things but I think that's one thing
we're seeing a lot of people abandoning
faith in in the Muslim world now so
atheism is really on the rise in places
like Syria Iran Iran and and again a lot
to blame to this these so-called Muslim
leadership right but I think those are
some of the really important thing Thank
You rabbi sacks and I will the third
century rabbi Ben Zoma said who is wise
one who longs everyone and that to me is
at the very heart of this so from
Christianity I learned what it is to
create the most successful
transformational movement in history you
will not find any movement here on all
of history there were 2.4 billion
Christians today in the world at 1.6
billion Muslims and a few of us mainly
in New York and kosher deli
you know Christianity took faith and
gave it to the world and Christianity
teaches me what it is to really care for
the poor I see that as absolutely at the
heart of Christian social teachings
which is so powerful from Islam I learn
what it is to be the most successful of
all faiths in sustaining faith even in
the midst of a highly circular world
Muslims have a commitment of faith that
I find it
donation from Hindus in India Island
graciousness and tolerance from Sikhs I
learned the importance of langa what
they call longer which is hospitality
how hospitality bring people together
from what is I learn the most unjú ish
thing in the entire universe which is
calm you know we do grow psychosis
accidential angst when all the weather
is in that but there's something so so
in all of these things is in incredible
beauty and if you are confident in your
own faith you are never threatened by
the existence of other things but there
is one thing I think that might emerge
from all of this secure ization actually
began in Europe in the 17th century and
it began after pretty much a century of
religious wars following the Reformation
first in France then the 30 Years War in
Central Europe which may have cost as
many as a 1/3 of the population of
Central Europe brought to an end only
with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648
which is the foundation of our current
world order and the heroes are secular
of the new secular world were not people
who liked faith in God Newton and
Descartes
Newton spent more than half his time
writing commentaries to the Bible
Descartes brings God in that stage too
as soon as he's got to cogito ergo sum
to be able to move from there he has to
invert God Sakurai's ation did not begin
when people lost faith in God it began
when people lost faith in the ability of
people of faith to live peaceably with
one another and that is why these Wars
of Religion which are really spreading
and contagiously around the world are so
dangerous
but I trillion truly believe that the
only full response as an alternative to
Drai's Benedict option is for Jews
Christians Muslims and others to stand
together and clearly commit together
number one to an overarching civil faith
but we each matter that we have
collective responsibility for the common
good that we need to make space for one
another because no religion is fully
intelligible to an outsider and as for
which one of us is right I leave that to
the Almighty it's a lot better than we
are so if we could actually do that Jew
Christian and Muslim stand together as
we really did actually in Britain and
and it really lowered the level of
religious tensions in Britain because I
worked very carefully with Muslim
leaders and of course with the
Archbishop's of Canterbury and Cardinal
Archbishop's of Westminster and the rest
and we were the leaders of all the
faiths in Britain were good close
personal friends and whenever there was
a terrorist attack we would stand
together and that really calmed things
and it really did good I mean it didn't
stop but it did stuff is fighting one
another Jonathan could you share with
our audience what you shared with the
audience in Princeton recently when we
had our public discussion about the ways
in which the centuries represented
different moments of secularization
beginning with the one that you talked
about a moment ago and as far as I can
see secularization happened in four
stages each one with its own century so
the 17th century was the section of
knowledge with Newtonian science and
Cartesian philosophy knowledge without
dogmatic
assumptions which was reason an
observation philosophy in science in the
18th century came the Sakurai's ation of
power with the American Revolution in
the First Amendment and the French
Revolution the formal or substantive
separation of church and state the 19th
century was the secularization of
culture when the museum and the concert
hall and the art gallery took the place
of houses of worship as places where you
encountered the sublime and the
beautiful and the 20th century saw the
final Sakurai's ation which was the
sakura's ation of morality in the 1960s
throughout the West the two foundations
of the judeo-christian ethic namely the
sanctity of life and the idea that there
is such a thing as a sexual ethic
involving fidelity and the Covenant or
nature of marriage those two just
disappeared throughout the West so we've
gone through four stages of
secularization and there are no more
stages to go through short of complete
atomization of society because I pointed
out the four great institutions of
modernity science technology the market
and the state cannot answer the three
questions that every reflective
individual will ask some time in life
Who am I why am I here how then shall I
live the science tells us how but not
why technology gives us power but
doesn't tell us how to use that power
the market gives us choices but doesn't
tell us which choices to make and the
Liberal Democratic State gives us a
maximum of freedom but no guidance as to
how to use that freedom therefore
religion will return but in the meantime
we've got a gap to fill
yeah I just want to say about I think
there's a good antidote for this idea
that somehow the secular state this this
is what William Cavanaugh wrote a book
called the myth of religious violence
and I think he makes a very strong
argument
despite his nominalism he makes a very
strong argument that these wars had
really very little to do with religion
and and religion is always impressed
into war
what's happening in the Middle East I
mean to illustrate that you know the
Iraqi that says you know are you a Sunni
or Shia and he said no I'm an atheist he
said well what are you us in the 8th
