Bøger af Brendan Sweetman

Can religion and politics mix? Many voices reply, "No way!"Yet in this provocative and timely book, Brendan Sweetman argues against this charge and the various sophisticated arguments that support it.As we witness the clash of religious and secular worldviews he claims that our pluralistic democratic society will be best served when the faith elements of secularism are acknowledged and the rational elements of religious arguments are allowed to inform the momentous debates taking place in the public square.In fact, Sweetman contends that "politics needs religion if it is to be truly democratic, concerned with fairness among worldviews, equality and a vigorous public discussion."

This book argues that contemporary liberal democracy is reaching a crisis. Brendan Sweetman contends that this crisis arises from a contentious pluralism involving the rise of incommensurable worldviews that emerge out of the absolutizing of freedom over time in a democratic setting. This clash of worldviews is further complicated by a loss of confidence in reason and by the practical failure of public discourse. A contributory factor is the growing worldview of secularism which needs to be distinguished from both the process of secularization and the concept of the secular state. After describing the crisis, and exploring these themes, and also rejecting proposed solutions from recent liberal political theory, Sweetman develops an approach to pluralist disagreement which requires a re-envisioning of the relationship between religion, secularism and politics, and which allows a limited place for all worldviews in the state, including religious worldviews. Engaging with the work of Philip Kitcher, Robert Audi, John Rawls, A.C. Grayling, Martin Luther King, Cécile Laborde, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, and Plato, Sweetman's approach is a formidable innovation in the quest to maintain a free and fair society.

This anthology contains 28 key essays representing the leading movements in contemporary religious epistemology. Approaches discussed include natural theology, rational belief based on religious experience, the atheistic challenge, Wittgensteinian fideism and reformed epistemology.