Main Menu
| Home |
| Radio Shows - LISTEN |
| Brad's Blog |
| Irwin's Blog |
| Brad In the Media |
| Irwin in the Media |
| Bridges TV - WATCH |
| Podcast |
| Forum |
Movies
Building Bridges: Abrahamic Perspectives on the World Today
with Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Season II
Now Available on a 3-DVD Set
A first-ever 15-part series conceived by a rabbi for Bridges TV-American Muslim TV Network, the show brings together religious leaders of the three major Abrahamic faiths to grapple with the divisive issues splitting our traditions and country. Fast paced and tied to today's news, it gives viewers a deeper understanding of how people of faith see the world, and each other, with live interviews from the American public.
Price: $25.00 (3 DVD Set)
To order, click here.
Members Login
Hirschfield & Kula and
IntelligentTalkRadio.com
is produced and managed by
Scott Newman Productions
| Irwin Blog Dec. 3, 2007 |
|
|
| Tuesday, 04 December 2007 | |
|
Religion a Cure?
Can religion cure the world’s biggest social problems?! Who are we kidding?
Posted by Irwin Kula
The major challenge to religion, in this next period of human history, at least at this moment, is not whether religion can cure the world’s biggest social problems but whether it will make things incredibly worse and I say this as a religious person (an observant Jew) with a disciplined spiritual practice. After the past three hundred years of modernity in which, for good reason, religion was minimized, privatized, and dismissed, religion has reemerged as a central force. This is not surprising, for at the same time that modernity radically questioned religion’s truth claims and thankfully liberated human reason from the superstition, literalness, and overextending of religion, which led to miraculous and revolutionary achievements in our ability to master the material world, e.g., the cure of diseases and the amazing increase in life span, it also resulted in a world disenchanted and disqualified - a wasteland (in T.S. Eliot’s apt description) that left human beings bereft of a sense of meaning, depth, and wholeness – precisely the purview of religion and spirituality and so we have a reawakening. But it sure does seem that in this initial period of the reincarnation of religion, that religion world wide has done more damage than good – whether by inspiring suicide bombers, leading and inflaming culture wars, stopping scientific advances, or promulgating nasty moral judgments about fellow citizens especially in the area of sexuality.
The determining question as to whether religion will contribute to enhance our capacity to evolve and our ability to address our many challenges or whether religion will take us back to the fourteenth century is this: Will we religious leadership and religious people simply revert back to a pre-modern arrogance and overreaching and assume that because the limits of modernity have been realized we/religion have the truth about every aspect of life or have we learned and internalized the legitimate limits and humility imposed upon religion by the modern developments in other fields of knowledge - science, psychology, medicine, physics, anthropology, etc. and by the post-modern realization that truth, at least as human beings are capable of attaining truth, is contextual, constructed, and plural. If religion can not include the partial truths of modern and post-modern disciplines while transcending their excesses then not only will religion not help cure the world’s biggest social problems but will dangerously exacerbate them. For religion to be a substantive force in helping to cure the world’s biggest social problems, its adherents will need to worry far more about their own souls and other peoples bodies than their own bodies and other peoples souls. Religious communities will need to spend more time engaged in moral self-critique than in casting moral blame. They will need to model and witness their truths rather than proselytize, evangelize, dismiss or coerce others. Religious leaders will need to stop using religion to simply affirm their already held political positions and ideologies (whether on the right or the left as if God is so small as to be a conservative or a liberal) and recover the deeper religious truth that points to the infinite and therefore recognizes the finitude and the partial truth of every position and challenges the sufficiency of any political position (especially one’s own) until the world is healed of all injustice. Religion will need to know its limits It is a wisdom and practice - a science, a technology - of our inner psycho-spiritual lives and not as an explanation – a science - of the material world. It will need to privilege acts of compassion over pieties, meaning over moralizing, justice over judgmentalism, caring over creed, healing over dogma, and humility over self-righteousness. Religion will need to remember and embody that the most genuine spirituality and religious life is not making a leap into some mystical oneness but making a leap of empathy and solidarity with other human beings, especially