WHAT IS “SECULAR”? TECHNO‐SECULARISM AND SPIRITUALITY

Abstract. I argue that there is no “roaring reality of rampant secularism” with “technological application as its chief agent,” as claimed by John Caiazza (2005). Two phenomena, techno‐religion and a spirituality of technology, suggest a different picture of reality: Technology may be an alternative spirituality rather than an ally of a secularism that makes “nutcrackers of the soul” out of people who should be “dancers” (Nietzsche). An analysis of secularism and its manifold causes indicates that secularism is a fruit of both science and religion. The secular is a companion of religion rather than its enemy. Hence, I recommend a heuristic instead of an ontological use of the concept of secularism. In a technological age, religion is changing rather than being displaced. These changes are illustrated by the increase of private religiosity, megachurches, and cyber‐spirituality. Energized by the tension between finitude and creativity, technology shares in the marks of spirituality (Philip Hefner) and in the potential for good and evil. In this situation, fundamentalism and dogmatism in religion, science, and technology are a greater threat than secularism.     

FORTY YEARS LATER: WHAT HAVE WE ACCOMPLISHED?

Abstract. I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism.     

TECHNO‐SECULARISM,RELIGION, AND THE CREATED CO‐CREATOR

Abstract. I take up the challenge posed by John Caiazza (2005) to face down the religiously vacuous ethics of techno‐secularism. Techno‐secularism is not enough for human fulfillment let alone human flowering. Yet, communities of faith based on the Bible have a positive responsibility to employ science and technology toward divinely appointed ends. We should study God's world through science and press technology into the service of transforming our world and our selves in light of our vision of God's promised new creation. This warrants invocation of the concept of the human being as the created co‐creator developed in the theology of Philip Hefner.     

ANDREW DICKSON WHITE AND THE HISTORY OF A RELIGIOUS FUTURE

Andrew Dickson White played a pivotal role in constructing the image of a necessary, and even violent, confrontation between religion and science that persists to this day. Though scholars have long acknowledged that his position is more complex, given that White claimed to be saving religion from theology, there has been no attempt to explore what this means in light of his overwhelming attack on existing religions. This essay draws attention to how White's role as a historian was decisive in allowing him to posit a future for religion purified of dogma by science. It argues, furthermore, that this effort is better understood as religious innovation, rather than a plea for strictly secular science. In so doing it hopes to lay the foundation for a more fruitful historical treatment of White, and a range of other figures whose devotion to science has otherwise been difficult to grasp.     

DRAPER IN SPAIN: THE CONFLICTING CIRCULATION OF THE CONFLICT THESIS

This article delves into the reception of John W. Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science in Spain. With two translations into Spanish appearing almost simultaneously in 1876, the conflict became a weapon in a long political dispute. The tensions between conservatives and liberals, between monarchists and republicans had the university and pedagogical reforms as one of the main battlefields. One of the chief reformist movements was informed by “Krausism,” an ideology that had academic freedom as one if its central tenets. The similarities between the educational agenda of Draper and that of Krausists explain why the former's book resonated among members of the latter group. The article argues that in order to understand the reception of Draper in Spain, one should pay attention to the disputes about national identity and educational reforms, so as to place the so‐called conflict thesis in the context of opposing Spanish patriotisms.     

CULTURE AND HISTORY: ESSENTIAL PARTNERS IN THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Abstract. In this essay I respond to John Caiazza's claim for the primacy of what he calls techno‐secularism for understanding twentieth‐century history. Using the examples of the Taiping Rebellion in nineteenth‐century China and Zionism in twentieth‐century Europe, I argue that the range of Caiazza's schema is confined solely to the Protestant West with little applicability to other national histories. I argue further for the lack of clarity and therefore the uselessness of the dichotomy of the secular and the religious for understanding human history. I claim instead that, while the category of technology and the institutions of religion are important determiners in human history, they need to be subsumed, without special status, within a broader set of interrelated factors called “culture.” I appeal for the academic study of science and religion to give primacy for the near future to the history of science and religion over both theology and science.     

MAPPING ONE WORLD: RELIGION AND SCIENCE FROM AN EAST ASIAN PERSPECTIVE

This article aims to delineate a model of religion‐science relationship from an East Asian perspective. The East Asian way of thinking is depicted as nondualistic, relational, and inclusive. From this point of view, most current Western discourses on the religion‐science relationship, including the interconnected models of Pannenberg and Haught, are hierarchical, intellectually centered, and have dualistic tendencies. Taking religion and science as mapping activities, “a multi‐map model” presents nonhierarchical, historical, social, multidimensional, communal, and intimate dimensions of the religion‐science relationship.     

THE JOURNEY BEYOND ATHENS AND JERUSALEM

Abstract. John Caiazza's essay raises important controversial issues regarding the contemporary debates between science and religion. His arguments are largely presented in a dichotomous and rather adversarial mode with which I strongly disagree. Unable to present a detailed counterargument in this brief reflection, I ask, What is being spoken about, and who is speaking? What is meant by science and religion here? Neither term can be taken as a unified, essentialist category; both comprise many historical layers, possess numerous internal complexities, and invite a diversity of interpretations. I refer to the science of China, India, and the ancient Near East, all of which have fed into modern science, so that the sciences cannot be restricted to those of the modern West. Nor can religion be limited to the religious beliefs and practices of Western Christianity. I discuss the position/location/context of the author‐ Caiazza's as well as my own‐ after introducing Hans‐Georg Gadamer's idea of the “fusion of horizons,” which provides a rich vein for enhancing the debate between science and religion. To expand the respective horizons of their dialogue it will be important to move away from an adversarial, exclusionary spirit to a more collaborative and communicative framework that allows for the development of new ideals, new questions, new ways of knowing, and an ethical and socially responsible stance more centered on human needs and concerns. We may have to build an altogether new Athens and Jerusalem for this.