FUNDAMENTALISM

The Only Way to Redeem Religious Ethics?

Authors

  • Shaji George Kochuthara Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (DVK)

Keywords:

Fundamentalism, Christian Fundamentalism, Centrality of Love, Love and Sharing, Religious Ethics

Abstract

Both modernism and Post-modernism have challenged religion and religious ethics. Modernism – which is a continuation of the Enlightenment and humanism – made the human, who is rational, autonomous and self-determining, the centre and measure of everything. Modernism’s emphasis on the power of reason and an all-powerful scientific knowledge pushed religion and religious ethics into the periphery, making it something inferior and superfluous. Post-modernity with its rejection of any system, structure, order and control and with its conception of everything as provisional has challenged again the validity of religious ethics which often speak about norms and values which are perennial and which have universal validity.The Post-modernist era is sometimes described as Post-religious and Post-moral. Liberalism and neo-liberalism promoted by modernism and post-modernism defend unlimited individual liberty, emancipation of the individual from beliefs which are not rationally proved, and liberation from religious and political authorities.

Author Biography

Shaji George Kochuthara, Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (DVK)

Dr. Shaji George Kochuthara holds a doctorate in Moral Theology from the Gregorian University, Rome and teaches Moral Theology at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, Bangalore. He is also the director of Centre for Women Studies (DVK) and a member of Institutional Ethics Review Board (St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore). His publications include The Concept of Sexual Pleasure in the Catholic Moral Tradition (Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2007). He is also the Chief Editor of Asian Horizons: Dharmaram Journal of Theology.

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Published

2010-12-31

How to Cite

Kochuthara, S. G. (2010). FUNDAMENTALISM: The Only Way to Redeem Religious Ethics?. Journal of Dharma, 35(4), 337–354. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/jd/article/view/301