Gillian Rose was a philosopher, social theorist, memoirist, and Jewish convert to Christianity who died an untimely death in 1995. She offers a novel account of faith, which grows out of her Hegelian philosophical background inflected by her reading of Kierkegaard and her rediscovered Jewish heritage. For Rose, faith is a mode of social practice. Rose's conception of faith is here reconstructed by translating her obscure jurisprudential idiom into the language of social practices and norms. The conception (...) of secular faith developed by Rose is shown to have implications for contemporary discussions of ethics and politics. The contemporary relevance of Rose's work is made clear through comparison with recent work by Robert Brandom, Robert Adams, and Patrick Deneen. (shrink)

Both in ethics and in epistemology one source of scepticism in its contemporary version is the realization, often belated, of the full consequences of atheism. Modern non-moral philosophy looks back to Descartes as its father figure, but disowns the Third Meditation. But if God does not underwrite one's cognitive powers, what does? The largely unknown evolution of them, which is just a version of Descartes’ unreliable demon? “Let us … grant that all that is here said of God is a (...) fable, nevertheless in whatever way they suppose that I have arived at the state of being that I have reached, whether they attribute it to fate or to accident, or make out that it is by a continual succession of antecedents, or by some other method — since to err and deceive oneself is a defect, it is clear that the greater will be the probability of my being so imperfect as to deceive myself ever, as is the Author to whom they assign my being the less powerful”. (shrink)

Attempts to reach an understanding of how to live a Christian life in the contemporary context have never been more necessary. This is the aim of the International Symposium: Beyond Secular Faith, an annual conference held in Granada, Spain. This volume represents the fruits of over seven years of scholarship. The title Beyond Secular Faith suggests we are interested in (re)discovering and reflectively elaborating ways to overcome the limits imposed by the dominant contemporary culture. We are (...) convinced that only a faith liberated from the conceptual restrictions and reductions (put forward by secular philosophy and theology) and centered radically on Christ can flourish in the dimension that is proper to faith; that is, in all spheres of human life. Featuring contributions from internationally recognized philosophers and theologians such as Tracey Rowland, Jarosław Jagiello, Rocco Buttiglione, Alison Milbank, Massimo Borghesi, John Milbank, and others, we will explore a diversity of questions from this common perspective: the light of revelation illuminates how Christians should live in the modern world, leading to a new beginning. (shrink)

A profound, original, and accessible book that argues that a faith not in God or eternal life, but in the finite, temporal life we lead here on earth is one that gives that life far greater depth of meaning. A manifesto for a truly secular faith that speaks eloquently to both believers and agnostics alike. The philosopher and critic Martin Hägglund believes that we need a new way of thinking about faith. In contrast to the traditional (...) religious faith in eternity, he proposes a secular faith in the value of living in time. He argues that the concept of an eternal heaven actually renders our mortal life meaningless since it assumes that our ultimate aims should be to escape it. Engaging writers and thinkers as diverse as C. S. Lewis, Kierkegaard, St. Augustine, Nietzsche, Martin Luther, and even Karl Ove Knausgaard, Hägglund provides not only a critique of religious ideals, but also a positive, alternative understanding of the beliefs and values that can motivate us to live lives of meaning in the here and now. (shrink)

It has been argued by Mancur Olson and others that Karl Mw:x’s theory of revolution is logically defective in that from its premises one cannot draw Marx’s conclusion that workers will unite to revolt against capitalism. Workers who might wish for large social changes are confronted with a collective action problem that Marx fails t0 appreciate—s0 runs the criticism. The critics are assuming that..

Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom offers a naturalistic, this-worldly theology with eloquence and heart. Nevertheless, from a religious studies perspective, there is a fair amount to criticize. This review essay identifies two shortcomings in this book and then develops a typology of religious teachings about eternal life in order to assess places where Hägglund’s critique succeeds.

Initial sketch of a concept of faith -- Facets of faith -- Faith and knowledge -- Faith and scientific knowledge -- Faith and morality -- Secular forms of faith -- Crises of faith -- My personal journey of faith.