universe I mean this this is what you
know I think that illustrates very well
the reality of a lot of these conflicts
Ireland is much more about British
control and rule of Ireland than it was
ever about Protestant Catholics you know
the religion became enlisted in that and
so I think it's really important for us
to recognize that the religion is is
very often the first victim or first
casualty of war
you know Jonathan's mentioning that that
calm is a sort of on Jewish thing
reminded me of my dear old friend Mitch
dektor used to describe a Jewish
telegram this is a telegram that simply
said worry details to follow
well you've heard as Robbie promised
from three great masters and now you'll
have a chance to engage these
extraordinary individuals so I think
there are microphones so in each aisle
so how will we handle this yeah yeah
please just step forward to the
microphone hello my name is Nathan
Weininger with the 21st century
Wilberforce initiative my question is
related to confronting issues of secular
in other places my organization works on
International Religious Freedom and
oftentimes persecuted people's and other
places are encouraging secularization
obviously those are different things but
we're using the same words how do we
communicate with them and work together
for this thing that's a wonderful point
many people advocate for religious
freedom in India would want to
strengthen the Indian secular state
thank you for that well speaking now as
a Catholic although I think this
principle is is one that could be
embraced by all faiths there's a
distinction between secularism as an
ideology that competes with the great
traditions of faith and other secular
ideologies
there's dissenting secularism and a
legitimate realm of the secular that is
an area in which we conduct our business
together without anything turning on
specific sectarian sorts of of
assumptions we might look at the
difference between the American and
French Revolutions these are very very
different revolutions
there is nothing remotely approaching
the hostility to faith of the French
Revolution in the American Revolution
quite the contrary
John Adams one of the great leaders of
the American Revolution commenting on
our Constitution said that our
Constitution is a constitution for a
moral and religious people and will not
serve any other type of people so he
recognized the legitimate domain of
faith which was not to be privatized and
stigmatized and marginalized it had its
legitimate role including in the domain
of public discussion and public affairs
at the same time he held for as did all
the American founders leading American
founders no state religion no official
state religion that there's a legitimate
secularity at that level so that people
of all faiths can participate fully as
citizens in this new in this new
republic perhaps even more important
than our First Amendment protection of
the free exercise of religion perhaps is
which which is founded on an amendment
to the Constitution and the First
Amendment to the Constitution perhaps
even more important
is a principle that's entrenched in the
body of the Constitution didn't require
an amendment and that is the no
religious tests for Office principle
that meant that all Americans could hold
all offices quite irrespective of their
particular religious affiliations and
beliefs that's the legitimate realm of
the secular that we mustn't throw out as
throwing out a baby with with the with
the bathwater to be against secularism
as a militant and mission izing ideology
that seems seeks to drive the traditions
of faith to the margins and and off the
edge you should too beginning of virtue
if if you look at the world ruler with
the great Abrahamic monotheism
there are theological differences but
actually if you look at the wisdom
literature of all faiths there's an
enormous convergence and that Taoism
Confucianism and at certain aspects of
Buddhism are part of that wisdom
tradition if Lewis called the DAO of the
Darwin morality
and that you'll find everywhere and that
is what makes those texts still speak to
all of us and that they're very precious
picking up on professor Jorge's point
about us becoming a society of choosers
in a culture where will dominates
everything and in effect we are
individual gods deigning for ourselves
what is true and what is good and what
is beautiful and nobody's determination
is any better or worse than anybody
else's so who you to tell me how to
behave or what to think
in that kind of culture how does one
even start the dialogue about absolutes
well first thing to notice is that
secularism as it presents itself today
in the West is not a relativist doctrine
it's not it's got its own absolutes and
it's very absolutist about its absolutes
and and and you know it it has rules
that it wants everybody to obey even if
those rules contradict the rules of the
faith which what is what creates the
great religious liberty issues of our
day to me the fundamental problem isn't
relativism as such among secularists or
with ideological secularism that I won't
be able to go into much detail here if
you if you want to fish around in my
readings you'll see my writings you'll
see where I've flesh this out of it I
think that it's anthropology it's the
difference between the secularists and
the religious understanding of the human
person secularist ideology is
essentially accepted Hobbs's conception
of the human being as a machine for
having experiences religion the great
Abrahamic faiths the great face of the
East could never accept such a notion
and the the the upshot of that
practically is that we now live in an
age of feeling an age where the reality
of human goods that we can participate
in and whose integral directive 'no sui
can guide ourselves by the the reality
has been replaced by a desire for the
experiences the experiential component
of
but but experience and reality are not
the same thing what matters is the
underlying reality now ordinarily when
you do good things for good reasons and
respect the moral imperative such as do
unto others as you'd have them do unto
you it also results in pleasant
experiences that's part of the
perfection of the thing you feel good
about yourself but it's not the feeling
good that ultimately matters it's the
doing good because human beings are not
just machines for having experiences my
name is leaders Sheikh Yusuf you
mentioned that the benedictine options
argument that is that sex and technology
