The Persistence of Faith Religion, Morality and Society in a Secular Age

Rabbi Sacks passionately argues for the importance of faith and religious values in today''s consumerist society with crystalline intelligence and deep compassion. What is the role of religion in a secular society? This is the question that Rabbi Sacks answered in his seminal 1990 Reith Lectures. Now reissued thirty years on, his prescient and moving argument for the renewal of religious values is powerfully relevant to our present moment. In a series of acclaimed essays, Rabbi Sacks addresses the fact that religion often appears on the world stage as a destabilising threat to liberal democracies – from the influence of the moral majority in the USA to the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the renewed vigour of Catholicism in Europe and Africa, there are many who fear the resurgence of faith. However, Sacks'' solution is not to drive religion further into retreat and promote secularisation. Instead, he argues tolerance must lie at the heart of this renewal of traditional values. Faiths of many different kinds can together provide a cohesive morality to unite us all despite our differences and provide meaning and dignity in an otherwise consumerist society. It is essential that religions, as Sacks eloquently argues, respect the unconditional rights of their fellow humans regardless of their faiths, or lack of faith, while working together towards this common good.