Our global community desperately needs overt awakening to an age of reason and faith. Reasonable Faith for a Post-Secular Age meets this need by interpreting faith not in terms of belief in propositions but in terms of living surrender to having been seized by agape for every Face, including one's own. Virtually all faith traditions, from Buddhism to Humanism to Wiccan, are rooted in agape and therefore share considerable spiritual and ethical common ground (a truth (...) long veiled). In contrast to ethically feckless secular rationality--over which a devastating, global social Darwinism currently runs roughshod--faith qua living surrender to agape grounds moral realism, awakens us to love for all creatures, and inspires struggles for justice. Inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Christian spirituality, Greenway engages, on the one hand, intellectuals like Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Rorty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jeffery Stout, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams, and, on the other, contemporary debates over consciousness, free will, evil, and metaethics. He details the character of secular rationality's devastating scission from moral reality and clarifies the promise of understanding faith and spirituality in terms of agape. (shrink)

This volume offer a manifold approach to a less evident and until now much neglected undercurrent in the work of Hannah Arendt., namely her ambiguous relation to the Judeo-Christian relligious heritage. Arendt's dissertation was dedicated to the concept of love in the works of Augustine, where she set her tone and developmed her frame for approaching theological matters. Her understanding of secularity might provide a model for the reconciliation of secularization and the persistence of religious belief in the contemporary world. (...) Thought Hannah Arendt wad certainly and outspokenly a secular thinker, her work also harbors ways of understanding secularization as the possibility of a new, maybe even messianic, attitude towards finite life and earthly reality. She famously depicts this attitude as "faith in and hope for the world". --Book cover. (shrink)

In pre-democratic – also pre-modern – times, religion had been at the centre of much of human life, filling the private as well as the public realm of people’s daily existence. However, with the change to democratic rule in major countries in the modern world (see, most influentially, Article 1 of the French Constitution after the French Revolution and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, influencing all other democracies in their wake), religion has for the most (...) part reflexively been sidelined from public life. Or has it? Does religion not still hold a special place in law in democratic societies, but now in reverse? Firstly, whereas matters of religious faith had throughout the greater part of human history been included in matters of politics, it is now as a matter of course of law excluded, purposely so. Religion is thus still a ‘special case’, a unique aspect of humanity when compared to all other matters, in law as much as in politics and other aspects of public life. Secondly, in the post-secular cultural climate dawning across the world, matters of faith (religion, spirituality) are no longer as stringently excluded from public life, which impacts directly on how religion is touched upon in law, sociology, philosophy, music and other academic disciplines too. Our dawning post-secular age is bringing something new. Two scholars, who have been doing foundational work in this regard, have done so fully in parallel, not taking cognisance of the mutualities in their academic contributions. Otto in Munich, Germany, has been combining his two areas of expertise, the Pentateuch in the Hebrew Bible and the sociologist Max Weber, to indicate the trajectory through history of democratic impulses from Ancient Near Eastern founding documents into the current era. Benson in Sydney, Australia, has on his part been drawing on his expertise in law as practised in Canada and taught in Europe, South Africa and Australia to indicate how, in inclusively liberal democracies, law cannot justifiably be used to exclude religion from the public domain, as has been the usual modern case. Drawing together these parallel contributions, Lombaard places these initiatives within the emerging post-secular climate, which augurs a different way of being religious or non-religious, publicly as much as privately, in democratic societies in our time. (shrink)

At a time when there is a health care crisis in the United States, there is widespread appeal to religious healing of various types. Adequate research in this area is limited.Terms such as "ecstasy" are used inconsistently, limiting the usefulness of the term, producing confusion rather than understanding. A cross‐cultural comparative perspective is offered.

