2.3.3 Addressing Extremist Sceptics
I also want to address the minority of Americans who are so extreme in their religious and/or political views that they are not just sceptical about the many options of relating religion and politics but are actively seeking the power to dominate all other positions.
In the broadest sense, this website is designed to promote a wide variety of centrist positions with respect to both faith and politics and their interrelationships. As such, it stands over against, and sees as very dangerous for our democracy, the two most extreme positions at opposite ends of the spectrum: on the one hand, religious totalitarianism that seeks to destroy (or at least dominate) modern secular culture and politics as well as all other American religions by exclusively privileging their particular religion politically and, on the other, anti-religious secularism that seeks to eliminate religion (or at least to privatize it by pushing it out of not only politics but the entire public sphere as proposed by the proponents of the so-called “New Atheism.”) (I’m concerned that the current popularity of books written by the “New Atheists” means that this dangerous form of extremism is being embraced by more and more Americans.)
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If you are an American who holds, or is influenced by, one of these extreme positions, I hope you will examine with an open mind the centrist views presented on this website and are willing to reevaluate what many hold to be the dangers of both extremes for our democracy.
One assumption held by a great many of the adherents of the former extreme is that all secularism can be reduced to anti-religious secularism; whereas the assumption of those of the latter extreme is that all religion can be reduced to religious totalitarianism.
One assumption held by a great many of the adherents of the former extreme is that all secularism can be reduced to anti-religious secularism; whereas the assumption of those of the latter extreme is that all religion can be reduced to religious totalitarianism.
As just a taste of centrist responses to these kinds of simple reductionism, let me share with you an insight from a centrist, Eboo Patel (left), a young American Muslim who founded the Interfaith Youth Core. He points to the irony that, even though these two polar extremes on faith and politics see themselves as enemies with nothing in common, actually they do have something quite important in common. Each believes that religion is an inherently divisive force in the world and that the only solution to the faith/politics problem must be a binary, winner-take-all battle. |
Now for those of you who don’t hold one of extreme views but know others who do, I encourage you to recommend this website to them. It will be difficult to convince them to explore this site, since their positions are grounded in hard-core ideological, “modern” paradigm positions. There’s a tendency for them not to talk “with” those who disagree with their position, but “at” them. Getting them curious about the postmodern paradigm shift may be the only strategy that has a chance of working.
One thing I want to make clear is that, unlike the adherents of these positions, it is not my goal to eliminate (or even privatize) them or any other extremist positions. As a faithful proponent of American democracy, I believe that everyone should have open access to the public square. And as a postmodern pluralist, I believe that even extremist positions have something to contribute to a healthy public dialogue. However, another thing I also need to make clear is that, even given what I have just said, I will do everything I can to ensure that these extremist positions do not take exclusive power, because I believe that, by definition, would mean the destruction of American democracy as we have known it.
The third and last of the introductory sections of this website will inform you a little about me and how I feel called and particularly situated to create it. |