Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
New Blog of Note: The Immanent Frame
New Blog of Note: The Immanent Frame
Feb 14, 2026 12:57 AM

A new blog has been added to our blogroll sidebar (along with a much-needed round of housecleaning on old and out-of-date links). Announcement below:

The Social Science Research Council is pleased to announce the launch of The Immanent Frame, a new SSRC blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere.

The blog is opening with a series of posts on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, including recent contributions from Robert Bellah, Wendy Brown, Jose Casanova, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Colin Jager. Robert Bellah has called A Secular Age “one of the most important books to be written in my lifetime,” and there will be more e on Taylor’s major work in the weeks ahead, with posts by Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, Hent de Vries, Amy Hollywood, Tomoko Masuzawa, Joan Scott, and others. Meanwhile, Charles Taylor himself has just made his own contribution to the already ongoing conversations.

But The Immanent Frame won’t be limited to discussions of A Secular Age. Later this fall we’ll also host a series of posts responding to Mark Lilla’s The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. And there will be posts on a variety of other topics too-from pluralism and the “post-secular” to international relations theory, religious freedom, and the future of shari’a.

This new SSRC blog will draw on, and is closely linked to, the Council’s expanding work on religion and the public sphere. We invite readers to email us ments or questions at [email protected].

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Putting a Leash on the Freedom of Parents and the Imaginations of Children
My parents should have been jailed for child neglect. At least that’s what would be their fate if I were growing up today. Fortunately for them (and for me), I was a child during the 1970s, a time when kids were (mostly) free to explore the world. At age seven I was allowed to wander a mile in each direction from my home. By age nine I was exploring the underground sewers and drainage system of Wichita Falls, Texas. When...
How Anti-Catholic Bias From 140 Years Ago Affects Our Religious Freedom Today
Eleven years ago this week, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Locke v. Davey that continues to have a detrimental impact on religious liberty. But the seeds for that ruling were planted 140 years ago, in another attempt to curb religious liberty. When James Blaine introduced his ill-fated constitutional amendment in 1875, he probably never would have imagined the unintended consequences it would have over a hundred years later. Blaine wanted to prohibit the use of state funds...
Religious Activists Push Back Against ‘Blunt Instrument’ of Fossil Fuels Divestment
Your faithful correspondent last week exposed the fossil-fuel divestment endgame of religious shareholder activists. As You Sow President Danielle Fugere sees her group’s activities as awareness-raising exercises for climate change, but AYS’s alignment with environmentalist and divestment firebrand Naomi Klein suggests they’d settle for nothing less than nationalizing panies. This week, I’m happy to report another group frequently called to task in this space, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, opposes the AYS divestment onslaught. Reporting in last week’s Wall...
Radically Communitarian Islam
Graeme Wood’s excellent piece in The Atlantic has justly been making the rounds for the past week or so. It is well worth reading with a number of insights and points that strike at the heart of the contemporary conflict between modernity and religious violence. mend “What ISIS Really Wants” to your reading. (Rasha al Aqeedi’s “Caliphatalism,” which looks more closely at the situation in Mosul, makes a panion read.) One of the elements of Wood’s piece that stuck out...
How Economic Freedom Saved the World’s Third Poorest Nation
When Botswana gained independence from the British in 1966, the nation was the third-poorest in the world. Then, for three decades it was the world’s fastest growing economy. Today it’s in the top 15 richest countries in Africa. What accounts for the miraculous turnaround? As the Daily Signal notes, the country embraced democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. ...
Florist Chooses Conscience Over Settlement
Last year Washington State’s Attorney General sued Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts on the basis of consumer protection. Florist Barronelle Stutzman had refused to sell flowers to a long time customer when the arrangements were to be used for a same-sex marriage ceremony. Although Stutzman did not have any qualms about serving serving gay customers, she “didn’t want to be involved in a same-sex marriage.” “I just put my hands on his and told [the customer who made the request] because...
Stopping Human Trafficking Before It Starts
Human trafficking is increasingly gaining public awareness. Law enforcement, social workers, first responders – all are beginning to receive training regarding human trafficking. And that’s all very good. But it’s hardly enough. It is much easier to help a person in a high-risk situation avoid trafficking than to try and put a human being back together after they’ve been brutalized by traffickers. munities, church and charitable organizations must all learn what situations in their own areas put people at risk...
First Comprehensive Health Study Of Trafficking Victims Reveals Complex Needs
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the International Organization for Migration has just published the prehensive study regarding the health of human trafficking victims. The study, which looked at men, women and children, reveals that victims of both labor and sex trafficking have severe plex health concerns. The study was carried out in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, working with people who had been rescued and were entering programs for victims of human trafficking. Researchers asked participants about...
Marie Harf May Have Stumbled Into Something
I do not believe Marie Harf is an eloquent speaker, but I did think her “jobs for ISIS” remarks made some sense. We know that in American cities, for instance, if young men do not have education and jobs, they get into mischief. The kind of mischief that includes gangs and drugs and violence. Why would we expect that young men in Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere would be any different? Apparently, I’m not the only one. While others have sneered...
Does Innovation Triumph Over Regulation?
Do government regulations squelch marketplace innovation? A new study from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Nathan Goldschlag and George Mason University’s Alex Tabarrok says, “Not really.” According to Ryan Young at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: …the underlying institutions of social cooperation, market exchange, and dynamism are strong enough that federal regulation has, according to Goldschlag and Tabarrok’s analysis, so far been unable to squelch them. Just as a balloon pressed on one end pushes air to the other end, people will...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved