The “central aim” of this book is “to offer a nuanced and wide-ranging analysis of the complex and manifold ways in which British Romantic writers engaged with Rousseau” (3). To accomplish this, th...

‘Sacred’ may be defined in various ways, depending on one’s worldview. In a pluralistic society, a single perspective from which to decide what is sacred seems absent. Yet certain elements are taken to be sacred such that they transcend individual worldviews. Their inviolability entails blasphemy laws, where ‘blasphemy’ extends beyond what is traditionally considered religious, since ‘religion’ itself is not clearly demarcated either. The interests of the sacred may be protected by blasphemy laws, but the downside of such laws is (...) that the freedom of expression is compromised. A balanced view is necessary to accommodate these conflicting interests. (shrink)

This paper asks the following question: can an atheist reader fully taste the aesthetic meaning of poetry written by a theist author? This question is discussed with specific reference to the devotional poetry of Tagore. The paper discusses forms of pre-modern religious thinking which influenced Tagore’s conceptions of God, his relation to Nature, human society, and the human self. But it stresses that Tagore’s time was different from those of pre-modern believers. Tagore, as a modern thinker, had to fashion a (...) response to the ‘problem’ of disenchantment. He constructed a philosophic vision that embraced modern science, but argued that it did not dispel the sense of living in an enchanted universe. Consequently, it is argued that a nastika can enjoy his poetry. This requires the nastika to view the idea of God not as a failure of cognition, but as a triumph of the imagination. I can continue to enjoy Tagore’s poetry without unease. (shrink)

This volume revisits the concepts of enchantment and sacralization in light of perspectives which challenge the modern notion that man (alone) is the measure of all things. As Bruno Latour has argued, the battle against superstition entailed shifting power away from God/the gods to humans, thereby disqualifying the agency of all the other objects in the world. Might enchantment and sacralization be understood in other ways than through this battle between almighty gods and almighty humans? Might enchantment be understood to (...) involve processes where power and control are not distributed so clearly and definitely?Like social constructionists, Latour emphasizes that things are constructed; yet, like many other new materialists, such as Jane Bennett, Manuel De Landa and Karen Barad, he emphasizes that this construction is not the result of projecting meaning onto a passive and meaningless world, but a matter of compositional achievements, whereby assemblages of actants co-compose each other and frame, enable and delimit one another's agency. This move recognizes the active and entangled participation of players beyond the humans versus God(s) framework that informed the modernist project. Understanding enchantment and sacralisation as compositionally and relationally constructed does not mean the same as understanding them as constructed by humans alone. What it means is one of the main questions posed in this book. In other words, if enchantment and sacralization are not understood (solely) in terms of projecting anthropocentric meaning onto mute objects, what are some promising alternative approaches - old and new - and what are their implications for how we understand modernity and for method and theory in the study of religion? (shrink)

In this article, I argue that atheism is different from secularism. Secularism is based on a faux elimination of theology which effectively preserves that theology in the guise of overcoming it. To achieve atheism (a term that I draw from the work of Maria Aristodemou), I argue that one needs to directly confront the theological element in order to come to terms with it. In this essay I look at how two political theological thinkers, Nietzsche and Benjamin, accomplish this. Nie-tzsche (...) accomplishes atheism via his thesis of the “death of God,” a death that is not always literal but which creates a space for human life that is not determined by theological terms. Benjamin does the same thing with his idea that God vacates divine powers of judgment and determination in order to allow an atheistic space where human beings can engage in their own self-determination (even as the notion of God remains to challenge any would be human spokespersons for that role). I ultimately argue that atheism and anarchism are related concepts based not just on a rejection of certain forms of theology and all forms of archism, but also in terms of the way they allow a posi-tive and undetermined human response. (shrink)

The book relies on Bernard Lonergan’s method. It addresses today’s religious conflicts in the Middle East which have led to migrations of millions of persons. It systematically explores possible breakthroughs that might help people open their hearts to one another.

