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2008年02月11日
Good Books: The Case For Civility by Os Guinness
This is Os Guinness' latest book and he basically is developing a theme that he has already mentioned in a previous book. In his 2005 book on evil, "Unspeakable", he makes the following statement. "I have long been a proponent of the "civil public square", set off clearly from the extremes of the "sacred public square" on one side and the "naked public square" on the other."
This is basically the theme of the whole book-the need for America to have "civil public square". In America now, there are those who call for a "sacred public square". These are people who believe that Protestant Christianity should have "special" treatment" and should have government protection or help. All other groups would be excluded.
There are also those in America today who call for a "naked public square". These are people who believe that ALL religions are bad-probably even "evil" and that all public religious discussion should be banned. These people believe that religion is "private" and must never be allowed to have any impact on public issues.
In "The Case For Civility" Os is calling rather for a "civil public square". That is, he believes that Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Muslims and Mormons and Athiests and Agnostics should ALL be allowed to discuss and share their views publicly in a "civil" manor. The problem now is that rather than freely engaging in discussion, people simply call people in other groups nasty names or simply denounce them as wrong period. Often, there is a great amount of anger and even of hatret involved. When issues of religious freedom come up, rather than engaging in discussion in a civil manner a lawsuit is prepared and the issue is handed to a secular judge to take care of.
In this election year in America this is a timely book and I would recommend reading it and taking to heart the things that Os shares in it.
投稿者 bethany : 2008年02月11日 07:33
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