CLAL Special Features

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Jewish Public Forum Seminar: “What Is Religion For?”
November 19, 2001 

Pre-Seminar Response to the Question:

“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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