1. The birth of dialogue from the spirit of the Polish October political uprising: From social civil war and simple exclusions (even physical) to negotiations andcomplicated “Dialogue of Contradictions” within national entity. Almost 25 years before the much later birth and international triumph of the Solidarity Union, the “Polish October” of 1956, history’s first victorious anti-Stalinist political uprising and most certainly a historical milestone for Poland—if not all of Europe—was the main harbinger of change in all fundamental spheres of life.2. (...) Secularism in the place of atheism or the acceptance of pluralism at the price of indifference :the “our little stability” ideology3. International cooperation as a fundamental inspiration and “umbrella”4. Patriotism as a “civic religion” mainly for unbelievers and even mediatisation of materialism and Christianity5. Towards a new complementarity/synergy-founded universalism6. New names, new problems7. Synopsis, updates8. The next stage: Dialogue and Universalism Virtual University experimental project. (shrink)

How secular is contemporary society? Are pockets of sectarianism embedded in societies of developed countries? This timely book examines the interweaving of politics and religion, and of tradition and innovation in a variety of cultural settings. Eminent scholars from four continents examine here current turmoil in religious beliefs, practices, and organization--not only in the Western world, but in South America, Africa, South Asia, New Zealand, and Japan. They scrutinize evidence of religious change, decline, and revival; investigate challenges posed by new (...) religious movements; and locate religious change and conflict in the context of broader shifts in consciousness and culture. Contributors include Richard Fenn, Phillip E. Hammond, David Martin, Philip Rieff, Roland Robertson, and Mark Schibley. With its focus on the interplay of secularization, rationalism, and sectarianism, this work offers a fitting tribute to Bryan Wilson, who has made so many contributions to the sociological understanding of these phenomena. (shrink)

Charles Taylor in A Secular Age describes the modern secular age as one in which ‘the eclipse of all goals beyond human flourishing … falls within the range of an imaginable life for masses of people’. This article reflects on his historico-analytic investigation of the emergence of modern secularity and his account of how it shapes the current conditions of belief. Taylor challenges the widespread presumption against belief mainly on ethical considerations, especially what counts as human fulfilment. The article (...) argues that he fails to deal adequately with epistemic considerations bearing on belief and unbelief. Furthermore, his argument is weakened by a surprising absence of attention to the primary account of human fulfilment in Greek philosophy as a central element in the Christian tradition. (shrink)

Offers a philosophical appraisal of secularization in light of re-emergence of religion in the past several decades. This book explores the adequacy of classical theories of secularization, as well as what might be offered in their place. It asks the question to what extent philosophy itself has nourished and inspired these kinds of prophecies.

In his 2010 article, ‘Secular Spirituality and the Logic of Giving Thanks’, John Bishop recalls a striking theme in a recent address by Richard Dawkins in which he appeared to enthusiastically endorse the appropriateness of a ‘naturalised spirituality’ that involved ‘existential gratitude’, and this led him to investigate the notion of a naturalised or secular spirituality with particular reference to Robert Solomon’s Spirituality for the Skeptic (2002). This essay looks to pick up on Bishop’s engagements with both Dawkins and Solomon, (...) but to extend the conversation well beyond them in order to defend the credibility and integrity of secular spirituality in its movement of ontological gratitude. In this way it looks to offer a first sketch of what might be termed a ‘hermeneutics of ontological gratitude’. To this end – and via a distinction between gratitude for existence and life – the essay considers Dawkins’ argument and Solomon’s work in further detail, before turning to consider various other perspectives on the problem including Kenneth Schmitz’s existential Thomist notion of ontological contingency, Hannah Arendt’s concept of primary natality, and Emmanuel Levinas’ sketch of the self in its interiority and economy. My claim is that any serious naturalistic spirituality needs to take into account not only a gratitude for one’s existence per se, but for the whole context of individual and collective being. (shrink)

