Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order

Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order

In: Columbia Series on Religion and Politics

Edited by: John Owen IV and J. Owen

Columbia University Press | 2011

https://doi.org/10.7312/owen15006

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Contents

About this book

Largely due to the cultural and political shift of the Enlightenment, Western societies in the eighteenth century emerged from sectarian conflict and embraced a more religiously moderate path. In nine original essays, leading scholars ask whether exporting the Enlightenment solution is possibleor even desirabletoday.

Contributors begin by revisiting the Enlightenment's restructuring of the West, examining its ongoing encounters with Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. While acknowledging the necessity of the Enlightenment emphasis on toleration and peaceful religious coexistence, these scholars nevertheless have grave misgivings about the Enlightenment's spiritually thin secularism. The authors ultimately upend both the claim that the West's experience offers a ready-made template for the world to follow and the belief that the West's achievements are to be ignored, despised, or discarded.

Author information

John M. Owen IV is associate professor of politics and faculty fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics and lives with his wife and three children in Charlottesville, Virginia.

J. Judd Owen is associate professor of political science and a senior fellow at the center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He is the author of Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism and is finishing a book on the Enlightenment's project of religious transformation. He lives with his wife and two children in Decatur, Georgia.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
I. The Enlightenment Revisited
1. Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order John M. Owen and J. Judd Owen Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	3
2. Religious Violence or Religious Pluralism William A. Galston Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	37
3. Religion, Enlightenment, and a Common Good Jean Bethke Elshtain Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	57
4. How and Why the West Has Lost Confidence in Its Foundational Political Principles Thomas L. Pangle Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	74
II. The Enlightenment, Secularity, and the Religions
5. The Enlightenment Project, Spinoza, and the Jews David Novak Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	109
6. Puritan Sources of Enlightenment Liberty John Witte Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	140
7. India Pratap Bhanu Mehta Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	174
8. Reason and Revelation in Islamic Political Ethics Abdulaziz Sachedina Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	194
9. Islam, Constitutionalism, and Liberal Democracy Sohail H. Hashmi Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	221
10. Religion and Politics Roberto Papini Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	240
11. Concluding Thoughts John M. Owen and J. Judd Owen Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	265
Contributors Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	275
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	279

Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order

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