John Sealey; Commitment and Criticism in Religious Education Religious, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 279–290, http.

Accounts of religion, like almost all influential academic and intellectual exercises, as indeed much else, in the last two or three centuries, have generally been the work of Western scholars and intellectuals, often less familiar with, but sometimes simply disinclined to take seriously, non-Western religious traditions. Consequently most of these accounts have tended to be parochial, failing to apply to, say, Eastern religions, not to mention so-called ‘primitive’ religions; and have often given to what should only have been ‘local (...) squabbles’ the appearance of universal religious concern. As a result, even philosophers of religion have largely explicated what might be called the ‘prescriptive grammar’ of religion. With a view to rectifying the situation, I intend to outline what I hope will be a ‘ descriptive ’ account, i.e. one which will be true of at least the major living religions of the world, e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and their main schools or sects. Inevitably, such a general account will fail to incorporate the unique features of any one religion; but it should have the advantage of restoring the proper perspective in debates concerning religion and religious issues, including those relating to the semantic and/or logical features of religious belief and so-called ‘religious language’. (shrink)

John Sealey; Commitment and Criticism in Religious Education Religious, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 279–290, http.

John Sealey; Commitment and Criticism in Religious Education Religious, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 279–290, http.

What do religious statements tell us? The epistemology of statements to which believers dedicate their lives is of critical importance. Richard Bevan Braithwaite (1900-1990), who considers the statements of religion from a non-cognitive but conative perspective, thinks that even if the religious statements cannot be verified, they can be empirically meaningful. This meaning is analogical, drawing policy of life like in moral judgments. According to Braithwaite, these statements have no truth value as in science; the stories told in (...) a religious language only psychologically support the person to maintain the lifestyle. In short, Braithwaite eliminates the cognitive dimension of religious statements by focusing on the conative aspect. Thus, he tries to make religion meaningful so as not to get caught in the verification principle. We aim to analyze Braithwaite's theory of moral interpretation of religious language. In the introduction part of our study, we will explain the dominant paradigm of the period between 1920-1955 to reveal the reasons that prepared Braithwaite for his empiricist approach to religious belief. In this way, we will handle the verification principle, which is the cornerstone of logical positivism. Afterward, we will try to evaluate Braithwaite's ideas on the moral interpretation of the religious statements under two titles. First of all, we will try to answer from Braithwaite's point of view why religious statements cannot pass the verification test. For this, we will present the reasons for not including religious expressions in the empirical, hypothetical, and analytical categories, respectively, and we will present our criticisms. In the second part, we will find an answer to the question of where the religious statements will take place. We will touch on Braithwaite's effort to make religious expressions meaningful by charging functionality, and we will evaluate the criticisms. Afterward, we will discuss the similarities and differences between religious and moral statements and examine the problems that may arise due to Braithwaite's theory. In addition, we will evaluate Braithwaite's attitude concerning the religious stories and the criticisms toward him to distinguish religions with the same moral action. As a result, we will reveal Braithwaite's perspective on the subjectivity of religious belief and point out the possible drawbacks in terms of theism. (shrink)

This review essay explores Josiah Young's project of developing a liberatory Pan-Africanism that is attuned to cultural diversity and Victor Anderson 's advocacy of postmodern cultural criticism in African - American religious thought. After situating African - American religious thought as a branch of Africana thought, the author examines these two religious thinkers' work as an effort to forge a position on African - American religious thought--including its relation to theology--in an age where even theory (...) is treated as a god that is about to die. At the conclusion, secularism emerges as a religious project that normatively undergirds the methodological dimensions of these works. (shrink)

This article aims at showing the potentiality of Transcendent Theosophy in the creation of peace and denial of religious violence. Belief in Necessary Being that is identical to beauty and perfection is one of the central issues in Islamic philosophy, particularly Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Theosophy. This belief has different stages, the highest one of which is a love-based sense of humbleness before God who is the source of beauty. Thus, faith in the thought of Mulla Sadra is one of (...) the aesthetic categories. Surrender to such a Being leads to love in him and his effects. Thus, in Transcendent Theosophy, love in God is followed by the love in people. This love is associated with the sense of responsibility and the effort for the realisation of people’s rights. In the final part of the article under the title ‘Mulla Sadra and Confrontation of Two Types of Religious Understanding’, through the analysis of Mulla Sadra’s dialogue with a religious radical, we have criticised the discourse of religious violence and concluded that Transcendent Theosophy is a defender of human rights and a pioneer of peace and a despiser of religious violence. The most important finding of this study is that according to Mulla Sadra, religious radical interpretations are the source of the emergence of religious violence, and the solution to this problem is the promotion of rational and conscious religiosity. The method used in this research is of descriptive-analytic type.Contribution: The article brought to fore the potentiality of Islamic philosophy for the realisation of peace and the denial of religious violence. The authors analytically studied Mulla Sadra’s pacifist foundations in order to ascertain its relation with non-violence towards humans. The main contribution of this article is that the teachings of Transcendent Theosophy are very useful for creating peaceful coexistence between human beings. (shrink)

