Religious Problems and Solutions

“Economics can solve economic problems, and politics political ones, but only religion can solve problems that arise out of the religious situation itself. For four centuries the West proceeded on the assumption that science, politics and economics would take the place once held by the church. The problem of religion would be solved by depriving it of power. What happens, though, when religion returns in all its power – precisely because it answers questions to which science, politics, and economics offer no reply? The great faiths provide meaning and purpose for their adherents. The question is: can they make space for those who are not its adherents, who sing a different song, hear a different music, tell a different story? On that question, the fate of the twenty-first century may turn.”

The Dignity of Difference, p. 38