Universities in the USA have become bastions of secularity in a distinctly religious society. As such, they are subjected to a variety of robust and rigorous religious critiques. In this paper I do not seek to engage in the debate between the supporters of the secular university and its opponents. Furthermore, I do not claim to summarize the history of the critique of the secular university, nor to present an exhaustive map of its current articulations. My purpose is rather (...) more limited and modest, namely, to locate some of the key arguments of the current religious criticism of the secular university and put them in a wider philosophical context. Exploring the philosophical infrastructure of this criticism enables not only a more comprehensive and profound understanding of it, but also urges us to rethink the purpose and essence of the university as an institution that both reflects and forms our society and culture. The article is structured as follows; first section puts the religious criticism of the secular university in the context of the latest wave of criticism levelled at contemporary universities. Second section explores the argument according to which the secularization of the university led to the loss of the ideal of education for excellence in the wide, classical sense of the term. Third section examines the theoretical foundations of the call to reintegrate religion in contemporary universities, while fourth section explores the various practical consequences of this demand. (shrink)

The growing influence of the late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in Christian theology is nowhere more apparent than in this impressive work by Daniel Colucciello Barber. Here diaspora is explored not as a sociological phenomenon but as a concept, a composition of thought that reveals the differential nature of the origins of Christianity and its others, religion and secularism. What seems to be at stake in the concept of diaspora, for Barber, is its ability to destabilize the logic of domination (...) that has been identified with much of the history of Christianity, and which arguably carries over into secularism as it is historically conceived.According to Barber’s view of the gospels, the Christian declaration—understood as the injunction to love one’s enemies and imitate divine perfection—provides a liberatory opening out of this logic of dominion and into the construction of new possibilities of human relatedness. How is it, then, that Christianity has historically been allied with .. (shrink)

Secular Religions: The Key Concepts provides a concise guide to those ideologies, worldviews, and social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena that are most often described as the modern counterparts of traditional religions. Although there are many other terms in use (quasi, pseudo, ersatz, political, civil, etc.), it is "secular religion" that best expresses the problematic nature of all such descriptions which maintain that modern belief systems and practices are secular on the one hand and religious on the other. Today, the (...) topic is as popular as ever, and secular religions are discovered far and wide. Hence, a critical summary is urgently necessary. The juxtaposed title is itself an expression of ironic distance. The book emphasizes inherent tensions of relevant literature in a critical and informative fashion. The author provides over 100 entries, from abortion to wokeness, as well as a detailed introduction, which gives an overview of the different definitions of "religion" and "secular religion" as well as the history of secular-religious comparisons. The main text reconstructs the argument of several key works on each given topic, while lists of sources for further reading are provided at the end of each entry. This book provides a clear introduction to "secular religions" and will appeal to researchers and students of religious studies, political philosophy, political theology, the history of ideologies, and cultural studies. (shrink)

_Secular Theology_ brings together new writings by some of America's most influential theological and religious thinkers on the viability of secular theology. Critically assessing Radical Orthodoxy and putting American radical theology in context, it provides new resources for philosophical theology. Themes covered include postmodern theology, ethics, psychoanalysis, the death of God and medieval theology.

In _René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis_, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible’s exposure of the (...) cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism._ In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard’s basic intellectual vision and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of “secularization” and “modernity,” as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard’s own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: “What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?” "Scott Cowdell's book is the first comprehensive study of modernity and secularity in René Girard's thought. Cowdell brings Girard's theory into a fruitful dialogue with leading approaches on secularization like those of Max Weber, Hans Blumenberg, Peter Berger, and Charles Taylor. Scholars and students of theology, philosophy, and sociology will benefit from this wide-ranging overview of the relationship between religion, modernity, and secularization." — Wolfgang Palaver, Institute of Systematic Theology, University of Innsbruck __ "In a stunning analysis, Cowdell shows that Girard’s sustained intellectual pursuit, which began in the 1960s with his mimetic analysis of modern realist fiction, has always been about the religiosity of the modern and postmodern social condition, even when it has dealt explicitly with the religious origins of antique culture. Cowdell demonstrates the 'highly explanatory and predictive' quality of Girard’s cultural anthropology, within which the 'secular' does not escape the 'religious.' This is a powerful book." — Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame __ "Scott Cowdell is one of the most interesting theological voices of his generation. The themes in Cowdell's work are always cosmic and vast in scope. This is a remarkable reading of our contemporary situation through the lens of René Girard. Accurate, informed, and illuminating, Cowdell has written a fabulous book. For the person needing a way into Girard and for the person who is already using Girard's work, Cowdell brings out the implications of Girard for the moment in which we live. An absolutely essential addition to your personal library." — The Very Rev Dr. Ian Markham, Virginia Theological Seminary_. (shrink)