This article examines the issues raised by recent legislation proscribing incitement to religious hatred. In particular, it examines how far arguments for prohibiting racist hate speech apply also to the prohibition of religious hate speech. It identifies a number of significant differences between race and religion. It also examines several questions raised by the prohibition of religious hate speech, including the meaning and scope of religious identity, why that identity should receive special protection, and whether protection (...) should be directed to religious groups as groups or to their individual members. The central argument of the article is that the distinction between protecting religious groups from vilification and protecting their beliefs and practices from criticism—a distinction on which the British Government placed great emphasis in defending its legislation—is unsustainable. That conclusion is supported by the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights in cases in which it has upheld the curtailing of freedom of expression for the sake of protecting religion. (shrink)

A familiar criticism of religious belief starts from the claim that a typical religious believer holds the particular religious beliefs she does just because she happened to be raised in a certain cultural setting rather than some other. This claim is commonly thought to have damaging epistemological consequences for religious beliefs, and one can find statements of an argument in this vicinity in the writings of John Stuart Mill and more recently Philip Kitcher, although the (...) argument is seldom spelled out very precisely. This paper begins by offering a reconstruction of an argument against religious beliefs from cultural contingency, which proceeds by way of an initial argument to the unreliability of the processes by which religious beliefs are formed, whose conclusion is then used to derive two further conclusions, one which targets knowledge and the other, rationality. Drawing upon recent work in analytic epistemology, I explore a number of possible ways of spelling out the closely related notions of accidental truth, epistemic luck, and reliability upon which the argument turns. I try to show that the renderings of the argument that succeed in securing the sceptical conclusion against religious beliefs also threaten scepticism about various sorts of beliefs besides religious beliefs. (shrink)

In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines how (...) philosophers such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world. (shrink)

This is an anthology of literary, religious, and philosophical texts from the entire Middle Ages and the early modern age that address already quite explicitly religious toleration and even tolerance.

이택후는 모종삼을 중심으로 하는 현대신유학의 유학3기설이 말하려는 주장의 핵심을 心性論 중심의 철학으로 이해하고 있다. 그는 심성론을 통하여 중국유학을 규정하려는 모종삼의 시도는 매우 편향된 관점으로 荀子나 漢代유학이 가진 특색을 말살하고 있는 것으로 보고 있다. 이택후는 현대신유학은 이론구조나 사변적 깊이, 그리고 창조적 수준을 막론하고 모두 송명이학을 조금도 넘어서지 못했고 또한 새로운 해석을 제기하지도 못했기 때문에 이택후는 현대신유학을 ‘現代宋明理學’이라고 부른다. 이택후는 유학4기설을 통하여 유학3기설의 관점이 內聖에 치우쳐 현대적 의미의 外王을 실질적으로 전개해 내지 못하는 것에 대해 비판하고 宗敎性道德과 社會性道德이라는 관점을 통하여 전통적인 내성외왕을 해체한다. (...) 전통유학이 가진 정치 · 윤리 · 종교의 三者合一체계를 해체하는 일차적인 작업이 바로 종교성 도덕과 사회성 도덕으로 나누는 시도이다. 이런 이택후의 시도는 전통유학의 내성이 외왕을 결정하는 汎道德主義的인 구조와는 ‘다른 길을 개척한’ 유학4기설의 기본 방향이다. (shrink)

