Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas A Tweed Books

Thomas A Tweed Books

Author

Related Quotes

“Sometimes religion fails to serve its meaning-making function at moments of catastrophic disruption or cultural change. For example, many elite and middle class Christian adherents were shaken by a Victorian spiritual crisis as intellectual challenges converged. Between 1840 and 1900 some lost faith in the face of Darwinian biology and the new geology, which challenged biblical claims about the origin and age of the universe; the new historical and literary study of the Bible, called Higher Criticism, which challenged the claim that scripture was divinely inspired; and the new comparative study of religions, which challenged the uniqueness and superiority of Christianity. Those doubters now looked out on a different ocean, as does the narrator in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach," who once found comfort as waves in "the sea of faith" drew near, but who now hears only "its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.”

ReligionChangeMeaning
Book:Religion: A Very Short Introduction
Create image

“If a religious community lacks cohesion, it will lose members. But other problems—from isolation to aggression—arise when a religious community is too cohesive, when it is so tightly bound there is no space for adhesive forces to form ties with the wider culture and members of other communities. When inward-looking groups face outward with fear or fury, they can become, to coin a term, dehisive, a bond-breaking social force. The history of religion provides myriad examples of volatile religious movements that overemphasized in-group solidarity and escalated tensions with outsiders.”

CohesionReligious Community
Book:Religion: A Very Short Introduction
Create image

“Because the past shapes the present, responsible citizenship also requires some sense of history, an idea that applies particularly to the matter of religion. Too often public discussions of the religious dimensions of policy issues either overlook the past or concentrate on very recent years. But that shortened perspective makes it difficult to see what is new and what is not and which problems, such as climate change, economic disparity, and interreligious violence, are entangled in a longer past. We need a history that traces religion's role in the broad changes in ways of life, from foraging to farming to factories.”

CitizenshipHistory Of Religion
Book:Religion: A Very Short Introduction
Create image