Modernity and Religion

"It would be possible to argue," writes William Nicholls, "that the pivotal
subject of debate among theologians for the past two hundred years has been
the relationship between modernity and the Christian tradition."

What is modernity—a philosophical outlook or a set of ideas? What is
modernization —a social process? Is modernity the same as secularity, as many
theologians and sociologists in the West believe? Is the impact of modernity
weakening religious traditions? Are the responses of non-Western religious
traditions to modernity similar to Western ones, or are they distinctive,
indigenous adaptations to the same world-wide development.

These are the kinds of concerns the interdisciplinary group of scholars
addresses in this volume. Contributors include Moshe Amon ("Utopias and
Counter-Utopias"), Alan Davies ("The Rise o Racism in the Nineteenth Century:
Symptom of Modernity"), Robert Ellwood, Jr. ("Modern Religion as Folk
Religion"), Irving Hexham ("Modernity or Reaction in South Africa: The Case of
Afrikaner Religion"), Shotaro Iida ("Japanese New Religions"), Shelia
McDonough ("modernity in Islamic Persepctive"), William Nicholls ("Immanent
Transcendence: Spirituality in a Scientific and Critical Age"), K. Dad
Prithipaul ("Modernity and Religious Studies"), Tom Sinclair-Faulkner
("Caution: Moralists at Work"), Huston Smith ("Can Modernity Accommodate
Transcendence?"), and John Wilson ("Modernity and Religion: A Problem of
Perspective").