The Secular Outlook

The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism shows how people can live together and overcome the challenge of religious terrorism by adopting a "secular outlook" on life and politics. Shows how secularism can answer the problem of religious terrorism Provides new perspectives on how religious minorities can be integrated into liberal democracies Reveals how secularism has gained a new political and moral significance. Also examines such topics as atheism, religious criticism and free speech

Provides a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers. Jacob reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. She takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Turin, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Jacob demonstrates how secular values and pursuits took hold of eighteenth-century Europe, spilled into the American colonies, and left their lasting imprint on the Western world for generations to come. --Adapted from publisher description.

If the secular university by definition is non-sectarian or non-denominational, then how can it accommodate a discipline like Christian theology? Doesn’t the traditional goal of theological study, which is to attain knowledge of the divine, fundamentally conflict with the main goal of secular academic study, which is to attain knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live? So why should theology be admitted, or even care about being admitted, into secular academic life? And even if theology were admitted, what contribution to secular academic life could it make? Working from a Christian philosophical and theological perspective but also engaging a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and religious studies scholars, Christian Theology and the Secular University takes on these questions, arguing that Christian theology does belong in the secular university because it provides distinct resources that the secular university needs if it is going to fulfill what should be its main epistemic and educative ends. This book offers a fresh and unique perspective to scholars working in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and religious studies, and to those in other academic disciplines who are interested in thinking critically and creatively about the place and nature of theological study within the secular university.

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, when 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.

The Secular Rabbi is an intellectual biography of Philip Rahv, co-founder of Partisan Review, which T.S. Eliot called the best American literary periodical. It focuses on the ambivalent ties that Rahv, a Russian immigrant, retained to his Jewish cultural background. Drawing on letters Rahv wrote to her mother from 1928 to 1931, when he was still named Philip Greenberg, Doris Kadish delves into the complex and enigmatic character of a man admired by luminaries as diverse as George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Saul Bellow, Elizabeth Hardwick, and William Styron. Textual analyses of Rahv's works are woven together with other disparate materials: historical accounts, genealogical records, memoirs by Rahv's colleagues, friends, and associates, interviews with persons who knew him, and the abundant body of secondary scholarship devoted to the New York intellectuals, the history of Partisan Review, and Jewish studies. Kadish positions herself in relation to Rahv in attempting to understand her own Jewish identity. In tracing Rahv's personal, political, and literary evolution, Kadish sheds light on such literary movements as modernism, proletarian literature, and Jewish writing as well as movements that defined American political history in the 20th century: immigration, socialism, communism, fascism, the cold war, feminism, and the New Left.

Exploring the relationship between religion and the state Focusing on the intersection of religion, law, and politics in contemporary liberal democracies, Blackford considers the concept of the secular state, revising and updating enlightenment views for the present day. Freedom of Religion and the Secular State offers a comprehensive analysis, with a global focus, of the subject of religious freedom from a legal as well as historical and philosophical viewpoint. It makes an original contribution to current debates about freedom of religion, and addresses a whole range of hot-button issues that involve the relationship between religion and the state, including the teaching of evolution in schools, what to do about the burqa, and so on.

Are we still secular? If not, what can one possibly mean by “post-secular”? The answers depend on what one considers secular as well as the people, societies, and institutions that one considers. Post-Secular Society argues for the experience of living in a secular world and a secular age and the experience of living without religion as a normal condition. Religion in the Western world is often described as being marked to some degree by both innovation and disarray. The past couple of decades have seen the emergence of reformulated versions of theories of secularization, variants of rational choice and supply-side models of religion, and new theoretical perspectives on de-secularization of religion. In spite of these different approaches and perspectives, a majority of scholars agree that the West is experiencing a general “resurgence” of religion and that the public visibility of religious actors and discourses is on the rise across most Western societies. Post-Secular Society discusses the changes in religion related to globalization, as well as New Age and other forms of popular religion. The contributors review religion that is rooted in the globalized political economy, and the relationship of post-secularism to popular and consumer culture. They also detail current innovative discourse as a religious belief system; discuss theories of the post-secular, religious, and spiritual well-being; and consider healing practices in Finland and environmentalism.

This is a timely contribution to the debate on the rights and liberties of religion, beliefs, and conscience in an age of secularization.