Religious therapeutics is the term I use to designate relations between health and spirituality, and medicine and religion. Dimensions of religious therapeutics include religious meanings that inform medical theory, religious means of healing, health as part of religious life, and religion as a remedy for human suffering. Classical Yoga is analyzed to establish an initial matrix of religious therapeutics with 5 branches: philosophical foundations, soteriology, value theory, physical practice, and cultivation of consciousness. Through comparative (...) criticism of classical Yoga, the study presents a heuristic of religious therapeutics: a model for interpreting relations among healing and liberative functions in world religions. ;Body and health are of instrumental but not ultimate value in classical Yoga: the body is used to transcend itself for attainment of Yoga's soteriological goal, realization of self as pure consciousness. Yoga's Samkhya-based metaphysics contains an unreconciled dualism, and while practice of Yoga is paradigmatic of mind/body holism, Yoga prescribes realization of a spiritual self, independent of material and psychological nature. The study rehabilitates the body in respect of the compatibility of embodiedness with religiousness. ;Other Indian and world traditions suggest dimensions of religious therapeutics both resonant with classical Yoga and lacking from it. India's Ayurvedic medicine represents the sixth branch of religious therapeutics: medical therapeutics. I distill from Ayurvedic and Western sources a set of determinants of health: biological, medical/psychological, cultural, and metaphysical. Significant determinants of health are wholeness, self-identity, and freedom; these are incorporated in discussion of the complementary functions of medicine and religion, grounding the claim that in classical Yoga, liberation is healing in an ultimate sense. ;Tantric yogas utilize material nature for human spiritual progress, and unlike classical Yoga, esteem nature, body/mind, the feminine, and relationality. Tantra provides another branch of religious therapeutics: aesthetic therapeutics. The study anticipates elements of health/medicine in western religions, Buddhism, and Lakota religious philosophy. Sacred speech and song are explored to demonstrate comparative inquiry into religious therapeutics; some Native American Indian and Hindu applications of sacred language are considered. Finally, the model of religious therapeutics is supplemented with community, embracing ecological, social, and religious relationality and communication. (shrink)

New Atheists and Anti-Theists (such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hutchins) affirm that there is a strong connection between being a traditional theist and being a religious fundamentalist who advocates violence, terrorism, and war. They are especially critical of Islam. On the contrary, I argue that, when correctly understood, religious dogmatic belief, present in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is progressive and open to internal and external criticism and revision. Moreover, acknowledging that human knowledge is (...) finite and that humans are fallible and have much to learn, dogmatic religious believers accept that they ought to value and seek to acquire moral and intellectual virtues, including the virtues of temperance and reasonability. (shrink)

In a very literarily complicated setting, Frater Taciturnus sets a remark about Hamlet not being a Christian tragedy. After unpeeling that literary setting and noting that Taciturnus' remark aims more at Jacob Börne than at Shakespeare, the paper shows how Frater Taciturnus' remark calls into question the religious project of a certain danish author. For, Taciturnus' primary concern is to show that religious drama is not possible, or at least "ought not be." This general law applies to Hamlet (...) as well, and if Shakespeare was attempting a religious drama he a) shouldn't have because such a thing is essentially undramatizable, and b) failed because he did not begin (which would be possible) by showing the hero's religious presuppositions. Frater Taciturnus himself has given considerable thought to the extent and the manner in which the religious can be represented; in fact the letter to the reader is his proof of how perfectly his own narrative, "Guilty/Not Guilty," was constructed with precisely these problems in mind. The play is not the thing that Taciturnus is really interested in, nor is he interested in the playwright's intentions, he considers that the play's the thing that catches out Börne's misunderstanding of the religious, and it is this field—in particular, that area where the religious life and literary art intersect, that is the brother's interest and forte. But if Taciturnus is correct in his criticism of Börne, it should be impossible for S. Kierkegaard to produce a religious authorship as well. (shrink)

