Religious Antecedents of Secularisation and Secularist Consequents on Religion

Religious Antecedents of Secularisation, and Secularist Consequents
on Religion: Insights from Social Sciences
 
Sahaya G. Selvam, sdb
Abstract
Religion and secularism have a reciprocal relationship. The roots of political secularism and social secularisation could be traced within religion, and the rise of a secularist culture elicits a reactionary feedback from religion in the form of religious spirituality at best, and fundamentalism and fanaticism at worst. Basing itself on the historical context of the watershed events in European history that marked the rise of secularisation and secularism, the present paper points out the antecedents of secularism situated within religion. The paper argues that religion can be described in its four dimensions: creed (a set of beliefs explaining the mystery dimensions of life), code (a set of ethical principles and prescriptive and proscriptive […]

Continue reading


Sermon for Cycle A – 2nd Sunday Homily

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Finding our space in the Universe:
The Life Journey of John the Baptist (Jn 1:29-34)
Christmastide is now over and retailers have special Sales.  Because, retailers hate ordinary time.  They try to make even ordinary time into something special. Hence the reduced prices!
In the liturgical calendar, we are back to the ordinary time. But even in our gospel reading there is an attempt to make the liturgy of today special too.  Perhaps it is just to remind us that every Eucharistic celebration is special!  As we are in Year A, we should have been listening to the Gospel of Matthew.  But our gospel text for today came from the Gospel of John, as is the case every year on the 2nd Sunday in […]

Continue reading


Spirituality of Youth in the 21st Century

Dimesse Centre, Nairobi, 22 October 2019
A presentation made to the Kenyan Association of Vocation Animators (KAVA).
The presentation has three parts:

What is special about the youth of 21st Century?
What is spirituality?
Dimensions of Youth Spirituality

The first part explores the characteristics of the youth of 21st Century. It focuses on the following aspects:
a. It begins by pointing out to the fluidity of the 21st century… what will be the nature of the following in the year 2100: education, job-market, media, science & technology, politics, social structures? No one really knows in details. One thing is sure: it is going to be much different from that of today.
b. Consider the demographic truth. Africa is still going to have a high level of youth population. Causing a youth-bulge! Would we have […]

Continue reading


Sermon for 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C Homily


27th Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)
“We have done no more than our duty” (Lk 17:5-10)
The Spirituality of Daily life
  In the late 1990’s, CNN, the American news channel, ran an ad in the print media that made a deep impression on me: not necessarily to watch CNN – which, of course, I do sometimes, but about the spirituality of daily life.  The two page ad had this large truck in the foreground which was on fire.  At one of the corners of the photograph there was this elderly person who was throwing a bucket of water on the blazing truck in an attempt to put off the fire.  And the caption read: “History is not made by kings and presidents; but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
The Liturgy of the Word on this 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time invites us to reflect on the sacredness […]

Continue reading