This book argues that hope is the indispensable precondition of religious practice and secular politics. Against dogmatic complacency and despairing resignation, David Newheiser argues that hope sustains commitments that remain vulnerable to disappointment. Since the discipline of hope is shared by believers and unbelievers alike, its persistence indicates that faith has a future in a secular age. Drawing on premodern theology and postmodern theory, Newheiser shows that atheism and Christianity have more in common than they often acknowledge. (...) Writing in a clear and engaging style, he develops a new reading of deconstruction and negative theology, arguing that they share a self-critical hope. By retrieving texts and traditions that are rarely read together, this book offers a major intervention in debates over the place of religion in public life. (shrink)

_A positive assessment of secularism and the possibilities it offers for a genuinely meaningful life without religion_ Although there is no shortage of recent books arguing against religion, few offer a positive alternative—how anyone might live a fulfilling life without the support of religious beliefs. This enlightening book fills the gap. Philip Kitcher constructs an original and persuasive secular perspective, one that answers human needs, recognizes the objectivity of values, and provides for the universal desire for meaningfulness. Kitcher thoughtfully (...) and sensitively considers how secularism can respond to the worries and challenges that all people confront, including the issue of mortality. He investigates how secular lives compare with those of people who adopt religious doctrines as literal truth, as well as those who embrace less literalistic versions of religion. Whereas religious belief has been important in past times, Kitcher concludes that evolution away from religion is now essential. He envisions the successors to religious life, where the senses of identity and community traditionally fostered by religion will instead draw on a broader range of cultural items—those provided by poets, filmmakers, musicians, artists, scientists, and others. With clarity and deep insight, Kitcher reveals the power of secular humanism to encourage fulfilling human lives built on ethical truth. (shrink)

Sacks argues that faiths must remain open to criticism, keep alive their separate communities and still contribute far more to national debates on moral issues. they m,ust also learn to get along better. His thesis is that we still live under a Biblical canopy and that a cohesive morality needs the uniting bonds of faith. Confidence in a faith is a subtle quality and lack of it shows in many ways, some contradictory. Dr Sacks has that confidence and (...) the quiet charisma to communicate it. The subject of this book - religions and ethics- is good ground for him to build on: The Jewish contribution to ethics is distinctly rational and has a long and illustrious tradition. Moral philosophy is after all a Jewish preoccupation. In recent years, he writes, religion has taken us unawares. The rise of the Moral Majority in the USA, the Islamic Revolution, the growth of religious parties in Israel, the power of Catholicism in Poland and the African continent all run contrary to the basic thesis that modernity and secularization went hand in hand and could almost be regarded as synonyms. Instead and against all prediction religion has resurfaced in the public domain. In this book Sacks argues the case for a broadly based return to tradition within the context of religious pluralism and tolerance. Religious values remain a strong force within our culture to be renewed. For our society to be viable indeed they must be renewed. (shrink)

In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible (...) results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address. In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time. (shrink)

In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible (...) results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address. In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time. (shrink)

Islam in the Post-Secular Society offers an interpretation of the struggles that Muslims face within secular western society, and attempts to find a path for a future reconciliation.

The chief motivation for undertaking this research comes from my encounter with Charles Taylor’s excellent work, “A Secular Age,” in which he not only analyzes the various historical manifestations of secularization in Western civilization, but also—and above all—tries to identify the newly emerging conditions in which forms of religious belief may develop on the threshold of the new millennium, in the context of what he himself describes as a secular age. My paper chiefly focuses on the fact that (...) the routes leading to, and attempts to bring about, a revival of Christian spirituality in the modern world, which Taylor describes in his book, were already a concern for many philosophers working at the start of the 20th century. One amongst these, the Austrian thinker Ferdinand Ebner, occupies a special position. Known to the philosophical world as one of the originators of dialogical thinking, Ebner uncovers the real key to the revitalization and consolidation of Christian spirituality in the form of the reality of the spoken word. First and foremost, his philosophy of the word constitutes a spectacular example of the intensive search for meaning in life: something not always easy for human beings in a secular age to discover and define for themselves. In this paper I also aim to present the basis for Ebner’s assertion of an inseparable link between the word and religious faith, and to show how this relationship founds a possibility for the renewal of Christian spirituality in the modern world. (shrink)

