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Book
Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason
(2009)
  • Robert Erlewine, Illinois Wesleyan University
Abstract
Why are religious tolerance and pluralism so difficult to achieve? Why is the often violent fundamentalist backlash against them so potent? Robert Erlewine looks to a new religion of reason for answers to these questions. Drawing on Enlightenment writers Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, and Hermann Cohen, who placed Christianity and Judaism in tension with tolerance and pluralism, Erlewine finds a way to break the impasse, soften hostilities, and establish equal relationships with the Other. Erlewine's recovery of a religion of reason stands in contrast both to secularist critics of religion who reject religion for the sake of reason and to contemporary religious conservatives who eschew reason for the sake of religion. Monotheism and Tolerance suggests a way to deal with the intractable problem of religiously motivated and justified violence. Monotheism and Tolerance was reviewed by the Notre Dame Philosophical Review and the North American Hermann Cohen Society, as well as in CHOICE (October 2010) and in the European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion (Autumn 2011). Content Provided by Syndetics.
Keywords
  • Religious tolerance,
  • freedom of religion,
  • philosophy of religion
Publication Date
December 21, 2009
Publisher
Indiana University Press
Publisher Statement
Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason is published by Indiana University Press. For purchase information see IU Press online.
Citation Information
Robert Erlewine. Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason. Bloomington, IN(2009)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/robert_erlewine/1/