Making Sense Of The Secular

This book offers a wide range of critical perspectives on how secularism unfolds and has been made sense of across Europe and Asia. The book evaluates secularism as it exists today – its formations and discontents within contemporary discourses of power, terror, religion and cosmopolitanism – and the focus on these two continents gives critical attention to recent political and cultural developments where secularism and multiculturalism have impinged in deeply problematical ways, raising bristling ideological debates within the functioning of modern state bureaucracies. Examining issues as controversial as the state of Islam in Europe and China’s encounters with religion, secularism, and modernization provides incisive and broader perspectives on how we negotiate secularism within the contemporary threats of terrorism and other forms of fundamentalism and state-politics. However, amidst the discussions of various versions of secularism in different countries and cultural contexts, this book also raises several other issues relevant to the antitheocratic and theocratic alike, such as: Is secularism is merely a nonreligious establishment? Is secularism a kind of cultural war? How is it related to "terror"? The book at once makes sense of secularism across cultural, religious, and national borders and puts several relevant issues on the anvil for further investigations and understanding.

This book offers a wide range of critical perspectives on how secularism unfolds and has been made sense of across Europe and Asia. The book evaluates secularism as it exists today – its formations and discontents within contemporary discourses of power, terror, religion and cosmopolitanism – and the focus on these two continents gives critical attention to recent political and cultural developments where secularism and multiculturalism have impinged in deeply problematical ways, raising bristling ideological debates within the functioning of modern state bureaucracies. Examining issues as controversial as the state of Islam in Europe and China’s encounters with religion, secularism, and modernization provides incisive and broader perspectives on how we negotiate secularism within the contemporary threats of terrorism and other forms of fundamentalism and state-politics. However, amidst the discussions of various versions of secularism in different countries and cultural contexts, this book also raises several other issues relevant to the antitheocratic and theocratic alike, such as: Is secularism is merely a nonreligious establishment? Is secularism a kind of cultural war? How is it related to "terror"? The book at once makes sense of secularism across cultural, religious, and national borders and puts several relevant issues on the anvil for further investigations and understanding.

Making Sense of the SecularCritical Perspectives from Europe to Asia; Copyright; Contents; Introduction: Making Sense of the Secular; Part I: Europe; 1 Formations of the Secular State and Islam in Britain Today; 2 The Evolution of French Secularism; 3 How Do You Say 'Secular' in Italian?; 4 Manifest Secularisation Processes in Turkey and Belgium; 5 Secularism in Eastern Europe; Part II: Asia; 6 The Truth about Secularism; 7 The Dark Hour of Secularism: Hindu Fundamentalism and Colonial Liberalism in Indi; 8 Elisions and Erasures: Science, Secularism and the State-The Cases of India and Pakistan9 Sacred Modernism or Secular Space: The Ornamental Politics of Religion in Sri Lanka; 10 When Will China Become More Religious?; 11 The Secular and the Spiritual in Contemporary Japanese Society; 12 Korea's Path of Secularisation; 13 Political Secularisation in Indonesia; 14 Secularism in Malaysia; Contributors; Index.- This book offers a wide range of critical perspectives on how secularism unfolds and has been made sense of across Europe and Asia. The book evaluates secularism as it exists today - its formations and discontents within contemporary discourses of power, terror, religion and cosmopolitanism - and the focus on these two continents gives critical attention to recent political and cultural developments where secularism and multiculturalism have impinged in deeply problematical ways, raising bristling ideological debates within the functioning of modern state bureaucracies. Examin.

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.

This book deals with the popular interest in spirituality, and physicists' interest in God, as opposed by the new atheists. It also considers the role of God in a secular society.

A sociology professor examines the demographic shift that has led more Americans than ever before to embrace a nonreligious life and highlights the inspirational stories and beliefs that empower modern-day secular culture.

In 2017, Anne Bokma embarked on a quest to become a more spiritual person. After leaving the fundamentalist religion of her youth, she became one of the eighty million North Americans who consider themselves spiritual-but-not-religious, the fastest growing “faith” category. In mid-life she found herself addicted to busyness, drinking too much, hooked on social media, dreading the empty nest and still struggling with alienation from her ultra-religious family. In response, she set out on a year-long whirlwind adventure to immerse herself in a variety of sacred practices—each of which proved to be illuminating in unexpected ways—to try to develop her own definition of what it means to be spiritual. In My Year of Living Spiritually, Bokma documents a diverse range of soulful first-person experiences—from taking a dip in Thoreau’s Walden Pond, to trying magic mushrooms for the first time, booking herself into a remote treehouse as an experiment in solitude, singing in a deathbed choir and enrolling in a week-long witch camp—in an entertaining and enlightening way that will compel readers (non-believers and believers alike) to try a few spiritual practices of their own. Along the way, she reconsiders key relationships in her life and begins to experience the greater depth of meaning, connection, gratitude, simplicity and inner peace that we all long for. Readers will find it an inspiring roadmap for their own spiritual journeys.

We live in an age of scepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it's easy to wonder: why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites sceptics to consider that Christianity is as relevant now as ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice and hope - and Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet all these needs. Written for both sceptic and believer, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.