Considering the enormous outpouring of scholarly work on Schmitt over the last two decades, the absence of an adequate treatment in English of Schmitt's concept of history and the problem of secularization is quite surprising. After all, it is Schmitt himself who claims that “all human beings who plan and attempt to unite the masses behind their plans engage in some form of philosophy of history,” such that the attempt to make sense of Schmitt's program remains incomplete without a serious (...) treatment of his philosophy of history. This article is an attempt to address this problem by means of his exchange with Hans Blumenberg who, more than any other critic of Schmitt, was privy to the political intentions behind Schmitt's metaphorical use of theology. While their discussion is extensive and wide-ranging, I focus here on their diverging philosophies of history, precisely that aspect that is most relevant to gaining a more expansive understanding of Schmitt's arguments, and indeed the relationship between political thought and historical thought. (shrink)

Secular people are strangely ambiguous. They feel a tension between what they don't share and what they have in common-between avoiding religion and embracing something like it. An event as ordinary as a wedding can be uncomfortable if it feels too religious, and even for those who are indifferent to religion, a passing reference to God can be cringeworthy. And yet, religion is tough to avoid completely without living in its remainder. The Secular Paradox explains why. Relying on several years (...) of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, Blankholm shows how secular people are both absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like tradition, which includes beliefs and institutions, as well embodied practices. Recovering this tradition makes legible what secular people share with one another and explains why the secular movement in the United States remains predominately white and male. Humanistic Jews, Hispanic Freethinkers, Ex-Muslims, and black nonbelievers are secular misfits whose stories reveal the contours of the secular most clearly by proving to be more and less than what remains when Christianity is removed. The Secular Paradox offers a radically new way of understanding secularism and secular people by explaining the origins of their inherent contradiction and its awkward effects on their lives. This new understanding matters for anyone who has ever avoided something because it felt too religious, everyone who considers themselves secular, and all those who want to understand them better. (shrink)

Secularization is a polysemantic word quite difficult to explain. If it is viewed as being characterized by two processes related to the religious changes of society and the social changes of religion, then there can be little pertinent utilization of this term in theology. This is what I’ll try to explain in this articleKey words: secularization, state and church, theology, evanghelization.

Comparing and contrasting nonreligious and religious perspectives on ethics and morals has perhaps attracted the greatest attention of any secular study area. There are indeed negative preconceptions about seculars that express worries about how morality can be preserved without the influence of religion. The research begins with definitions and categories of morality, along with current views on how they came to be and how to evaluate them. Examined are secular attitudes and actions in areas including prosociality, violence, criminal activity, drug (...) usage, sexual orientation, helping, and altruism. Secular morality is showing a trend in many sectors towards prioritizing individuals above group affiliation. General morality among secular people favors moral consequentialism over deontology and reasoning over intuition. Religious ethics explain that society can only be improved if human beings have a pure soul. So, we can say that religious Ethics have a main focus on the improvement of spirituality and the soul of human beings for a peaceful society. So, this is also a point of divergence between secular Morality and Religious Ethics. (shrink)

