Faith, Conflict and Society: A Jewish Perspective (original) (raw)

Quadrant, 2006

Abstract

All faiths have their fundamentalists; people who decline to engage inclusively with modernity. And faiths, more than cultures, have the capacity to be insular. In assessing any faith or culture as contributing to conflict in our society, or indeed as Rabbi David Rosen said recently, as contributing to the solution to conflict in our society, we need to distinguish between people of faith and fundamentalists. People of faith are prepared to live with ambiguity and uncertainty, and therefore are willing to respect human difference while being strengthened in their particular faith. By contrast, fundamentalists admit of no uncertainty or ambiguity. For them their religion provides absolute answers and removes uncertainties, and disconnects troubling questions from their lives. For a fundamentalist there is no room for any 'other' answer for life's most difficult questions.

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