CLAL Special Features
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Jewish Public Forum Seminar:
“What Is Religion For?”
November 19, 2001
Pre-Seminar
Response
“What Is Religion For?”
By Judith Shulevitz
If
it’s safe to assume that each of us at this conference has religious feelings and
access to a public pulpit of some kind, then I’d say the biggest challenge we face as
religious intellectuals is how to respond to violence committed in the name of religion. Murder justified on theological grounds has a way
of making faith itself seem suspect, and religions based on ancient texts that recount
gory tales of war and deceit have a particularly hard time defending themselves in that
atmosphere. We who love our religions need to
find a way to defend them without becoming defensive and covering up the uglier parts of
their history. Most of all we have to refute
the easy platitudes our religious leaders sometimes utter when they’re scared, the
phrases meant to elide the strains of intolerance and bias and even violence present in
almost all systems of strong belief. Religions
can do great good, and they can do great harm, and we do our cause no favor when we refuse
to acknowledge the awful consequences of admirable ideas taken to extremes.
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