Full-Blooded religion is not acceptable in mainstream bioethics. This article excavates the cultural history that led to the suppression of religion in bioethics. Bioethicists typically fall into one of the following camps. 1) The irreligious, who advocate for suppressing religion, as do Timothy F. Murphy, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. This irreligious camp assumes American Fundamentalist Protestantism is the real substance of all religions. 2) Religious bioethicists, who defend religion by emphasizing its functions and diminishing its metaphysical commitments. Religious defenders (...) empty religion of its theology to present its feel-good functions in a way that is acceptable to the irreligious. However, religion reduced to its functions dissolves into a counter-culture that may counteract materialism but lacks the power to motivate much more. This article criticizes both camps, as both presume Enlightenment myths and consequently neuter religion. Both irreligious and religious bioethicists commonly presume Enlightenment myths about secularity and religion. Secularity is presumed neutral and rational. Religion is presumed divisive and irrational. This myth provides built-in value-judgements; we have already judged secularity as good and religion as bad. Much of the debate over religion in bioethics is arguing over false stereotypes of religion. Consequently, mainstream bioethics neuters religion, while the irreligious are gifted political power to define the field. (shrink)

Despite much discussion of thedigital divide, little academic work hasdirectly analyzed the specific political andpolicy contexts in which the concept is beingdeveloped and deployed. This paper undertakesan analysis of one such initiative, theactivity of the supranational DigitalOpportunity Task Force (DOT Force). Theanalysis provides a critical discursiveanalysis of the final report of the DOT Force,together with thick description of theprocesses by which it was produced. Theresolution of numerous antagonisms between theparticipants in the narrative of the finalreport reflects the field of power (...) in which theDOT Force operates. The issue of the digitaldivide can be best understood as providing agenerative resource through which the variouspolitical interests represented in the DOTForce process can normatively reconfigure theconceptual and ethical possibilities itsignifies to renew a dominant, singular'secular salvation story' of the global. Thespecific closure, articulation and legitimationof the digital divide instantiates anaction-oriented temporality and a transformedmoral agenda, from a concern with inequality toa pressing inclusionary imperative to connectwith the promise of technology and development. (shrink)

This article identifies a disciplinary disconnection between secular and religious feminisms. While areas of study such as women’s, gender and feminist studies, and disciplines like feminist studies in religion, spirituality and theology advance understanding of gender relations, they are forms of analysis that rarely keep company. As we argue, there is a disconnection grounded in a sacred/secular divide evident through the different stages of the women’s movement and feminist history. Not only is this disciplinary disconnection mutually unhelpful, but it has (...) implications for the ways gendered religious and secular discourses operate in the public square and therefore, has implications for the future of feminist theology. This article first identifies the lack of relationship between secular and religious feminisms illustrated in three interrelated ways: secular feminisms’ neglect of women’s religious experiences; feminist religious studies’ reservedness; and the sacred/secular binary operating in the academy. We then suggest this disconnection extends to the most recent expressions of feminism – the third wave. This article then discusses what both disciplines lose from a lack of dialogue and what might be gained by a closer relationship; particularly when contemporary events in the public sphere highlight the importance of paying attention to the way women’s experiences, and secular and religious discourses interact. (shrink)

Drawing on group rights theory, author argues that a group organized around a religious motif should neither be summarily excluded from nor unduly favored in secular deliberations as to public policy and practice. To arrive at this conclusion he examines the implications of each of the following claims: (1) individuals need to operate in and through groups to influence government; (2) a political system faces moral difficulties if it is open to group-generated input; (3) worthy causes can be better advanced (...) by organized groups than by unconnected individuals; and (4) this is so whether the cause is advanced by a religious or by a non-religious group. (shrink)

Controversies arise over abortion, assisted dying and conscientious objection in healthcare. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between attitudes towards these bioethical dilemmas, and secularity and religiosity. Data were drawn from a 2017 web-based survey of a representative sample of 1615 Norwegian adults. Latent moderated structural equations modelling was used to develop a model of the relationship between attitudes. The resulting model indicates that support for abortion rights is associated with pro-secular attitudes and is a (...) main “driver” for support for assisted dying and opposition to conscientious objection. This finding should be regarded as a hypothesis which ought to be tested in other populations. If the relationship is robust and reproduced elsewhere, there are important consequences for CO advocates who would then have an interest in disentangling the debate about CO from abortion; and for health systems who ought to consider carefully how a sound policy on CO can safeguard both patient trust in the services and the moral integrity of professionals. It is suggested that if religiosity wanes and pro-secular and pro-abortion attitudes become more widespread, support for CO might decline, putting into question whether present policies of toleration of conscientious refusals will remain acceptable to the majority. (shrink)

