http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:22:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/04/28/islam-and-authority/ http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/04/28/islam-and-authority/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:49:20 +0000 John Bowen http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=238 In his new book, Abdullahi an-Na`im argues that Muslims need a secular state to live their religious lives. Alongside his immensely informative account of modern developments, he makes a sustained argument against state enforcement of Islam along two major lines. First, it makes no religious sense for a state to force Muslims to follow God’s will, because Muslims should act from conviction and choice. An-Na`im makes a second argument that is parallel to the first: not only is it futile and religiously counter-productive to enforce Islamic piety, but doing so also distorts and impoverishes religion.]]> http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/04/28/islam-and-authority/feed/ 0 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/11/19/the-scope-and-uses-of-secularity/ http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/11/19/the-scope-and-uses-of-secularity/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:14:20 +0000 John Bowen http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/11/19/the-scope-and-uses-of-secularity/ Early in Charles Taylor’s study, he remarks that the secular condition, in which belief is an option and religion a distinct domain, is not the case everywhere: in Muslim societies generally, and for people in religious moments in the West: pilgrims at Czestochowa or Guadalupe, for example. We could add: and for people growing up in believing Baptist communities in Nebraska or Mennonite ones in Manitoba or Hindu ones in Gujarat or Bali. [...]]]> http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/11/19/the-scope-and-uses-of-secularity/feed/ 0