World Religions and World Crises: Establishing Dialogue between Religious and Secular Thinkers
A rapidly emerging belief is that Western nations have lost their bearings partly due to the decline of Judaism, Christianity, and the secular Enlightenment traditions that previously shaped Western thought and action. We have become dangerously fragmented and exclusivist and in some places moving towards authoritarianism. We are short on meaningful dialogue between the religious and secular thinkers, which is surprising considering how important religious ideas have been and could be again. There are ways forward by using the major world religions in harmony to state basic beliefs held for millennia and apply them to specific social and personal issues with care for context and history and uses of metaphor.
Rev. Charles Brock, M.Litt. is director of the Brock Institute for Mega Issues Education at the Jefferson Educational Society. An Erie native, Rev. Brock is an emeritus fellow, chaplain, and director of Ministerial Education at Mansfield College, Oxford, UK, where he taught for 35 years. In addition to being a founding member of the Jefferson and serving as Secretary of the Jefferson Board of Trustees, Rev. Brock is acting minister of The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Girard.
