2000 years and beyond : faith, identity, and the common era / edited by Paul Gifford ... [and others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gifford, Paul, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity.

Religion.

Christianity--Forecasting.

Humanism.

Capitalism--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Capitalism.

Postmodernism--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Postmodernism.

Physical Description:

ix, 227 pages ; 22 cm

Other Title:

Two thousand years and beyond

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2003.

Summary:

What, in the inheritance of 2000 years, can carry us forward into the increasingly shared time and space of our fast-globalizing world? How, in the third millennium, should we think of the Common Era? 2000 Years and Beyond brings together some of the most eminent thinkers of our time, specialists in philosophy, theology, anthropology and culture theory. In a horizon-scanning work, they look backwards and forwards to explore what links us to the matrix of the Judaeo-Christian tradition from which Western cultural identity has evolved.

Their reflections raise searching questions about how we move from past to future - and about who 'we' are. What do the catastrophes of the twentieth century signify for hopes of progress? Can humanism, or its notion of human nature, survive without religious faith? If the 'numinous magic of global enterprise' is our own giant shadow cast abroad, does that shadow offer hope enough of a communal future? Most crucially: has the modern, secularized West now outgrown its originating faith matrix? Are we truly and finally 'post-Christian' - or just post-millennial and suffering hangover? Often controversial, sometimes visionary, these new essays ask: how do we tell - and how do we rewrite from now on - the unfolding story of the Common Era?

Contents:

1 2000 years: looking backwards and forwards / Paul Gifford 1

2 Progress and abyss: remembering future of the modern world / Jurgen Moltmann 16

3 Enlightenment humanism as a relic of Christian monotheism / John Gray 35

4 Historiography and the representation of the past / Paul Ricoeur 51

5 The future of human nature / Richard Schacht 69

6 The mimetic theory of religion: an outline / Rene Girard 88

7 Second comings: neo-Protestant ethics and millennial capitalism in Africa, and elsewhere / Jean Comaroff, John Comaroff 106

8 Can a premodern bible address a postmodern world? / Anthony C. Thiselton 127

9 Conclusion: dialogue on the 'Common Era' / The Editors 147.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 208-219) and index.

ISBN:

0415278074

0415278082

OCLC:

50184941