Finding Meaning and Belonging: The Role of Religion in Public Life
Kalpana Jain, senior religion/ethics editor and director of the Global Religion Journalism Initiative at The Conversation, explored the intersection of faith, identity, and political influence during a gathering in Park City, Utah. Organized by the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program, the event analyzed how religious convictions shape American public life amid a decline in traditional moral orientation sources.
How does religion bridge the gap between the physical and the existential?
Richard Parker, who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School, provided the intellectual framework for the Utah discussions. Parker argues that religion satisfies a fundamental human requirement: the need to make sense of the self and the surrounding world.
He references sociologist Peter Berger to explain the distinction between the “nomos” and the “cosmos.” According to Parker, the nomos is the meaningful world humans create through language, shared stories, and social obligations. This creates the blueprint for how a person should live.
The cosmos, conversely, is the raw physical world existing outside human interpretation. Parker suggests religion acts as the bridge between these two realms, allowing individuals to connect their daily existence to deeper, existential questions.
Parker noted during the session that religion “stills our fear of being alive” and “stills our fear of being alone.”
This bridge is maintained through ritual and prayer. Even in societies that identify as secular, Parker points to the work of philosopher Jürgen Habermas to argue that religion remains a critical source of hope and moral purpose.
What is the relationship between Dharma and the “Nomos”?
The discussion in Park City highlighted how these Western sociological theories mirror Eastern spiritual concepts. Kalpana Jain, drawing on her experience as a visiting researcher at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and her background in Indian journalism, connected Parker’s theories to the Hindu concept of dharma.
While often translated simply as “religion,” dharma represents a comprehensive moral order. It encompasses a person’s ethical duties toward their family, society, nature, and the wider universe. Jain noted that this framework echoes Berger’s description of the relationship between the nomos and the cosmos, where individual obligation aligns with a larger universal order.
The impact of religious identity on American politics
The Aspen Institute’s gathering focused heavily on how these internal searches for meaning translate into external political action. The timing is critical as the U.S. approaches the midterms, where religious identity often serves as a primary voting bloc.
The decline of traditional religious affiliation does not mean the decline of religious influence. This is a phenomenon Jain has documented extensively, including her work on rising Hindu nationalism in India, supported by a Pulitzer grant.
Jain’s own journey—from reporting on the AIDS epidemic in India for Penguin’s “Positive Lives” to studying at the Harvard Divinity School—underscores the complexity of this identity. For immigrants and global citizens, the question of “Where do I belong?” is not merely philosophical; it is a daily negotiation between different cultural and spiritual worlds.
Whether through the lens of dharma or the sociological nomos, the drive to find a "bridge" to the cosmos remains constant.