[Nicholas Wolterstorff’s fear of the secular from The Immanent Frame by Jonathon Kahn
The truly dynamic discussion in America today about religion and politics is not between "wall of separation" secularists and Christian political theologians attempting to turn American into a theocracy. Instead, the promising but fledgling discussion is between religious and non-religious democrats who are acutely aware of the two horns of this essential American dilemma. First, one has a right to express one's convictions in whatever terms one holds them, including religious terms; second, one cannot assume that one's fellow citizens' convictions are shaped by the same terms. For Jeffrey Stout in Democracy and Tradition, this is the “sense in which the ethical discourse of most modern democracies is secularized.” Stout’s latest work can be read as an attempt to revalue the ideas of secularity and secularization by sharply distinguishing them from secularism, which entails the policing of religious commitments from the public square. Secularization is not secularism. Under secularization, it is reasonable to be religious, and it is in this sense that John Milbank is right in claiming that the “logic of secularism is imploding.”]
[Re: Larger Issues of "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo" Controversy Debashish Thu 19 Feb 2009 05:19 AM PST. It seems darshan only made sense as part of a lifestyle summed up by the slogan "All life is yoga." But he regretted that few people read anything these days and those who did read had little clarity of mind or training in reading to understand what was being said. Moreover many who even professed that "all life is yoga" found it more convenient to adulate since it absolved them of their own need to realize. Sort of like Jesus Christ has done it for us all so mankind needn't do anything except pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ and persuade or coerce more and more people to do the same.]
Toeing a democratic line of action is the right course. [TNM]
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