A concise look at the present "revolt" in both the Protestant and Catholic churches, a revolt hopefully leading to the radical re-structuring of the church so that it may serve today's "secular age," an age freed from thinking imposed "from above". Man in the secular age refuses to separate out a piece of life and call it sacred or religious, but instead sees Christ at work in "the events of our time," and struggles with him against destructive forces. (...) Although he emphasizes the positive aspects of secularization, Williams points to a danger in this process: the shrivelling of man's sense of life to the narrow limits of the here and now. The book is a brief, clear introduction to a number of contemporary theologians. Although it breaks no new ground and fails to show why "metaphysical" principles cannot be validly applied to temporal events, its message of revolt against outgrown ideas and institutions bears repeating.—S. A. S. (shrink)

This article analyses how faith-based civil society organisations have advocated the value-add of faith to governmental and non-governmental development actors in the highly secularised context of the Netherlands. Its social value lies in the space for reflexivity it opens up on how the religious and the secular are entangled in the field of development through shifting the gaze towards secularised Europe. Its academic value lies in how it combines the study of faith and development, with a (...) critical analysis of the secular formations in which much of the thinking around faith and development is shaped. The article builds on an academic study of and long-term engagement with the Dutch non-governmental organisation (NGO)-based Knowledge Centre Religion and Development (KCRD), offering a critical overview of the KCRD’s work between 2006 and 2016. Data were gathered through interviews, document analysis and participant observation as part of the academic research, as well as informal observations and analysis through professional engagement. The KCRD, because of its institutional setting, had to adopt an instrumental approach towards the role of religion in development, which prevented it from challenging the reigning secular paradigm in development and its biases towards faith-based actors. The article will recommend that future initiatives on faith and development more consciously anchor their approach to faith in their institutional practices and mainstream discussions on the European continent. (shrink)

In this short essay, we sketch a theory of faith that features resilience in the face of challenges to relying on those in whom you have faith. We argue that it handles a variety of both religious and secular faith-data, e.g., the value of faith in relationships of mutual faith and faithfulness, how the Christian and Hebrew scriptures portray pístis and ʾĕmûnāh, and the character of faith as it is often expressed in popular (...) secular venues. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Secular AgeJerry WallulisA Secular Age by Charles Taylor. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. Pp. x + 874. $39.95, cloth.It is almost a philosophical truism that the phenomenologist who is able to see more in the phenomenon will be wise to do so. While Charles Taylor may not explicitly advocate such a truism in The Secular Age, he is adamantly opposed to "subtraction stories" (...) regarding the secularization process in modern Western societies. His alternative narrative involves "seeing" a meaning to secularity that is deeper and truer to the past and present lived experience of both believers and nonbelievers. The length of that narrative (800+ pages) is obviously demanding but also arguably rewarding—even to the philosophical or social theoretical temperament initially inclined to see less in the process.A "subtraction story" of secularization describes the transition to modernity in terms of discarding or outgrowing a framework of beliefs that typically is viewed as an impediment. Such a story is normally situated within the context of one of the two most recognized meanings of "secularity." The first of these meanings involves freeing modern political organizations and other forms of public life from explicit connections to religious beliefs and institutions. The second meaning refers to a decline in religious belief and practice as measured, for example, in falling church attendance. Particularly with respect to the second meaning, a subtraction story is likely to attribute secularity to progress in scientific and normative inquiry that supplants and even replaces earlier religious thinking, action, and politics. [End Page 302]The third and deeper meaning of secularity involves what Taylor terms the "conditions of belief." The whole context of understanding what it is to believe has changed in the past five hundred years "from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others" (3). For Taylor this momentous transition is misunderstood as a subtraction process in contrast to a richer historical tracing of the sources of meaningful belief and unbelief. According to this rival account, religious belief continues and alters, even as a strong alternative to faith emerges ("exclusive humanism") but also, and equally, a plenitude (or "nova") of intermediate views or human possibilities.The dramatic change in the conditions of belief is accompanied by an equally marked historical shift in the situation of the self that is experiencing this transition. After the change a clear distinction is made between the mind and the body and between the self and the world. The strong distinctions between the "mental" and the "physical" and the "subjective" and the "objective" serve to mark firm boundaries in our experience. These boundaries function as "buffers" so that things that go beyond our mental states and subjective feelings do not need to cross over and upset or disorient us.For Taylor the premodern situation of the self was not characterized by firm boundaries but rather by "porous" ones. The difference is that the inside of earlier lived experience was neither just inside nor cordoned off from the outside of experience. Thus a powerful emotion was not limited to mind or self but was porous to the influence of outside powers that boded well or ill. Indeed the force of such outside things could be experienced as so strong and the vulnerability of the self so great as to make urgent the need for propitiation of or defense against a friendly or evil spiritual power.The transition from enchantment to disenchantment is not simply a change in beliefs, but in sensibilities within lived experience that affect what it is to believe. We find enchantment so difficult to comprehend because we are "buffered selves" who are open to kinds of meanings with clearly delineated boundaries. Earlier "porous selves" were open, by contrast, to the possibility of being dominated by a spirit or being taken over by a medium. Disbelief is difficult to imagine for porous selves, since "God figures in this world as the dominant spirit, and moreover, as the only thing that guarantees that in this awe-inspiring and frightening field of forces, good will triumph" (41... (shrink)