Religious systems are organised semiotic structures providing people with values and rules, identities, regularity, and meaning. Consequently, a person moving out of a religious system might be exposed to meaning-ruptures. The paper presents the situation of young people who have been in Yeshiva, a rabbinic high-school, and who have to join secular university life. It analyses the changes to which they are exposed. On the bases of this case study, the paper examines the following questions: can the religious symbolic system (...) internalised by a person in a religious sphere of experience be mobilised as a symbolic resource once the person moves to a secular environment? If yes, how do religious symbolic resources facilitate the transition to a secular life? And if not, what other symbolic and social resources might facilitate such transitions? (shrink)

This study argues that the bond between ‘secularization’ and ‘de-legitimation’ is not only borne out in debates over grand historical narratives relating to the status of modernity, as argued by Hans Blumenberg, but in debates over the appraisal of specific modern philosophical programs as well. It does this by examining how the category of ‘secularization' is used to delegitimize Martin Heidegger's thought, from both theological and secular perspectives, by two of his former students, Hans Jonas and Karl Löwith. By analysing (...) their interpretation of Heidegger and their understanding of secularization, legitimacy, and the philosophy-theology relationship, this study sheds light on the intellectual projects of these three thinkers – master and two students – and demonstrates the application of secularization as a hermeneutical category of de-legitimization on the basis of ‘insufficiency’ – either insufficiently secular or insufficiently religious. (shrink)

Despite its promises, the Islamic state of Iran has systematically prioritized political considerations over religious precepts, inadvertently generating a reformist religious discourse that challenges the very foundations of the Islamic state. This article conceptualizes the religious secularity discourse and the paradoxes ingrained in the Islamic state. The religious secularity discourse rejects the notion that Islamic holy texts offer a blueprint for governance and calls for the secular democratic state to realize the core principle of Islam: justice [ Adl]. (...) Towards this end, inclusive secular democratic principles champion a socio-political polity conducive to the cultivation of genuine religiosity, whereby faith and religious practices are free of coercion by fellow citizens or state institutions. By blurring the boundary between the religious and the secular and challenging the religious secular dichotomy, religious secularity highlights the relevance and possibility of harmonizing Islamic and inclusive secular democratic principles. (shrink)

Despite its promises, the Islamic state of Iran has systematically prioritized political considerations over religious precepts, inadvertently generating a reformist religious discourse that challenges the very foundations of the Islamic state. This article conceptualizes the religious secularity discourse and the paradoxes ingrained in the Islamic state. The religious secularity discourse rejects the notion that Islamic holy texts offer a blueprint for governance and calls for the secular democratic state to realize the core principle of Islam: justice [Adl]. Towards (...) this end, inclusive secular democratic principles champion a socio-political polity conducive to the cultivation of genuine religiosity, whereby faith and religious practices are free of coercion by fellow citizens or state institutions. By blurring the boundary between the religious and the secular and challenging the religious secular dichotomy, religious secularity highlights the relevance and possibility of harmonizing Islamic and inclusive secular democratic principles. (shrink)