This study discusses the treatise of Jalāl al-Dīn Davvānī (d. 908/1502) named Risāla fī taʻrīf ʻilm. This treatise criticizes a definition of knowledge adopted by some theologians in the late period (mutaʾakhkhirīn). The definition of knowledge at issue consists of three components: Attribution, discernment, no possibility of contradiction. Knowledge is an attribute as a category and with this attribution, a discernment is obtained. As a result of this process knowledge is acquired and there should be no possibility of this knowledge (...) to be inconsistent. Davvānī examines eight possibilities of the definition on knowledge. In each of these eight possibilities a different problems arises. According to Davvānī, the definition mentioned is problematic in all probability. Nonetheless, Davvānī does not propose another definition of knowledge that can replace the definition of knowledge that he criticizes. This article represents the process of reaching the definition of knowledge stated in the history of theological thought. The definitions on knowledge made from the first period (al-mutaqaddimīn) are summarized and the strengths and weaknesses of these definitions are explained. There are two main approaches regarding the nature of knowledge in Islamic thought: According to the first approach pioneered by Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1202), absolute knowledge is a priory (badīhī) and undefinable. According to the second one, the nature of absolute knowledge is a posteriori (naẓarī) and definable. The first part of this article includes the definitions and criticisms of knowledge in Islamic thought. The second part discusses the claim of originality. In the second part, Davvānī’s treatise will be evaluated for the first time. According to the conclusion of the treatise, the definition made to find the essence of knowledge is unfounded in all respect. It is important to evaluate the treatise as a reflection of anti-essentialism in the history of Islamic thought. Most contemporary studies do not count this treatise among Davvānī’s works. In the biography book al-Aʿlām written by Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī (d. 1976), Risāla fī taʻrīf ʻilm is counted among the works of Davvānī. In the introduction of more than one manuscript, the work is clearly attributed to Davvānī. As a result of the double-sided research, it has been ensured that the work belongs to Davvānī. However, in other two manuscripts containing the same treatise, the work is shown as belonging to an unknown person named Şāirzāda. But there is no information found about this person. This name seems more like a copyist (mustansıh) than an author. Possibly, such a mistake occurred as a result of confusing the two names. Davvānī’s small volume treatise sheds light on the intellectual atmosphere and level of its period. The definition of knowledge mentioned in the classical theology book of ‘Aḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī (d. 756/1355) called al-Mawāqif is superior to other definitions of knowledge. Instead of this definition of knowledge, which is presented as perfect, Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) preferred the definition of knowledge attributed to al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) in the Sharḥ al-Mawāqif. This preference has been accepted as an implicit criticism for future generations, including Davvānī. Those who claimed that Jurjānī did not taken a random choice, carried on their criticism by going over the definition. The fine craftsmanship revealed in the treatise reveals that critical thinking is used intensively. The properly understanding of the treatise depends on knowing the science of logic and following it with intense attention. The definition of knowledge is examined from various angles with the help of concepts such as conception, ratification, judgment and contradiction (nakz) of the science of logic. In the science of logic, every layer of knowledge such as certainty, conjecture, imitation, doubt is investigated one by one. In the science of kalām, attention is paid that the ideal level of knowledge is precise. An uncertain knowledge is not considered knowledge according to kalām. Because the main goal of theologians is to build religious beliefs on the obtained certain knowledge. It is not accepted to base knowledge to a probable information on imprecise knowledge. For a knowledge among the knowns to reach the level of certainty, it must be correct and exclude other possibilities. Another condition is required for certainty in the definition of knowledge that Davvānī examines in his treatise is that the opposite is wrong. The fact that a piece of information is considered true depends on the fact that its reverse is false. In this treatise, it is discussed how to look for the contradictions or discrepancy that are wanted to be excluded. Knowledge is inseparable from the human mind, from outside of the world, or from the relationship between the two. (shrink)

The way in which people change and represent their spiritual evolution is often determined by recurrent language structures. Through the analysis of ancient and modern stories and their words and images, this book describes the nature of conversion through explorations of the encounter with the religious message, the discomfort of spiritual uncertainty, the loss of personal and social identity, the anxiety of destabilization, the reconstitution of the self and the discovery of a new language of the soul.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 211-222 [Access article in PDF] Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness C. Jason Lee DESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the (...) magic works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind."This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations.Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal.After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things... (shrink)

Taking a new look at the language of ‘religious experience’, the authors in this contribution take into review this aspect in the current theological discussion, and in the church pew, asking the question: Does George Lindbeck’s criticism of the experiential-expressive model of religion still have something to say to us? Firstly, Lindbeck is reviewed and recouped. Then, religious experience and its commodification are discussed, at the hand also of the heritage from Schleiermacher onwards on experience. Taking a (...) position within the post-modern, relativist, critical realist and pragmatist possibilities, a community-embedded sense of truth is concluded to without sacrificing the possibility of universalising claims. Is it possible, though, within the cultural reflex towards psychologised faith to retain a historically oriented depth? (shrink)

