What are we to think of the idea, entertained by Rawls for a time, that one can legitimately ask of…
Secularism and critique
Mark Lilla
Two books, oddly yoked together
Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God feels like two books, oddly yoked together. One is a fascinating study, which traces a…
Political theology & liberal democracy
The idea of modern liberalism depends decisively on a jettisoning of theology as a source for arguing about politics: If…
Liberal Protestantism the key
Lilla alludes to the fact that “in the Anglo-American orbit, a liberal theological outlook could grow up alongside a liberal…
The forces unleashed
Just what or who or where is religion for Lilla himself? Is the problem really the Bible—that, in addition to…
The last prophet of Leviathan
Lilla turns aside to the small cadre of the Enlightened who see the story for what it is....“We” turns out…
A review in three parts
“The world of today is torn asunder by a great dispute; and not only a dispute, but a ruthless battle…
The other shore
For Lilla, Westerners are the exception because we live on what he calls “the other shore.” Civilizations on the “opposite…
A cautionary tale?
It would have been enough for Lilla to frame this book as an explanation of the genealogy of bourgeois protestant…
The great separation
One should be suspicious of any argument that presents the multiple alternatives facing contemporary societies around the world today as…