What is secularity? Might it yield or define a distinctive form of reasoning? If so, would that form of reasoning belong essentially to our modern age, or would it instead have a considerably older lineage? And what might be the relation of that form of reasoning, whatever its lineage, to the Christian thinking that is often said to oppose it? In the present volume, these and related questions are addressed by a distinguished group of scholars working primarily within the (...) Roman Catholic theological tradition and from the perspectives of Continental philosophy. As a whole, the volume constitutes a conversation among thinkers who agree in their concerns but not necessarily their conclusions. Taken individually, each essay concentrates on a range of historical developments with close attention to their intellectual and sometimes pedagogical implications. Secular reason, they argue, is neither the antipode of Christian thought nor a stable and well-resolved component of it. Christian thinking may engage with secular reason as the site of profound difficulties, but on occasion will also learn from it as a source of new insight. _Christianity and Secular Reason_ contributes to the contemporary discussion of secularity prompted especially by Charles Taylor’s book _A Secular Age_. Unlike Taylor's work, however, this collection concentrates specifically on secular _reason_ and explicitly on its relation to Christianity. In this sense, it is closer to Michael J. Buckley’s _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ or, to a lesser degree, Louis Dupré’s _Passage to Modernity_, which concern themselves with broad cultural developments. "This volume offers a variety of perspectives, some historical, some normative/constructive, on the questions of the relations between politics/culture/religion and the relations between selfhood/humanity/world. The essays are, without exception, of high quality in both scholarly-exegetical terms, and constructive-normative ones. The writers are learned, sometimes witty, and often interesting." —_Paul Griffiths, Duke Divinity School _ "This is no other volume I know of that covers just this ground. There is a substantial literature on, for example, the Habermas/Ratzinger exhange, and on Kant's view of the relation between philosophy and religion, and on the twelfth century background for thirteenth century reflection on this relation. The merit of _Christianity and Secular Reason_ is that it holds these threads together, and others besides, in a new and fruitful way." —_John E. Hare, Yale University_. (shrink)

The national standards for clinical ethics consultation set forth by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities endorse an “ethics facilitation” approach, which characterizes the role of the ethicist as one skilled at facilitating consensus within the range of ethically acceptable options. To determine the range of ethically acceptable options, ASBH recommends the standard model of decision-making, which is grounded in the values of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. has sharply criticized the standard model for presuming (...) contentful moral claims in circumscribing the range of ethically acceptable options, which, he argues, cannot be rationally justified in a pluralistic context. Engelhardt’s solution is a secular clinical ethics based on a contentless principle of permission. The first part of this article lays out Engelhardt’s negative claim, that reason cannot establish contentful moral claims, and his positive claim, that secular clinical ethics ought to be based on a contentless principle of permission. The second part critiques these negative and positive claims. The purpose of this paper is to defend secular clinical ethics expertise—defined as the ability of ethicists to offer justified moral recommendations grounded in consensus positions endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities—from the radical critiques of Engelhardt, who argues that no moral or metaphysical claims, and hence no bioethical consensus, can be rationally justified. Engelhardt’s critiques have caused some to worry that secular clinical ethics is in a state of theoretical crisis; this article concludes that Engelhardt’s view is an unstable basis for that worry. (shrink)

SummaryThis study examined the secular changes in height, body weight, body mass index and pubertal development in male children and adolescents in Krakow over the past 80 years, with an emphasis on the last decade. The survey of the population of Krakow is a continuation of observations conducted in that area for many years. The analysis aims to determine whether in the last decade Krakow still witnessed the secular trend, and what form the trend took. The body height and weight, (...) and body mass index, of 1862 boys aged 3.5–18.5 years were analysed, against the background of a survey series from the years 1938, 1971, 1983 and 2000. The mean body height, in almost all age categories, was greater than in the past; however the final height over the last decade remained the same. The mean values of body weight and BMI increased, especially in the last decade. Also, an acceleration of puberty in boys was observed. The last 10 years saw an over 3-month decrease in the age of initial appearance of pubic hair in boys. In conclusion, the last decade saw cessation of the growing taller trend: maximum body height stabilized at approximately 179 cm, but weight and BMI increased. Also, a distinct acceleration of puberty was noticed. Lack of height increase, at the same time as weight gain and puberty acceleration, indicate a progressing developmental disharmony. (shrink)

Daniele Guastini’s book Immagini cristiane e cultura antica is one of the most significant contributions to the current debate on the role of Christian images. The choice of images made by Christianity since the third century – this is the main thesis of the work – represents one of the generative moments of the long-lasting process of secularization that came to characterize Western culture. This essay aims to discuss this thesis, contextualizing it both from a theological point of view and (...) in relation to its philosophical and cultural-historical significance. I then dwell on two questions more directly related to the interpretation of the Christian image in the first millennium: the relationship that the iconographic practice of the Christian origins has with the Jewish and pagan context, and the role that the interpretation of the “Byzantine turn” plays in the overall structure of the Guastini’s book. (shrink)

Moral pluralism poses a foundational problem for secular clinical ethics: How can ethical dilemmas be resolved in a context where there is disagreement not only on particular cases, but further, on...

