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Denise Trull's avatar

You make me want to read Dawson in the worst way, now! I think I shall!! Beautifully thought out post as usual. A pleasure to read!!

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Benjamin Trull's avatar

Thank you, and thanks for reading! I think you'll enjoy Dawson if you pick him up. He's delightfully readable, unlike some famous writers on similar topics *cough, Alasdair MacIntyre cough*. :)

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AnthonyTrull's avatar

As always, I'm impressed by your erudition and by the connections you make -- especially your connection to Global Threads and the importance of economics. Politics too. As long "natural theologians" see politics and economics (by which I mean the bulk of human activity in this world: the laborers and farmers, merchants and bankers, inventors and founders and scientists, industrialists and financiers) as incidental, they they themselves will be irrevelant. I appreciate the idea that religious adherents can come to see their faith as coterminous with their culture and make of it an idol. I think the more religion and culture align, the likelier this becomes. But doesn't that mean religion should always be, to a significant extent, counter-cultural? If so, doesn't that send the discussion in a different direction?

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Benjamin Trull's avatar

I think so. Religion needs to be countercultural against negative cultural norms, but also against its own tendency to "become culture," as Ratzinger says, because even though it finds meaning through culture, it never wholly "becomes" the cultures it creates. It's like walking a razor's edge, as it were. ;)

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