are the greatest threats to religious
community dr. George you mentioned that
the respectful disagreement mentioned a
respectful disagreement to the option
how we shouldn't answer these intrusions
of destructive uses of sex and
technology about isolating ourselves and
Rabbi sex you gave a hopeful comment
that technology can have great positive
spiritual power
would you please comment on how our
traditions ought to approach modern
technology in the light of secularism
challenges thank you I want to hear
Lourdes Saxon Che comes on this I'll
just say for my part very quickly I
think that the traditions of faith and
people have faith have essentially three
options want us to capitulate one is to
separate ourselves in the hope that
we'll be left alone to bring up our own
families and nurture our own traditions
and third engagement that is active
engagement I think it has to be the
third what I think fundamentally rod
very fundamentally thinks the second for
now and it's complicated and and rods
views should not be over oversimplified
I wish we had more time to go to go into
it I do not think as my circumcision
example makes clear and it's one little
example from hundreds I could cite to
you it makes clear that militant
evangelizing mission izing secularism
has no intention of leaving Jews and
Muslims and Christians alone to retreat
to the monasteries to get through the
dark ages raise our own families pass on
our own traditions they want your kids
in fairness to Rajveer one point that he
does make is that even as we build our
enclaves the one way we have to engage
the wider culture is to defend our
religious liberty that was one of the
dominant themes of the remarks of all
these wonderful thinkers that that is
one thing we even those of us who may
want to create enclaves we have to have
religious liberty to be able to sustain
our own structures and communities we
just to say about the sex and Technology
now the to have have become hybrid and
so a lot of our young people especially
young boys at the age of the first
exposure now is about nine years old on
to pornography to pornography and dr.
George and I were involved in an
initiative trying to fight this and
people think religious people always
obsessed with sex and pornography and
things like this and but the reality of
it is is that the ancient world had a
lot of mystery religions that were based
on a Dionysian type of sexuality the sex
is very powerful and it can become as
was pointed out in her essay on the
seven deadly sins Dorothy Sayers pointed
out that very often sex becomes a
substitute for a culture when they lose
religion and and in our tradition imam
al-ghazali and this is also probably
from Gregory but Aquinas brings up the
daughters of lust and a mortal sin is a
habitual sin it's something that you do
habitually a lot of people are addicted
to pornography but which is a habitual
sin of lust and being in a state of lust
the the daughters of lust
they're called Bennett o shahe ye in the
Arabic tradition the daughters of lusts
one of them it is is as spiritual
blindness another is distracted
distracted 'no cecilia distractibility
but one of them is is hatred towards the
things sacred and and despairing of God
or animosity towards God and so I think
people don't realize the connection that
we're seeing in our culture that's
directly related to a completely
sexualized civilization if you want to
read a really I think an important
pamela paul that exposed me to a lot of
this she wrote a book called pornified
this is a secular liberal woman who
found out about this world and wrote a
book about how devastating and i don't
think a lot of people realize what's
online and what people exposed to chris
hedges his second chapter in one of his
books goes into graphic detail about
what what young kids are exposed to
today that i think you will have the
last word mmm-hmm
first of all if you want to see what
could be done through this technology go
and look at our website we're working on
this one earlier and we're experimenting
with new forms whiteboard animation
short videos with music and imagery to
create moments of spirituality of myths
and so on and in terms of sexuality
there was a book a couple of years ago
in the states by somebody who became an
orthodox jewish woman just because she
wanted to recover the integrity of a
physical relationship Wendy Shelley
Wendy shallots book modesty and it's a
really good book the three positive
possibilities of this technology are
number one Sergey Brin and Larry Page
his commitment to the democratization of
access to knowledge that is so powerful
the countries that never really had
access to good education and kids who
never had it now have access to it
number two
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has just
changed the mission statement of
Facebook from connecting friends to
creating communities and it was very
interesting the Mark Zuckerberg and
what's her name Sheryl Sandberg both on
our holy day Yom Kippur sent out
religious messages as committed Jews and
I had never seen that actually in public
before so they too are beginning to
realize that they must be responsible
for making sure that things like
Facebook help preserve our basic human
and spiritual
values and I think the third thing is is
simply that you know we are connected
together in a way that no human beings
ever have then Facebook is just about
habits boom its first 30 years it now
reaches 2 billion people just think of
this 2 billion people have the chance to
be rude to one another but I mean very
quick what if we seized that and said we
are going to counter the bad that's out
there and there's a lot that's bad by
showing that the good is really
beautiful life enhancing and inspiring
we can use this technology for the sake
of God and if we don't God will not
forgive us because he gave us this
technology so that it would serve us to
serve Him thank you one more brief last
word from from Robbie Jordan and that
list Lord is simply thank you thanks to
all of you for coming out and being part
of launching our new initiative I also
want to say a big thank you to Dean
Hibbs and to Byron Johnson and the
entire Baylor community cannot tell you
how honored I am to be associated with
this initiative and then finally thanks
to my two beloved friends the busiest
men in the world who made a special
effort to be here to help us launch this
this community and I love you guys and
thank you so so very very much
you
you