The Universe Is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life

by Bruce Ledewitz

Overview

In The Universe Is On Our Side, Bruce Ledewitz argues that there has been a breakdown in American public life that no election can fix - Americans struggle to even converse about politics and the usual explanations for our condition have failed to make things better. Ledewitz posits that America is living with the consequences of the Death of God, which Friedrich Nietzsche presumed would be momentous and irreversible.

For a long time, God acted as the story of the meaning of our lives. America's future requires that we begin a new story by each of us asking a question posed by theologian Bernard Lonergan: Is the universe on our side? When we commit to live honestly and fully by our answer to that question, even if our immediate answer is no, America can begin to heal. Beyond this, pondering the question of the universe will allow us to see that there is more to the universe than blind forces and dead matter.

Guided by the naturalism of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, and the historical faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ledewitz argues we can work towards a trust that the universe bends toward justice and our welfare, which can complete our healing and restore faith in American public life. The Universe Is On Our Side makes the case that we can live without God, but not without thinking about holiness in the universe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197563939
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/18/2021
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	672,032
Product dimensions:	9.43(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Bruce Ledewitz is Professor of Law and Adrian Van Kaam C.S.Sp. Endowed Chair in Scholarly Excellence at Duquesne Law School, where he specializes in Law and Religion, Jurisprudence and Pennsylvania and federal Constitutional Law. Ledewitz is the author of numerous articles and shorter pieces, as well as three books: American Religious Democracy, Hallowed Secularism, and Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction

Part I The Death of God Comes Home to Roost

Chapter 1 The Breakdown in American Public Life

Chapter 2 The Spiritual Dimension of the Breakdown

Chapter 3 The Arrival of the Death of God

Chapter 4 Faithless American Public Life

Chapter 5 The Age of Evasion

Part II Restoring Faith in American Public Life

Chapter 6 Is the Universe On Our Side?

Chapter 7 No, The Universe Is Not On Our Side

Chapter 8 Yes, The Universe Is On Our Side

Chapter 9 Restored Public Life

Chapter 10 Does This Bring Us Back to God?

Afterward

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"The Universe Is on Our Side provides a timely analysis of the most glaring and troubling of current political and cultural trends in the United States. Readers will see resonances not only in the national context but in the nation's constituent institutions, such as higher education or medicine, and will surely find it a provocative and engaging take on one of the most pressing issues of our time." — Ann W. Duncan, Journal of Church and State

"Bruce Ledewitz, a faculty member at Duquesne and author of the new book The Universe Is on Our Side...[is]...one of the most interesting thinkers in the secular sphere...[and]...sees the deity's death "coming home to roost" in American culture right now in ways more far-reaching and profound—and disruptive—than anything the country has previously seen....Ledewitz...argues—correctly, in my view—that American public life cannot regain its health until we coalesce around a new story to replace the old one about a beneficent reality shaped by a reliable god" — Tom Krattenmaker, Only Sky

"Fraught times demand radical inquiry. In "The Universe Is On Our Side," Bruce Ledewitz argues that the cause of the nation's divisions and its entrenched partisan rancor is not primarily ideological, economic or even racial. Rather, he contends, the problem is spiritual - though the solution he proffers is not conventionally religious....Is a public debate about the nature of the universe plausible to hope for? Readers needn't have faith the approach will work to find it a useful angle from which to view our predicament" — Bill O'Driscoll, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"Ledewitz argues in "The Universe is On Our Side" that we can work toward a trust that the universe bends toward justice and our welfare." — Justin Vellucci, The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

"This book argues that the cause of American political breakdown is the death of God. But the answer to the question of the future of American democracy, Ledewitz suggests, is not a return to belief, but the recovery of deep questioning. Although many readers will find something to object to in this book, they will also find themselves questioning the grounds of their objections, and in doing so, returning to the habits of democracy." — Michael S. Hogue, author of American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World

"Bruce Ledewitz models the kind of inquiry so dearly needed in our time of alienation, disenchantment, and despair. We must ask ultimate questions and discover the hope-inducing answers that are waiting to be found — which Ledewitz does with great skill and persuasiveness in this valuable book." — Tom Krattenmaker, USA Today contributing columnist and author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower

"I didn't have time to read this book but I couldn't help myself. In Bruce Ledewitz's thoughtful, engaging, admirably balanced diagnosis of our societal disintegration as a manifestation of Nietzsche's death of God" and in his prescription for a way forward, readers will find much to ponder." — Steven Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law; Co-Executive Director, Institute for Law & Religion; Co-Executive Director, Institute for Law & Philosophy, UCSD and author of Pagans and Christians in the City

From the Publisher