Description
A sweeping history of the violence perpetrated by governments committed to extreme forms of secularism in the twentieth century
A popular truism derived from the Enlightenment holds that violence is somehow inherent to religion, to which political secularism offers a liberating solution. But this assumption ignores a glaring modern reality: that putatively progressive regimes committed to secularism have possessed just as much and often a vastly greater capacity for violence as those tied to a religious identity. In Broken Altars, Thomas Albert Howard presents a powerful account of the misery, deaths, and destruction visited on religious communities by secularist regimes in the twentieth century.
Presenting three principal forms of modern secularism that have arisen since the Enlightenment-passive secularism, combative secularism, and eliminationist secularism-Howard argues that the latter two have been especially violence-prone. Westerners do not fully grasp this, however, because they often mistake the first form, passive secularism, for secularism as a whole. But a disconcertingly more complicated picture emerges with the adoption of a broader global vision. Admitting different species of secularism, greater historical perspective, and case studies drawn from the former Soviet Union, Turkey, Mexico, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Mongolia, and China, among other countries, Howard calls into question the conventional tale of modernity as the pacifying triumph of secularism over a benighted religious past.
About the Author
Thomas Albert Howard is professor of humanities and history and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. He is the author of many books, including The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue.
Reviews
"Thomas Albert Howard's timely and ambitious book documents how secularist ideologies could be as violent as religions. Analyzing modern histories of France, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and China, it differentiates between the passive, combative, and eliminationist types of secular political systems."-Ahmet T. Kuru, author of Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment
"The Enlightenment philosophes promised that secular politics would deliver us from faith-based communal violence. Thomas Albert Howard demonstrates how this dream at times contributed in the twentieth century to the repression, murder, and even mass murder of religious believers all over the globe."-Jeffrey T. Zalar, University of Cincinnati
"A superb, and badly needed, corrective to the standard account of the relationship between religion and modernity, and a cautionary tale for the future of that encounter in an increasingly agitated twenty-first century. Highly recommended."-George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center
"In a clear and concise global analysis that spans the European Enlightenment to the present, Howard reminds amnesiacs of the staggering scale of human suffering inflicted by anti-religious modern political regimes animated by combative and eliminationist secularism. Broken Altars subverts the view that religious rather than secular ideologies have been and remain disproportionately responsible for organized violence."-Brad S. Gregory, University of Notre Dame
"At a time when religious conservatism is increasingly associated with illiberalism, Broken Altars is an important reminder to all sides in debates about religion and politics that secularist ideologies and regimes have sobering records of violence and coercion. In a sweeping narrative that traverses revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and Southeast Asia, Howard assembles a chilling history of governments that defied the divine in the pursuit of social justice. It did not work out well."-D. G. Hart, Calvinism: A History
Book Information
ISBN 9780300263619
Author Thomas Albert Howard
Format Hardback
Page Count 296
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
A popular truism derived from the Enlightenment holds that violence is somehow inherent to religion, to which political secularism offers a liberating solution. But this assumption ignores a glaring modern reality: that putatively progressive regimes committed to secularism have possessed just as much and often a vastly greater capacity for violence as those tied to a religious identity. In Broken Altars, Thomas Albert Howard presents a powerful account of the misery, deaths, and destruction visited on religious communities by secularist regimes in the twentieth century.
Presenting three principal forms of modern secularism that have arisen since the Enlightenment-passive secularism, combative secularism, and eliminationist secularism-Howard argues that the latter two have been especially violence-prone. Westerners do not fully grasp this, however, because they often mistake the first form, passive secularism, for secularism as a whole. But a disconcertingly more complicated picture emerges with the adoption of a broader global vision. Admitting different species of secularism, greater historical perspective, and case studies drawn from the former Soviet Union, Turkey, Mexico, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Mongolia, and China, among other countries, Howard calls into question the conventional tale of modernity as the pacifying triumph of secularism over a benighted religious past.
About the Author
Thomas Albert Howard is professor of humanities and history and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. He is the author of many books, including The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue.
Reviews
"Thomas Albert Howard's timely and ambitious book documents how secularist ideologies could be as violent as religions. Analyzing modern histories of France, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and China, it differentiates between the passive, combative, and eliminationist types of secular political systems."-Ahmet T. Kuru, author of Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment
"The Enlightenment philosophes promised that secular politics would deliver us from faith-based communal violence. Thomas Albert Howard demonstrates how this dream at times contributed in the twentieth century to the repression, murder, and even mass murder of religious believers all over the globe."-Jeffrey T. Zalar, University of Cincinnati
"A superb, and badly needed, corrective to the standard account of the relationship between religion and modernity, and a cautionary tale for the future of that encounter in an increasingly agitated twenty-first century. Highly recommended."-George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center
"In a clear and concise global analysis that spans the European Enlightenment to the present, Howard reminds amnesiacs of the staggering scale of human suffering inflicted by anti-religious modern political regimes animated by combative and eliminationist secularism. Broken Altars subverts the view that religious rather than secular ideologies have been and remain disproportionately responsible for organized violence."-Brad S. Gregory, University of Notre Dame
"At a time when religious conservatism is increasingly associated with illiberalism, Broken Altars is an important reminder to all sides in debates about religion and politics that secularist ideologies and regimes have sobering records of violence and coercion. In a sweeping narrative that traverses revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and Southeast Asia, Howard assembles a chilling history of governments that defied the divine in the pursuit of social justice. It did not work out well."-D. G. Hart, Calvinism: A History
Book Information
ISBN 9780300263619
Author Thomas Albert Howard
Format Hardback
Page Count 296
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
