This week I'm participating in a St. Thomas faculty seminar titled, "Must Knowledge Be Secular?" The seminar is being led by Notre Dame history prof Brad Gregory, and Brad is using it to try out portions of his forthcoming book, Disentangling the West: The Reformation Era and the Makings of Modernity. The book should generate lots of conversations on MoJ and elsewhere. He's pushing back against many of the dominant historical narratives, including the story that science's eclipse of theology was an inevitable byproduct of the nature of scientific inquiry. Brad complicates the story -- e.g., arguing that the widespread and seemingly unresolvable disagreements about Christian doctrine during the Reformation era helped drive the trend toward the privatization of religion and the secularization of knowledge. In order to move beyond the doctrinal disputes, the conversation retreated to a plane of "natural" reason, becoming more and more disconnected from substantive Christian claims.
The history has opened up a range of questions within the seminar: When a historian is open to theology, is that openness aimed simply at a better understanding of the subject, or should the openness encompass the possibility that theological claims are actually true? What would it look like for universities (secular as well as Christian) to make space for theology (or more broadly, the transcendent)? And should a Catholic university do more than "make space" for theology? If so, what exactly should it look like? In any event, Brad's work reflects the extent to which many of our current debates are shaped by the historical narratives we embrace.
Friday, May 21, 2010
One consequence of the rise of radical Islamic movements is my own temptation to buy into the notion, often promoted by media coverage, that we are faced with a simple choice: embrace secularism or embrace theocracy. If that's the choice, I'll opt for secularism, thank you very much. That might explain my own initial "I'm smiling a little inside even though I know I shouldn't be" reaction to "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." I oppose censorship, and I am concerned that threats of violence are inhibiting free speech. At the same time, I need to remember that respect for religion is not a sign of weakness but an act of strength.
Continue reading
Monday, May 17, 2010
I have an essay in the new Commonweal about the Christian Legal Society v. Hastings Law School case. It's only available to subscribers, but here's an excerpt:
[W]hen is discrimination “wrong?” Is there a difference between excluding someone because she is gay or black or female and excluding them because she refuses to affirm the immorality of homosexual conduct, the supremacy of whites, or the wisdom of patriarchy? If there is not a meaningful difference in terms of the harm to the person excluded, is there a meaningful difference in terms of the harm to the group’s shared identity posed by prohibiting such exclusions? More broadly, when does discrimination’s “wrongness” justify state intervention? Most Americans agree that the state should act to limit discrimination in the provision of goods that are essential to self-sufficiency – e.g., employment, housing, and education – and that the state should leave purely private groups alone – e.g., no one is clamoring for laws that would require the neighborhood bridge club to admit racial minorities. But many discriminatory groups are not depriving anyone of essential goods, nor are they purely private. A student group enjoys the resources of a state university. A religious charity seeks access to state funding in order to compete with the other charities receiving such funding. Where exactly should the line be drawn, and what values or harms help us decide that question?
We need to talk about why diversity is valuable, equality is essential, and discrimination is corrosive to the social fabric. Even more importantly, we need to identify the conditions under which these propositions are true. Given the vitriol that marks our political discourse these days, it is tempting to sidestep these conversations, but we cannot pretend that concepts – even our most cherished concepts – possess talismanic properties, as though they magically justify any project to which they are attached.
