The Secular and the Sacred: Complementary And/or Conflictual?

The issue of the relation of the sacred to the secular has become paramount in virtually every country in the world. From church-state relations in the US, with the debates around abortion and same-sex marriage, to the vitriolic discussions in France over the veil (hijab) sacred-secular, faith-reason, transcendence-imminence -- impacts every aspect of personal, social, and political life. Indeed, the questions often asked are whether Huntington s, Clash of Civilizations is today s reality? Is clash and conflict inevitable? This volume collects papers from scholars from all around the globe and digs into that question. Do the sacred and the secular necessarily end in conflict? Building on scholars such as Charles Taylor, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jurgen Habermaus, and John Rawls, as well as the world s great religious traditions, the authors assembled here respond with a nuanced, but resounding, NO. A deeper read demands the possibility, indeed, necessity, of complementarity. It has become ever more urgent to discover the proper and complementary relation between the two so that both can be promoted through mutual collaboration. The deeper implications of the discussion can be perceived in many current global problems: cultural identity, multiculturalism, pluralism, nationalism, economic inequality, race, terrorism, migration, public education, and climate change. The volume unfolds in seven sections: Foundations; Sacred and Secular; Complement or Conflict; Hermeneutics; African traditions; South Asian Traditions; Chinese Traditions; and Islamic Traditions. It is fascinating to observe how the various authors grapple with unfolding the relation of sacred/secular, faith/reason, church-mosque/state, transcendence/imminence. The section on Islam illustrates this. These chapters deal with the thorny, usually misunderstood debate between the scholars and those, westerners refer to as fundamentalists or radicals. In the latter, there is no space left to reason, interpretation, or historical criticism. This ugly divide usually emerges in the hot-button issues like the treatment of women and religion-related terrorism. However, these oversimplifications betray the intellectual roots of Islamic tradition. Here the argument is advanced that there are common and multiple meanings of rationality in the Islamic primary sources and that doctrine, the Qur an, and the Sunnah, open considerable space for the rational and the secular in Islamic teachings. Unknown to most in the West, the grappling within Islam goes on. Moreover, the grappling seems to be heating up in all traditions. We are all called to the discussion. Our globe needs it

Confronting Misconceptions and Acknowledging Imperfections: A Response to Khaled Abou El Fadl\u27s Islam and Democracy

Professor Abou El Fadl\u27s Article, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, demonstrates the need to move forward with knowledge of the nuance and depth of the historic, philosophic, legal, and theological foundations of both political stasis and political change in Muslim countries. The author comments on three aspects of Khaled Abou El Fadl\u27s paper. First, the author will juxtapose the discourse that Professor Abou El Fadl is stimulating with other perspectives in order to delineate the sets of actors in this debate among Muslims. The author will also argue that “Islamic exceptionalism,” so prominent in post-modern critiques, is unhelpful. Second, the author will comment on the centrality of Shari‘ah to the internal debate, and discuss widespread misconceptions about Shari‘ah among non-Muslims. Third, the author will comment on the problem of human agency and imperfect institutions. This imperfection becomes a critical issue when sacred texts are codified into secular law

Theological Foundations of Pastoral Care in Catholic Universities

One defining element of life in any Catholic educational institution, whether it be primary, secondary, or tertiary, is the focus on pastoral care for staff and students. This paper provides a distinctly Catholic definition of the term ‘pastoral care’ and briefly examines the theological foundations that underpin this concept, particularly, in relation to its application in the Catholic university. The paper traces the motif of pastoral care through the Scriptures and, building on insights from St. Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (1990) and the broader theological anthropology of the Vatican II Council. The paper highlights that pastoral care is not something of an extrinsically added offering to students in a Catholic educational institution, but rather something intrinsically built into its fabric

The Sacraments: Historical Foundations and Liturgical Theology

Book review by Angela McCarthy. Kevin W. IRWIN. The Sacraments: Historical Foundations and Liturgical Theology. New York: Paulist Press, 2016. 388 p

Lilly Endowment Annual Report 2015

During 2015, the Endowment paid grants totaling $435.5 million. Community development grants accounted for$200.4 million (46 percent), religion grants accounted for $124.1 million (29 percent) and education grants accounted for$111.0 million (25 percent). Most grants were paid to organizations in Indiana - a total of $257.8 million (59 percent). Of the payment total of$435.5 million, $107.9 million (25 percent) was paid to nonMarion County grantees in Indiana and$149.9 million (34 percent) to Marion County (Indianapolis) grantees. Organizations outside of Indiana received $177.7 million (41 percent). Most of these grants paid outside of Indiana were religion grants.The annual report includes a complete list of 2015 grants

Inspiration and Inerrancy in Scripture

Inspiration in Qur\u27anic revelation is quite different from the Catholic understanding. The incarnational principle through which the human faculties of the inspired writer are active in the very mode of receptivity seems to be understood differently by Muslims. Differences in understanding how the God who speaks is known by his creatures can lead to invaluable dialogue and mutual understanding for both of our Abrahamic traditions

Jung, Yoga and Affective Neuroscience: Towards a Contemporary Science of the Sacred

Materialist and fundamentalist reductive ideologies obscure our capacity to directly experience the numinous. Thus, importantly, given the weight of the observable and measurable in orthodox science, and oftentimes a dismissal of both the soul and the subjective, a viable means of reconciling science and religious experience has continued to elude us. As a counter-measure to this obscuration, Jungian-oriented depth psychology has developed as an empirical science of the unconscious, researching both subject and object and offering theories and practices that foster the psychospiritual development of the personality. Despite cultural and epochal differences, comparable evidence to Jung's process of psychospiritual development can be found in the Eastern liberatory tradition of Patañjali's Classical Yoga. However, given the elevated presence of neuroscience, no psychology, and especially no psychology that supports the soul, seems likely to survive much longer without finding an alliance with the objective measures of brain science. When considering the radically empirical measures of Jung and Patañjali, affective neuroscience may offer us a contemporary and objective means of languaging the bridge between the transcendent and immanent and fostering a contemporary science of the sacred

Book Reviews

The Sacred River: Coleridge\u27s Theory of the Imagination (James V. Baker) (Reviewed by James Benziger, Southern Illinois University) The Rational and Social Foundations of Music (Max Weber, trans. and ed. Don Martindale, Johannes Riedel, and Gertrude Neuwirth) (Reviewed by Richard A. Waterman, Wayne State University) Literature and Belief: English Institute Essays 1957 (M. H. Abrams, ed.) (Reviewed by Emerson R. Marks, Wayne State University) Literary Reviews and Essays (Henry James, ed. Albert Mordell) (Reviewed by Henry Popkin, Brandeis University

Theology: Also (Green) Religious Experience Seeking Understanding

Religious experience in contemporary theological epistemology is a theme broad enough to allow for many approaches. This essay grants the concept of \u27religious experience\u27 tentative validity, subject to later qualification. The actual experience explored will be a \u27green\u27 experience of non-human nature that many Christians have in common with many non-Christians. The first section describes it in a general way, while the second probes its character as a possible \u27religious experience\u27. Then, a third section begins to explore its theological significance. A conclusion emphasizes the essential, dynamic partnership between theological method and non-methodical elements, such as religious experiences in general and the \u27green\u27 experience in particular