The imsāk time, which was declared by adding the tamkīn time to the time when the sun was 19 degrees below the horizon until 1982, was changed to -18 degrees as of 1983 with the new application of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, and the tamkīn practice was completely abolished. The change decision, which caused heated discussion and confusion in the public, caused some criticism and accusations to the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs. In particular, it is (...) seen that criticism focus on two issues: The first is whether the moment when the enlightenment of sun first appears or the moment when it spreads well will be taken as the basis for determining the al-fajr al-sādiq, which is the beginning time of fasting. The second is whether the altitude angle of the sun will be -19 degrees or -18 degrees in determining the al-fajr al-sādiq. According to the claimers, on both issues, Islamic scholars prefer the first view, while European Christian astronomy scholars prefer the second view. The Presidency of Religious Affairs, on the other hand, abandoned the view of Islamic scholars and adopted the view of Christians. This article deals with the examination, analysis and criticism of the criticism made by Prof. Dr. Ahmet Şimşirgil about the change in the beginning of the fast and also expressed by some calendar makers. The aim of the study is to determine whether the arguments put forward in the criticisms expressed by the claimants are correct. In other words, this study deals with the criticism of the criticisms directed at the change in the time of imsāk. In the study, whether the of the parties to the relevant decision of the Presidency of Religious Affairs and the evidence they put forward overlap with the information in the basic fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and astronomy works, based on text analysis, is discussed in a comparative way. There is no consensus among the scholars of fiqh and astronomy on the both issues according to the obtained results, and the evidence put forward for the criticism does not prove the claims. The research is important in terms of making a critical contribution to the current imsāk debates, which occupy a large part of the society, and placing the discussions on a scientific basis. (shrink)

Many religious critics argue that biotechnology (such as cloning and genetic engineering) intrudes on God's domain, or plays God, or revolts against God. While some of these criticisms are standard complaints about human hubris, I argue that some of the recent criticism represents a “Promethean” concern, in which believers unreflectively seem to fear that science and technology are actually replicating or stealing God's special deity–defining powers. These criticisms backfire theologically, because they diminish God, portraying God as an anthropomorphic (...) superbeing whose relevance and special nature are increasingly rivaled by human power. (shrink)

This chapter sharpens the book’s criticism of exclusivist responsible to religious multiplicity, firstly through close critical attention to arguments which religious exclusivists provide, and secondly through the introduction of several new, formal arguments / dilemmas. Self-described ‘post-liberals’ like Paul Griffiths bid philosophers to accept exclusivist attitudes and beliefs as just one among other aspects of religious identity. They bid us to normalize the discourse Griffiths refers to as “polemical apologetics,” and to view its acceptance as the (...) only viable form of pluralism. This reasoning may seem initially plausible, but on closer examination his and other’s defence of the reasonableness of exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity fall apart. Informed by our study of luck-leaning theological explanations of religious difference and the counter-inductive thinking they exemplify, I argue that exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity are best explained by personal and group bias, and that a discourse between exclusivist authors or sects is beyond the pale of reasonable disagreement. Our study of descriptive (psychological) and prescriptive (religious) fideism in the first sections of Chapter Five suggests that we turn back to formal features of doxastic methods (i.e., of how people process), features that may be straightforwardly tested for in studies utilizing scales of religious orientation. These formal features allow us to better recognize not only the multiplicity of models of faith that religious adherents adhere to, but also that the relationship between forms of fideism is scalar: there is a spectrum of views running from rationalism to fideism, and at the fideistic end from moderate to strong forms of religious fideism. I further explain why developing tests and markers for a high degree of fideistic orientation is important to all those who study religion. The second half of the chapter turns to criticism or censure of exclusivist attitudes to religious multiplicity, in contrast to apologetic defenses of exclusivism. While we have examined the close connections between fideism and fundamentalism, and again between fundamentalism and exclusivism in earlier chapters, a sharper focus reveals an important but little-recognized distinction reflected in the literature: the distinction between religion-specific (or particularist) and mutualist exclusivism. The mutualist doesn’t talk just about the right of adherents of one specific religion to assert exclusivism, but the adherents of any and all “home” religions. I argue that some previously unrecognized problems for the reasonableness of exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity are brought to light when we make the distinction between the two basic ways to understand the claim that exclusivists are making. I put particularist (Barth, Lindbeck, Plantinga) and mutualist (Griffiths, Gellman, Margalit, D’Costa) defenses of exclusivism on the horns of a dilemma, and argue that despite the popularity it presently enjoys among post-liberal theologians, a close examination reveals that the very conceptual coherence of mutualist exclusivism is in serious doubt. (shrink)

