(continued from Part I)
Contention over the validity and effectiveness of the term “post-secular” is losing legitimacy. Scholars continue to wrestle with the term’s potential meanings. Whether one asserts that the post-secular describes secularization deniers or doubters; a change in mindset of those who now see value in considering appeals to religious doctrine and practices; an acknowledgement of the irreducibility of religion; the public resurgence of religion; or an increase in religious thought, it is imperative to ask how one might decide to navigate this newly chartered ethical terrain. For example, Jeffrey Stout puts forth that we ought to commit ourselves to a kind of discourse in which theological perspectives and assumptions are not denied, expelled, nor absolute.1 Such dialogue calls upon all citizens to revisit the way we enter into conversation with others and reminds us that increased plurality means fewer items to take for granted when engaged in dialogue.
Personally, I have come to perceive the post-secular as more than a mere linguistic enterprise for upper-echelon members of the academy. There are real-world implications and big questions that must be addressed. This is why projects like Troy Dostert’s Beyond Political Liberalism, which proposes four practices of a post-secular politics, are increasingly necessary.2 We need committed hearts and minds to envision a way forward. Accordingly, Dostert’s proposal for what to do in this new moment includes (re)commitment to practicing sincerity, discipline, dialogical creativity, and forbearance. Although Dostert’s proposal is one approach among others, it reminds us that doing the work of ethics is imperative. How ought we go about the moment?
To illustrate, two widely known legal controversies, Miller v. Davis (2015) and Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2017), underscore the urgency of doing ethics in a post-secular age. These cases highlight the dilemma groups face when making appeals to religious doctrine and practice infringe on other citizens’ constitutional rights, and the reverse: when constitutional provisions infringe on one’s religious doctrine and practice. These conflicts should prompt us to reflect on certain virtues and/or social practices. Maybe the differences in these two cases could have been reconciled without the Supreme Court’s (or any court’s) input. Some even argue that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the latter case never reached the heart of the issue.
These conflicts, and others, prompt me to reflect on the following virtues: humility, empathy, and proximity. By humility, I am referring to a kind of modesty that enables and requires persons to confront their own biases; it means taking inventory of one’s prejudices for or against a person (or a people!), place, or thing. By empathy, I mean engaging in what psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut calls “vicarious introspection.” Empathy demands asking in various moments of the day, whether that moment presents itself in turmoil or tranquility: what does it mean to occupy another person’s point of view, to think from that person’s political, social, and economic location? Greater empathy means striving to understand instead of forming judgments based on assumptions. It becomes easier for others to be themselves and for us to be ourselves when empathy is apparent. Lastly, by proximity, I draw from Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. In his efforts to expose injustice, particularly those in connection with mass incarceration and capital punishment, he affirms how “getting proximate” to pain, difference, and lifestyles unlike one’s own helps transform insouciant minds into altruistic ones. It is with hope and confidence in the limitlessness of human personality that the pretensions of innocence that arise in both secular and religious worldviews might be tamed by the virtues described herein.
While the cultural production of religion, literature, music, dance, and art contribute to the distinctiveness of earth’s peoples, these creations must encourage experiences of unity between us. Too often we Americans succumb to internalizing artificial boundaries and social constructions. And so let’s journey together—or set sail, if you will, across the choppy seas of uncertainty—in search of common ground in this “post-secular” age.
Image by NorthAmericanStories from Pixabay.