The commercial success of Christopher Hitchens' most recent book, God is Not Great, is generating a lot of interest abroad. Many people are asking whether, in the wake of Bush, and his combination of military violence and Evangelical piety, a new secularism is now formally in the making.
From this vantage point, though I absolutely support such an endeavor, I am not so certain that this is indeed the case. A lot of extremely overdue noise about the political need for secularism, yes, but a broad-based social movement in the US, I remain skeptical. At the moment, its just a cultural exercise.
In this article in the July 27th weekend edition of Maariv, Israel's largest-circulation daily, I was one of several folks journalist Vered Kellner spoke to about the issue. Though not frequently available in English, if you read Hebrew, Vered's thoughtful work is always worth catching up with.
Hey Ari, I will give it a shot, but don't wait on it. I have to have the first draft of my book done in 2 weeks.
- J
Posted by: Joel | August 08, 2007 at 10:26 AM
Any chance you could translate your quote and post it on the blog for us non-Hebrew speaking folk?
Posted by: Ari P. | August 07, 2007 at 01:43 PM