nor a lessening of secularization itself. Rather, what has come into question is whether a genuinely religion-free public life is possible or desirable. We are beginning to see that the answer is no.
Something has happened to secularism. A number of thinkers are now questioning a separation of religion and public life that had been taken for granted. Further, it is not necessarily just public life in which religion is receiving new attention. Perhaps secular life has not generated human satisfaction in private life either.
Hallowed Secularism is an alternative to a failed secularism. But in the next few posts, I will be setting forth the failure of our current secularism. Then I will turn to the more positive alternative.
[1] Fordham University Press (November 15, 2006).
[2] (Praeger 2007).
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