God forbade...must reading!

Culture of Disbelief-


Steven Carter



    Michael Lerner argues that liberals have ‘framed their intellectual commitments around a belief that the only things that really move people are economic entitlements and political rights’. They miss the fact that human beings have a deep need to have their lives make sense, to transcend the dynamics of individualism and selfishness that predominate in a competitive market society and to find a way to place their lives in a context of meaning and purpose.



   Two chief functions religions serve in a democracy. The sources of moral understanding free of any majoritarian system that can deteriorate into simple tyranny. And mediate between the citizen and the apparatus of government providing an independent moral voice.

                                                                                  
                                                                                                 Alexis deTocqueville



   Taking an independent path- exercising what David Tracy calls the power of resistance is part of what religion is for. Even if religion can’t change the facts about the world we live in…it can change the way we see those facts and that, in itself, can make a real difference.



   The separation of church and state began to protect religion from the state, not the state from religion. Groups will engage in, what David Tracy calls acts of resistance- interposing the group judgment against the judgment of a larger society. Worshipping together, endeavoring jointly to discern the will of God, if honestly done, will, frequently, lead to that result.