Given the popularity and success of the Hindu-Right in India's electoral politics today, how may one study ostensibly 'Western' concepts and ideas, such as the secular and its family of cognates, like secularism, secularisation and secularity in non-Western societies without assuming them simply as derivative, or colonial legacies or contrast cases of Western societies? While recognizing that the dominant language of political modernity of Western societies is not easily translatable in non-Western societies, The Secular Imaginary elaborates upon an intellectual (...) history of secularity in modern India by focusing on the two most influential political leaders – M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It is an intellectual history of both idea(s) and intellectuals, which sheds light on Indian narratives of secularity – the Gandhian sarva dharma samabhava, Nehruvian secularism, and unity in diversity. It revisits this dominant narrative of secularity of the twentieth century that influenced and shaped the imagination of the modern nation-state. (shrink)

This article shows that the conspicuous and consistent idiosyncrasy of Grotius's Biblical interpretation is an important part of his revolutionary effort to secularize natural law. In De iure praedae and related works, Grotius systematically deployed a range of exegetical techniques in order to demonstrate that the Bible, like all texts, is open to multiple interpretations and susceptible to hijacking by rival agendas. This strategy aimed to render the Bible inadmissible as evidence in legal disputes and political legitimacy claims. The consistent (...) instrumentality of Grotius's use of the Bible in IPC cannot be dismissed as mere legalistic opportunism or described as an atheistic move. Rather, Grotius's exegetical strategy was motivated by pacifism and a desire to protect religion from politicization. The article positions this secularization strategy in the intellectual environment of the Leiden Circle, and shows how competing Catholic, Calvinist, and Mennonite political readings of the same key biblical passages during the Dutch-Iberian conflict provided the immediate occasion for writing IPC. In order to construct a natural law theory that was independent from, and therefore acceptable to, all religious sides, it was necessary to ensure that the Bible have no final word in law or politics, lest its invocation link disagreements to belief and thereby render them impossible to resolve. (shrink)

Besides geographical boundlessness, the claim to totality that characterizes universal histories comprises a temporal horizon, which reaches from the Creation to the end of the world predestined to Christians. The article examines the role of religious approaches on the one hand and secular points of view on the other in the transformation of eschatology into the idea of an open future shapeable by humans. The analysis focusses first on works by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). While the above-mentioned transformation is usually (...) interpreted as a process of secularization, this article reveals a reliance on religious hopes for the afterlife, also and especially where progressistic expectations for the development of the individual as well as of humanity were articulated. A second step leads back into the early eighteenth century. A frontispiece of 1717 already expressed the idea of an “open future” conceived secularly as a “space of time” to be shaped by human beings according to their own interests and guided by the experiences of the past. The article closes with a discussion of the reasons for the return of religious ways of thinking in the late Enlightenment, which becomes particularly apparent in universal- historical expectations of the future. (shrink)

The increasing secularization of political thought between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries has often been noted, but rarely described in detail. The contributors to this volume consider the significance of the relationship between religious beliefs, dogma and secular ideas in British political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes to J.S. Mill. During this period, Britain experienced the advance of natural science, the spread of education and other social improvements, and reforms in the political realm. These changes forced religion to account for itself (...) and to justify its existence, both as a social institution and as a collection of fundamental articles of belief about the world and its operations. This book, originally published in 1990, conveys the crucial importance of the association between religion, secularization and political thought. (shrink)

Explores the notion of "sacred secularity," a non-dualistic concept of reality in which everything is interrelated.