the stranger – the person who really is different, who is other from us, but who like us is an Image of God. To put it simply, religion clearly is one of the most powerful and combustible forces in human life. It can inspire death cults and Kingdom of Nights and it can evoke sacrificial love and life-affirming compassion. And contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no necessary connection between being a religious or spiritual person and being a moral or compassionate person. So perhaps, as religion again emerges in the public arena, it is time for each of us, especially those of us who consider ourselves religious or spiritual and who are members of religious communities, to continuously be asking ourselves (rather than others) whether our religious wisdom and practices are indeed working. Are they actually helping us to know more clearly the truth about who we really are and our place in the world and are they actually making us ever more compassionate to others - the very purpose, according to the greatest Jewish philosopher Maimonides, of every piece of religious wisdom and practice. When religious people can answer yes to this every day then religious believers will indeed help, along with all sorts of other believers and non-believers, to cure the world’s biggest social problems. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
| Dec 2009 - Present |
|
The Morning Show with Russ Morley, (WFTL, Miami), The Academy Awards and our National Obsession with Celebrities (Click on no. 16), 3/8/10
The Huffington Post, Purim, 2/27/10
The Al Gainey Show, WDUN (Northern GA), CPAC Conference - Young people who are conservative seem less attached to some social issues than their older religious counterparts, 2/26/10 Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2/25/10
The God Show, KTAR (Phoenix), Sacred Super Bowl Sunday, 2/7/10
The Lars Larson Show, Compass Media Networks, Sacred Super Bowl Sunday, 2/5/10
Voice of America-Indonesia, "Building Collaborative Communities" Conference (Jakarta), 1/27/10
Kompas - Indonesia's Leading Paper, The Indonesia-US Interfaith Cooperation program in Jakarta, 1/26/10
The Morning Show, WFTL (Miami), Pat Robertson’s Remarks About Haiti, 1/19/10
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Martin Kuther King, Jr., 1/18/10
Progressive Talk AM 1150 (Los Angeles), Pat Robertson’s Remarks on Haiti (Jan 14, 5 pm time slot - Time code: 29:20-37:30), 1/17/10
The Louis B. Free Show, WGFT (Youngstown, OH), Martin Luther King Jr. (Brad's on Part II, about 3/4 of the way to the end), 1/15/10 The Mario Solis Marich Show, Progressive Talk AM 760 (Denver), Pat Robertson’s Remarks on Haiti (Jan 14, 5 pm time slot - Time code: 29:20-37:30), 1/14/10
Overnight America with Jon Grayson, KMOX (St. Louis), Brit Hume's suggestion that Tiger Woods convert from Buddhism to Christianity, 1/6/10
Aaron in the Afternoons, KLFD, (St. Cloud, MN), Tiger Woods needs Jesus to turn his life around?, 1/5/10 The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Brad on Brit Hume, Tiger Woods and Jesus, 1/5/10
The Mario Solis Marich Show, Progressive Talk AM 760 (Denver), War on Christmas (26:30-34:41), 12/21/09
Aspen Daily News, Rabbi Receives Plea Deal in Traffic Case, 12/16/09
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), The Christmas Wars, 12/16/09 Busted Halo - Sirius Satellite Radio, The Christmas Wars, 12/16/09
State of Belief, Air America, The Christmas Wars, 12/12/09
American Profiles, Voice of America, Brad Hirschfield Brings Style to Interfaith Activism, 12/10/09 |
| Dec 2009 - Present |
|
“God Talk,” A Segment on the Fox News web show, “The Strategy Room,” 2/26/10
The Forward, Being Jewish in NY, 2/17/10
Politics Daily, Is Obama Appointee Harry Knox an 'Anti-Catholic Bigot'? , 2/12/10
Erik and Jack Attack, Cable Radio Network, Valentine’s Day - (Tuesday, Time code: 19:47-23:34), 2/9/10
Aaron in the Afternoon, KLFD, (ST. Cloud, MN), Valentine’s Day, 2/9/10
NY Jewish Week, Voodoo Dialogue, 2/3/10
FoxNews.com “Strategy Room”, Relationships and Valentine’s Day, 2/1/10
The Morning Show with Russ Morley, WFTL (Miami), Do we get the government we deserve? (Click on the 4th item), 1/28/10
The Mario Solis Marich Show, KKZN Denver, What is the state of the union? (Time — 30:20-38:43), 1/26/10
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Bankers’ Apologies and Pat Robertson’s Response to the Haiti Crisis, 1/14/10
At Issue with Ben Merens, WPR (Wisconsin Public Radio), Hopes and Expectations for the New Year (go to 12/24/09, 4 pm slot), 12/24/09
Erik & Jack Attack, Cable Radio Network, Hope for the New Year, Tiger Woods, and Religious Tolerance (47:47-52:10) , 12/23/09
USA Today, Faith & Reason Blog, Pope Pius XII and Sainthood, 12/22/09
Dresser After Dark, How do those who do not identify with organized religion fare during the holidays?, 12/22/09
Progressive Talk AM 1150 - Los Angeles, Holidays, Yearnings, and Tiger Woods, 12/20/09
Mario Solis Marich Show - Progressive Talk AM 760 (Colorado), Holidays, Yearnings, and Tiger Woods, (Click on Dec. 16 - Irwin @ 27:53-36:02), 12/16/09 |