Religion & Law

Over at The Immanent Frame, a number of scholars were asked to reflect on the question -- occasioned by the launch of a new research project at Notre Dame called "Contending Modernities:  Catholic, Muslim, Secular":

What is gained by framing research on religion, secularity, and modernity in terms of ?multiple? or ?contending? modernities, and what ?new paths for constructive engagement? might such a frame afford?

The response of Robert Orsi, who holds the Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern, was particularly, well, bracing:

. . .  The various goods of modernity were hard won; the language of multiple modernities obscures the fact that Catholicism was one of the major obstacles to their achievement. This is not to absolve the modern of its horrors or to deny that sometimes Catholics stood in courageous and necessary opposition to it (although the church itself mostly did so for its own ends, otherwise it was quite willing to come to terms with even the vilest moderns). It is to call into question the positive valence of the phrase ?multiple modernities,? to question the history it elides, and to recognize the brave opposition of secular modernity to Catholicism, which has been on balance a great good. . . .

The "brave opposition of secular modernity to Catholicism . . . has been on balance a great good."  I'd say the issue is joined!