Keeping Religion Private

by Abraham Mulamoottil

English 229 pages 1 edition

This book calls forth the necessity to reclaim and reimagine religion for the 21st century, especially for the post-Covid world. It is a comparative and critical study of religion and the fundamentality of human consciousness that affects religious thoughts. This book suggests that religion is a matter of subjective experience of human consciousness remaining in the private realm and should continue for permanent re-inventing of new knowledge. The book tries to discuss not the issue of whether God exists or not, but whether God and religion should exist lest godmen, politicians, and terrorists recreate it inefficiently and faultily. This new ‘Trimurti’ hijacked and hacked Gods and Religions. If I am asked to summarize one important conclusion from Fr. Dr. Abraham Mulamoottil’s well-researched scholarly work “Keeping Religion Private”, I prefer to go back to a quote from Dalai Lama, which the author himself uses to begin the first chapter of this book: “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” The book by Fr. Dr. Abraham Mulamoottil is a genuine and an authentic exploration of the ideas to bridge the gap between secularism and religion and a must read for everyone. – Dr. C.P. Rajendran For the author, there is an urgency to this task because both secularism and religions in India face “a genuine threat” from the combined onslaught of “politicians, terrorists, and godmen misusing religious teachings and practices.” How this goal is to be achieved is only hinted at and could be a subject for a sequel to this book. But for me, as an atheist committed to the secular ideal, the valuable takeaway from Father Mulamoottil’s discourse is the philosophically grounded and politically progressive set of arguments he advances for why religion must be kept in the private realm. -N.RAM