This week I’m in Auckland taking part in a couple of speaking events as part of Jesus Week at the University of Auckland. On Wednesday the 4th of August I really enjoyed taking part in a panel discussion with Matt and Madeleine Flannagan, called “A Godless Public Square”? The broad subject area was the legitimate role of religious convictions in public life, law and politics – certainly a topical area of discussion today. Pat Brittenden did a great job as moderator/ facilitator of discussion, providing a relaxed and really open forum for conversation.
Read the rest of the entry »

An interesting discussion broke out over at M and M recently about a guest post by bethyada on whether or not the tax exempt status of churches directly costs taxpayers. I’ll let his piece speak for itself and won’t really get into the actual subject of it, because in the comments section a different issue came up that I’d like to put out there for your consideration.

One of the correspondents was insistent that the tax exempt status of churches amounted to a “privilege” that nobody else gets, and that no organisation should have tax exempt status by virtue of of being a church – they had to actually be charitable. According to New Zealand law, a charitable purpose (for tax exemption purposes) “includes every charitable purpose, whether it relates to the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion, or any other matter beneficial to the community.”
Read the rest of the entry »

I got some good news today. A few months ago I told you that there was a conference coming up this year that I’d like to take part in. Well, I’ve been chosen to present a paper at Merton College at the University of Oxford, as part of the 18th Conference of the European Society of the Philosophy of Religion.

The only reason I know this is that I bugged them about it. The official notifictions are about to be sent out, so I’m told.

The theme of the conference is Religion in the Public Square, one of my special interests, and the keynote speaker will be Nicholas Wolterstorff. My paper will present an argument that I’ve addressed in other formats, namely the question of whether or not religious convictions and by extension the policies that they might be used to support could meet any standard of “public justification.”

It’s a great opportunity for me. It is a way of getting exactly the right kind of exposure in the international academic arena, and for professional academic roles it’s a great addition to my C.V. It would, in theory, push me one step closer to that elusive big time. There’s one problem. The keynote speaker, as well as the other speakers on the schedule, along with virtually everyone presenting a paper, will be from university departments that provide funding for travel to conferences. I on the other hand am not, and will need to meet the expenses myself. I’ve been crunching the numbers and it’s pretty painful. Flights, conference registration and accommodation will cost around $4,400 New Zealand dollars (using today’s exchange rate, that’s about $3,136.02 US).

I’m putting the word out there: If you are able to and you would like to assist me in meeting these costs, I would warmly welcome and appreciate it. The “donate” button on the right, or the “buy me a beer” button at the bottom of each post is an easy way to do this via Paypal. If you’re in New Zealand and you think you might be able to assist, feel free to get in touch with me (Paypal is convenient for overseas payments, but there is a small fee involved). If you’re a blogger, I’d appreciate you putting the word out there and asking people if they’d be interested in supporting me with this.

According to Martin Varsavsky, “nothing much” happens when a society gives up religion. Religion does nothing to maintain social order, does not improve standards of justice, doesn’t help people to be better citizens, and really makes no positive difference on a societal scale. He uses Spain as an example. Now, there’s a certain bias in both the selection and the comparison. Under the dictatorship of Franco, the author says, Spain was a Catholic country, but after “three decades of democracy,” this is no longer the case. It’s easy to see where a comparison like this leads. Religion = tyranny, but freedom tends away from religion. Of course any reader (hopefully) realises straight away that other examples could have been chosen that did not favour this portrayal of history. For example, in the 1930s in the Soviet Union under the atheistic state during the dictatorship of Stalin, it was very risky to be a Christian and religion was viciously suppressed, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism there, Christianity now flourishes by comparison. So of course we’ve got to be careful about how we let the writer’s selective sample sway us.

But back to the main point: Mr Varsavsky’s article is written to assure us that religion is not the backbone of a good society, and that when religion disappears, a society does not turn to chaos or fall apart or anything dreadful.
Read the rest of the entry »

When I was at the University of Canterbury in July I gave two talks. Episode 29 was one of those talks, on abortion. This talk was actually based on the same material that served as the basis for episode 3, so there will be obvious similarities.

Think of this as a consolation prize while I (very slowly) finish the next episode in the series In Search of the Soul. Hey, if you want me to get these things done faster, then hire me.

Glenn Peoples

Episode 030: Religion in the Public Square. Is it Justified? [ 43:39 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Liberal Theocracy? “What?!” You ask in disbelief. A contradiction in terms, you might think. Not so. This episode is, well, long. I noted the howls of protest at my decision to shorten the episodes, and I was listening. But don’t think you’ll get this every episode! The next one will probably be a short one.

Episode 016: The Liberal Theocracy [ 55:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Part 2 of a 2 part series on Religion in the Public Square.

For those interested, here’s the transcript for this episode, and here‘s the transcript for episode 2. Comments are welcome, and remember, if you’d like to email questions/comments/feedback for me to address in the show, feel free to use the contact button over on the right.

Episode 003: Religion in the Public Square, Part 2 [ 45:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the first of 2 episodes on religion in the public square, a subject that will probably come up from time to time at the podcast.

Episode 002: Religion in the Public Square [ 38:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I like Ed Feser. I discovered fairly recently that he has written a number of pieces on the topic of my current PhD research, namely religious convictions in public life.

One issue that I’m writing on at the moment is the following claim: We should only advocate policies in public that rest entirely on assumptions and convictions that can be defended in such a way that we could reasonably expect that our fellow citizen should take those assumptions and convictions seriously, and if we cannot defend those assumptions and convictions, then we should not support those policies. Therefore, we should not advocate any policies that depend on religious beliefs.

That’s it, premise and conclusion. I could comment on the premise, but that would be a different subject altogether for now. I want to ask, is there anything missing from the above argument? Well yes, there’s a second premise which is apparently so obvious that it doesn’t even need to be stated, let alone defended. here it is: “no religious assumptions and convictions are such that they could be defended in such a way that we could reasonably expect that our fellow citizen should take those assumptions and convictions seriously.”

So there you have it, religious citizens. In order to be good citizens, a number of left leaning liberals tell us (e.g. Rawls, Gaus, Macedo, and to an extent Robert Audi) , you just have to accept that your religious beliefs are indefensible.

When writing a PhD, I have a tendency to not be too scathing if I can help it. Thankfully I get to quote people like Ed Feser, who do not have such tendencies.

The problem, in the view of many liberals, is that religious considerations are matters of faith, where “faith” connotes in their minds a kind of groundless commitment, a will to believe that for which there is no objective evidence. Opinions on matters of public policy, they would say, can only appropriately be arrived at via methods of argument assessable by all members of the political community, not by reference to the idiosyncratic and subjective feelings of a minority. If religious arguments were in general really like this, then I would agree with the liberal that they ought to be kept out of the public square. But in fact this liberal depiction of religion is a ludicrous caricature, and manifests just the sort of ignorance and bigotry of which liberals frequently accuse others.