Worship Weblog
Monday, August 20, 2007
Unenlightened Enlightenment assumptions in ‘The Politics of God’
For the first few hundred words, the cover story in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, “The Politics of God,” seemed like a standard wasn’t-the-Enlightenment-great rant about how irrational religion is. So I skipped ahead to the last paragraph, which is somewhat more ambiguous (as are the author’s views of religion as reflected on in this article). But overall it seems like this book (of which the article is an excerpt) is just the latest in a long line of authors wringing their hands over Islam and the West who still see religion as a malfunction of reason. So I assume I’m not missing much by tuning most of them out.
Update: Doug Koopman writes in an e-mail, “As his basic objection to religion is that it becomes politically messianic, my main rejoinder would be that politically-relevant religion is not necessarily that way, and non-religion certainly not devoid of imperialistic or abusive tendencies.”
Update: Comprehensive critique here in the Asia Times
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