I want to argue…that to read Rossetti’s religious poetry with understanding requires a more or less conscious investment in the peculiarities of its Christian orientation, in the social and historical particulars which feed and shape the distinctive features of her work. Because John O. Waller’s relatively recent essay on Rossetti, “Christ’s Second Coming: Christina Rossetti and the Premillenarianist William Dodsworth,” focuses on some of the most important of these particulars, it seems to me one of the most useful pieces (...) of scholarship ever written on the poet. The essay locates the special ground of Rossetti’s religious poetry in that peculiar Adventist and premillenarian context which flourished for about fifty years in mid nineteenth-century culture. In point of historical fact—and it is a historical fact which has enormous significance for the aesthetic character of Rossetti’s poetry—her religious verse is intimately meshed with a number of particular, even peculiar, religious ideas.18 From the vantage of her strongest poetry, the most important of these ideas were allied to a once powerful religious movement which later—toward the end of the century—slipped to a marginal position in English culture.The whole question [of premillenarianism] was overshadowed first and last by the Tractarian Movement, Anglo-Catholicism, and the resulting Protestant reaction. And we can see in retrospect that all through the years [1820-1875] the theological future actually belonged to liberal, or Broad Church, principles. By the middle 1870s, apparently [the issues raised through the premillenarian movement] were no longer very alive.19­­In this context we may begin to understand the decline of Rossetti’s reputation after the late nineteenth century, when she was still regarded as one of the most powerful and important contemporary English poets. Her reputation was established in the 1860s and 1870s, when Adventism reached the apogee of its brief but influential career. Thereafter, the availability of religious poetry was mediated either through the Broad Church line or through the High Church and Anglo-Catholic line . The premillenarian and evangelist enthusiasm which supported Rossetti’s religious poetry had been moved to the periphery of English culture when the canon of such verse began to take shape in the modern period.To read Rossetti’s poetry, then, we have to willingly suspend not only our disbelief in her convictions and ideas but also our belief in those expectations and presuppositions about religious poetry which we have inherited from those two dominant ideological lines—Broad Church and High Church and Anglo-Catholic. Waller has drawn our attention to the general premillenarian content of her work, and I should like to follow his lead by emphasizing another crucial and even more particular doctrinal feature of her poetry. 19. Waller, “Christ’s Second Coming,” p. 477. For a general discussion of millenarianism in the early nineteenth century, see J. E. Harrison, The Second Coming, Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 . Jerome J. McGann is the Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of Humanities at the California Institute of Technology. His two most recent books are The Romantic Ideology. A Critical Investigation and A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism . His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “Formalism, Savagery, and Care; or, The Function of Criticism Once Again” and “The Meaning of the Ancient Mariner”. (shrink)

In Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence, John Tillson sets out a clear and convincing case for the view that children ought not to be initiated into religious faith by their parents or others with the relevant ‘extra-parental responsibilities’. However, by predicating his thesis on an understanding of illegitimate religious influence that largely equates initiation into faith with the inculcation of a distinctive type of propositional content, I contend that Tillson misses some of the potential harms such (...) initiation may engender. Here I briefly explain why this is a problem before suggesting three ways he might respond to the criticism. (shrink)

Religion is one of the most powerful forces running through human history, and although often presented as a force for good, its impact is frequently violent and divisive. This provocative work brings together cutting-edge research from both evolutionary and cognitive psychology to help readers understand the psychological structure of religious morality and the origins of religious violence. Introduces a fundamentally new approach to the analysis of religion in a style accessible to the general reader Applies insights from evolutionary (...) and cognitive psychology to both Judaism and Christianity, and their texts, to help understand the origins of religious violence Argues that religious violence is grounded in the moral psychology of religion Illustrates its controversial argument with reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the response to the attacks from both the terrorists and the President. Suggests strategies for beginning to counter the divisive aspects of religion Discusses the role of religion and religious criticism in the contemporary world. Argues for a position sceptical of the moral authority of religion, while also critiquing the excesses of the “new atheists” for failing to appreciate the moral contributions of religion Awarded Honourable Mention, 2010 Prose Awards. (shrink)