August 21, 2013 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

This month, Ashgate Publishing Company will publish Discourses on Religious Diversity: Explorations in an Urban Ecology by Martin D. Stringer (Birmingham University). The publisher’s description follows.

Religious diversity is an ever present, and increasingly visible, reality in cities across the world. It is an issue of immediate concern to city leaders and members of religious communities but do we really know what ordinary members of the public, the people who live in the city, really think about it? Major news items, inter-religious violence and notorious public events often lead to negative views being expressed, especially among those who would not consider themselves to have a religious identity of their own. Martin Stringer explores the highly complex series of discourses around religion and religious diversity that are held by ordinary members of the city; discourses that are often contradictory in themselves and discourses that show that attitudes to religion vary considerably depending on context and wider local or national narratives. Drawing on examples from UK (particularly Birmingham, one of the UK’s most diverse cities), Europe and the United States, Stringer offers some practical suggestions for ways in which discourses of religious diversity can be managed in the future. Students in the fields of religious studies, sociology, anthropology and urban studies; practitioners involved in inter-religious debates; and church and other faith leaders and politicians should all find this book an invaluable addition to ongoing debates.

This month, Catholic University of America Press publishes a new edition of Christopher Dawson’s Religion and Culture, with an introduction by Gerald Russello. The publisher’s description follows.

Religion and Culture was first presented by historian Christopher Dawson as part of the prestigious Gifford Lecture series in 1947. It sets out the thesis for which he became famous: religion is the key of history.

The book makes two parallel arguments. First, Dawson argues that religion is, and should be treated as, a separate category of human experience. Second, Dawson claims that religion has a unique place in human culture and has defined and developed different cultures in identifiable ways. Without understanding both premises, he argues, one cannot understand cultural development.

Drawing on his profound and sympathetic reading in anthropology, sociology, comparative religion and the literatures of Western and non-Western cultures, Dawson seeks to bridge the gap between religion and the sciences through the tradition of natural theology. His approach respects the natural sciences and their power to plumb the mysteries of the natural world, while recognizing that they cannot, alone, explain religious intimations of the transcendent.

Religion and Culture was written and published in a time not unlike our own, when the very distinctiveness of religious experience has been denigrated, and religious belief is considered in some circles as an atavistic holdover. And yet, the existence of a purely technocratic culture and its ability to embody and transmit moral or cultural norms remains in doubt. Dawson, who in his day was respected well outside Catholic circles, is an important voice in this continuing debate.