The Secular And The Sacred Harmonized

It is the result of years of extensive and painstaking research. Within its pages are shocking, yet convincing revelations that force readers to reconsider what has been established as truths about mankind's past and purpose on planet Earth. It harmonizes the Biblical account of Creation and the Theory of Evolution. It applies historical events to the events described in the Biblical book of Revelation. It proves that the earth gods of antiquity are the biblical fallen angels, or demons, today's "extraterrestrials." It is non-proselytizing and reader friendly, and all theories are supported by scientific data, historical facts, and holy texts. It answers the age-old questions of: "Who are we?" "Why are we here?" and, "Where are we going?"

Among pivotal historical moments in the United States, the civil rights movement stands out. In Where the Sacred and Secular Harmonize: Birmingham Mass Meeting Rhetoric and the Prophetic Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, David G. Holmes offers an original rhetorical analysis of six speeches delivered during the 1963 civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama. Holmes frames his analysis within the biblical concept of prophecy. However, he stresses the idea of prophecy as sociopolitical forth-telling, rather than mystical foretelling. Based on his own transcriptions from rare recordings, Holmes examines how these orations, which clergy and laypeople delivered, address enduring themes such as the role of religion and politics, black leadership and black activism, and the political and popular legacies of the civil rights movement. Drawing upon American history, politics, hermeneutics, homiletics, and rhetoric, Holmes’s discussion ranges from civil rights prophets to contemporary politicians, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. Where the Sacred and Secular Harmonize illustrates how the Birmingham mass meeting oratory of 1963 represented a quality of democratic discourse desperately needed today.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

The sacred and the secular—or religion and secularity—differ from one another in many ways, but they must also frequently interact with and can instruct and benefit one another in today's world. This is especially so when neither is reduced to an uninformed distortion or stereotype by the other. Careful analysis of their relationships is needed. Such analysis is especially important in the contemporary world, where the two are being challenged, reshaped, and reformed by the sheer number of changing religious and secular perspectives—all of this taking place within the ferment of an increasingly global society. This book explores past and present ways of distinguishing the two with which Donald A. Crosby either takes issue with or finds to be congenial. It also proposes ways in which the two are not only meaningfully distinguished from one another, but also where their mutually beneficial relationships can be highlighted. A particular conception of the nature of religious faith is compared and contrasted with some influential types of secular faith.

Lessons from the world on how to be the church

The Secular Sacred starts with a concern for the loss of meaning and moral motivation that followed the decline of religious and traditional values subsequent to the attack on them from relativism and postmodernism. It investigates how we might find a new basis for moral action that rests on a rational and secular foundation. Drawing on Habermas's theory of communicative action it argues that, within communication, there are inherent presuppositions that are universal. This work proposes that we can approach these universals (truth, justice and authenticity) as a basis for an understanding of a secular sense of the sacred. Following a brief critique of multiculturalism The Secular Sacred suggests that religions still articulate an interesting approach to such deep existential issues as loss, suffering and death. All of these fail to find an adequate response in rationalist cultures. It seeks to 'translate' such religious concepts as anamnesis, consolation, the Kingdom of God, the sacred, redemption and sin into a secular framework that can inspire moral motivation. Because reason is an insufficient source of moral motivation it investigate how narratives, which act like myths, can be reflexively constituted and interpreted. The rich symbolic texture of myths can be a powerful means of encouraging people to engage in an identification with the values enshrined in the secular sacred. Myths have a strong connection with ritual practices. It explores this relationship and proposes that it is perfectly possible to create new rituals that consciously know themselves to be rituals and are, nevertheless, able to provide support for the psychological transformations that myths can procure. This reflexive approach to the secular sacred and myths is based on the cognitive, emotional and psychological competence of people. Throughout there is an investigation into how these competencies work and a consideration into a range of aspects of selfhood (autonomy, authenticity, intersubjectivity, decentredness). These competencies, assisted by mythological narratives and rituals, are essential in enabling an identification with a secular sacred that can provide a basis for moral motivation.