Mark Lilla
I may build this into a longer Zone Note (if you don't receive my Zone Notes email me at blayneyc@earthlink.net) but in the meantime I wanted to alert you to the end piece in today's (Sunday) NY Times Book Review by Mark Lilla, titled "Church Meets State."
It is particularly interesting because Lilla was a religious conservative until he spent some years in Europe and learned more about the historical role of religion in European politics.
I doubt he will persuade true born-again people, and he certainly will not dissaude politicians who have found riding the dangerous stallion of fanatic personal and charismatic religion a dependable mount from which to attract votes.
But if you want to better understand the chasm we are leaping into in this country in this unholy alliance, Lilla describes it well in this short article. And he explains why those of us who are unrepentant heirs to the 19th century liberal tradition need to become more vigilant in monitoring what goes on in the public square. It will not do for us to dismiss the matter.
It is not for nothing that portraying the conflict we are in in the middle east (and across the globe, thanks in no small part to our foreign policy) as a "crusade" (Bush backed away from the word, but not the idea.) has put us into a quagmire to which there is no visible end or solution. In a clash between religious ideology, annihilation of one or the other becomes the only possible end.
Reason and religion need not clash.
It is particularly interesting because Lilla was a religious conservative until he spent some years in Europe and learned more about the historical role of religion in European politics.
I doubt he will persuade true born-again people, and he certainly will not dissaude politicians who have found riding the dangerous stallion of fanatic personal and charismatic religion a dependable mount from which to attract votes.
But if you want to better understand the chasm we are leaping into in this country in this unholy alliance, Lilla describes it well in this short article. And he explains why those of us who are unrepentant heirs to the 19th century liberal tradition need to become more vigilant in monitoring what goes on in the public square. It will not do for us to dismiss the matter.
It is not for nothing that portraying the conflict we are in in the middle east (and across the globe, thanks in no small part to our foreign policy) as a "crusade" (Bush backed away from the word, but not the idea.) has put us into a quagmire to which there is no visible end or solution. In a clash between religious ideology, annihilation of one or the other becomes the only possible end.
Reason and religion need not clash.
posted by Blayney at 3:14 PM
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