BETWEEN RELATIVISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM
Religious resources for a middle position
Edited by Peter L. Berger. Alban Books. 213 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978-0-8028-6387-4
This book consists of nine essays which grew out of a consultation of the Institute of Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. The working group represented the Judeo-Christian tradition and there are essays by a Conservative Rabbi along with members of a wide variety of Christian traditions.
Peter Berger, the editor, defines the scope of the project in his opening essay. ‘Contemporary culture … appears to be in the grip of two seemingly contradictory forces. One pushes the culture toward relativism, the view that there are no absolutes whatever ... The other (fundamentalism), pushes towards a militant and uncompromising affirmation of this or that (alleged) absolute “Truth”’.