In the unlikely confluence of two colossal intellectual heritages, neo-Kantian Jürgen Habermas and Catholic prelate Joseph Ratzinger agree that we have entered a post-secular age. For both, the inauguration of such an age entails skepticism towards absolutist science and a growing recognition of the contributions of spiritual worldviews to social solidarity. Following their call for a multifaceted purification in the West whereby secular and religious commitments are subjected to mutual critique, I explore potential Eastern contributions to this process (...) by providing a micro-analysis of the interaction of discursive subjects in three traditions: for Confucianism, the rectification of names; Taoism, truth disclosure; and Buddhism, right speech. (shrink)

In the unlikely confluence of two colossal intellectual heritages, neo-Kantian Jürgen Habermas and Catholic prelate Joseph Ratzinger agree that we have entered a post-secular age. For both, the inauguration of such an age entails skepticism towards absolutist science and a growing recognition of the contributions of spiritual worldviews to social solidarity. Following their call for a multifaceted purification in the West whereby secular and religious commitments are subjected to mutual critique, I explore potential Eastern contributions to this process (...) by providing a micro-analysis of the interaction of discursive subjects in three traditions: for Confucianism, the rectification of names; Taoism, truth disclosure; and Buddhism, right speech. (shrink)

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Most professionally-qualifying youth work programmes in the UK are secular programmes in mainstream universities. Current UK National Occupational Standards require youth workers to ‘Explore the concept of values and beliefs with young people’. Faith organisations form the largest sector of the UK youth work field and all youth workers need to be equipped to work inclusively with diverse communities. This research explored, through a semi-structured survey sent to programme leaders, the coverage of religion, faith and spirituality in (...) youth work training courses in England. We found tensions in how religion, faith and spirituality are incorporated into programmes and how programme leaders think youth workers should engage with it in their practice. Where explicit content on religion, faith and spirituality is incorporated into training programmes, it tends to focus on controversial issues such as radicalisation. The survey revealed a lack of consensus across programme leaders as to how the NOS relating to values and beliefs should be interpreted and whether their graduates are being sufficiently equipped to work with diverse religious communities. The research exposes a need for more explicit recognition of the place of religion, faith and spirituality in youth work and in the curricula of secular training programmes. (shrink)

This book is devoted to articulating the connections between the nature and value of faith and humility. The goal is to understand these two virtues in a way that does not discriminate between religious and secular. Jon Kvanvig claims that each provides a necessary, compensating balance to the potential downside of the other.