"Solidarity refers to our normative commitment toward some person or set of people as well our psychological motivation to act on that commitment. Liberal democracies need solidarity for at least four reasons: stabilizing society, realizing justice, diminishing dependence, and cultivating moral personality. But they must also navigate a conceptual tension: liberalism valorizes personal freedom, individual dignity, pluralism, and critical reflection; solidarity stresses social unity, visceral attachment, and the subordinating of one's own interest to the good of the whole. Even more dauntingly, they must confront what I call Schmitt's challenge. According to Carl Schmitt, the solidarity liberal democracies need comes from sources they cannot themselves produce, like religion. Thus in an age of declining religiosity and rising nationalism, how can we form strong social bonds without racism, demagoguery, and xenophobia? Can we have not only solidarity, but liberal solidarity, in a secular age?"--

Solidarity is crucial for liberalism. It helps to stabilize society, realize justice, diminish domination, and cultivate moral personality. Yet the sources of liberal solidarity have received almost no attention in political theory. This dissertation is a study of those sources. It is part original history of European philosophy, part novel moral psychology, and part new normative political theory. I call this theory deep solidarity.

In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism. Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address. In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time.

Drawn from the eponymous blog essays on faith, culture, and lives of Christian discipleship by young Jesuit priests and seminarians for young adult seekers.

Is Christian mission even possible today? In "a secular age," is it possible to talk about the goodness of God in a compelling way? How should the church proceed? Carolyn Chau explores the question of Catholic mission in a secular age through a constructive interpretation of the work of two celebrated Catholic thinkers, philosopher Charles Taylor and theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, arguing that Taylor and Balthasar together offer a promising path for mission today. Chau attends to Taylor's account of the conditions of belief today, and the genesis of the sociohistorical limits on contemporary "God-talk," as well as his affirmation of certain aspects of Western modernity's "culture." From Balthasar, Chau sifts out the distinctiveness of his view of the human person as defined by mission, and his encouragement of a kenotic self-understanding of the church. In the end, Chau claims that if modern persons in secular Western societies are seeking fulfillment and integrity, Christian spirituality remains a rich resource on offer.

This book compares secularity in societies not shaped by Western Christianity, particularly in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Charles Taylor’s monumental book A Secular Age has been extensively discussed, criticized, and worked on. This volume, by contrast, explores ways of working with Taylor’s book, especially its potentials and limits for individual research projects. Due to its wide reception, it has initiated a truly interdisciplinary object of study; with essays drawn from various research fields, this volume fosters substantial conversation across disciplines.