Comments on: Contending Modernities http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/11/17/multiple-modernities/ Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Thu, 16 May 2013 19:41:38 +0000 hourly 1 By: Stephen Schneck http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/11/17/multiple-modernities/comment-page-1/#comment-40584 Stephen Schneck Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:52:50 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=19933#comment-40584 What is the status of those religious denominations that embrace what Professor Orsi describes as “the protections and rights offered by secular modernity, including women’s equality, the freedom of sexual identity, respect for children’s autonomy, and reproductive choice?” How are the mainline Protestant denominations doing in Europe and America over the last few decades?

The vitality of religiosity in the contemporary world has an unmistakable venue. For better or ill, that venue is not safely “modern” institutions.

Religious revival and growth are most evident in anti-Western madrassas, in Evangelical fundamentalism, in ultra-orthodox Judaism, in revived Hindu traditionalism, and among Catholics in ultramontane movements rebelling against what they perceive as the alleged modernist excesses of Vatican II. Sure there are exceptions—like in the charismatic spiritualism of immigrant Latinos. But we need to appreciate the larger pattern here.

We might not want to admit it, but any predictions about what would happen to a denomination if it unproblematically embraced modernism’s mores and values?

]]> By: Peter Paul Fuchs http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/11/17/multiple-modernities/comment-page-1/#comment-35351 Peter Paul Fuchs Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:05:55 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=19933#comment-35351 Robert Orsi’s reflections are very brilliant! If most scholars of Catholicism were as honest and forthright as Orsi, Catholicism would make great advances in the public arena, rather than becoming more insular. Thank you, Dr. Orsi!

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