Articles

On the contemporary college campus, believers exhibit their own brand of skepticism.

Why religious literacy is just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic

View of how religious intolerance and movies intersect

It is not unusual to hear discussions of the relationship between faith and reason, or science and religion, cast in terms of the blind acceptance of unquestionable propositions (religion) versus careful, skeptical, and critical rational reflection (science). Indeed, one of the hallmarks of religious faith, at least as commonly depicted in a great deal of our daily public discourse, is that it rests on claims that are “incontestable”—that is, impervious to skeptical scrutiny, empirical or logical analysis, or rational dispute. In contrast, scientific or secular knowledge claims are presumed to rest on “evidence” and the sure foundation of rational and/or empirical demonstration. As Suzanna Sherry (1996) has written, for example, someone operating under the epistemology of faith is “able to ignore contradictions, contrary evidence, and logical implications. Indeed, one test of faith is its capacity to resist the blandishments of rationality; the stronger the rational arguments against a belief, the more faith is needed to adhere to it” (p. 482). In contrast, “secular science and liberal politics, both committed to the primacy of reason, necessarily deny that any truth is incontestable” (p. 479).

“I travel around to countries and meet with oppressed religious minorities, and they say ‘You hold our story up to the world. You give us a voice.’” US Ambassador-at-Large for International Freedom, David Saperstein was sworn in on January 6th, 2015. In the time following, he has traveled around the world to meet with government officials, religious groups, and those affected by religious restrictions. On November 17th, Ambassador Saperstein addressed the BYU campus in a Distinguished Lecture titled, “U.S. Efforts to Promote International Religious Freedom.” He described the current climate of religious freedom around the world. “Three-fourths of the world’s population live in countries that have serious restrictions regarding religious freedom.” Many of these restrictions are disguised as blasphemy laws, laws that severely punish individuals for making core life decisions in accordance to their religious beliefs. Saperstein’s travels have given him the opportunity to meet and work with people from many different faiths and backgrounds. Oftentimes, the countries with the most progress on religious freedom issues are those in which interfaith cooperation flourishes, even when the interfaith efforts are “done at the risk of life and limb.”

The role of religion in world affairs is a rapidly growing field of international studies. The expansion of interest in this topic dates back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, when it became painfully clear that religion directly affected the interests and security of the United States and its citizens. There is now a large network of academic and policy centers whose purpose is to understand the impact of religion in international affairs. This article explores several principles identified in that research.

When Oxford Dictionaries named “post-truth” the 2016 word of the year, it set off alarm bells. Some in society rushed to assure us that in actuality we “cannot be post-truth”[1]; while others sought to explain “how we arrived in a post-truth era, when ‘alternative facts’ replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence.”[2]

Among Toqueville’s most discerning insights is the civic tension arising from the largely incompatible aims of freedom and equality.

Wheatley Fellow shares lessons from the life of Union general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

“In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western…They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection”. George Washington, Farewell Address.

The Constitution stands as the best one might expect of words that would guide a self-governing people.

No careful examination of those members of the Founding Generation will fail to record the broad and deep command they had of history and of the principles exemplified by successful and also failed republics. In his famous speech on Conciliation delivered on 22 Mar. 1775, Edmund Burke reflects on this: Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education…This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.”

When Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke at Harvard’s Commencement in June 1978, he titled his address, “The Exhausted West.” He was talking about a culture—Western culture generally—in moral decay. In doing so, he acknowledged that he had been exiled from his homeland for four years, a land he described as having been in the captivity of Communism for his entire life. The exhaustion of which he spoke is a spiritual one, where the bounteous freedom, well-being, and availability of material goods led those in the West “to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment,” resulting in few people willing to “risk one’s precious life in defense of common values” (p. 22). According to him, the West had come to make something more fundamental than the common values that had produced the freedom and bounty of the West: a legal system based on the letter of the law.

Being “non-judgmental” is often recommended as essential for a pluralistic society to become cohesive. “Taking offense” is regarded as understandable, if not inescapable, and even as a worthy response to offensive behavior. Yet, to take offense is to judge that another’s behavior is unjust, discriminatory, rude, immoral or even criminal. The truth is that it is impossible to refrain from making judgments. Even the recommendation to be non-judgmental is itself a judgmental statement. However, while making judgments cannot be avoided, the quality of the judgments we do make can be assessed. That quality is not to be found merely in our words, but in the quality of our hearts—in the quality of how we see ourselves and others.