Harry Wesley Gilmer

Living Into A Life Of Faith Harry Wesley Gilmer

How does one keep one's heart and head together? Gilmer says that this is one of the most difficult tasks that thinking people face. In this memoir of his intellectual and spiritual journey lasting over seven decades, Gilmer has delineated the eternal tension between tradition and enlightenment, faith and reason. That tension, he says, is what gives rise to the words set forth in his memoir. How do we reconcile what we know from our sacred traditions [Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.] with what we know from science and critical study? Can these two kinds of knowledge be reconciled? Are tradition and enlightenment just polar opposites that cannot be reconciled? Gilmer believes that they can be reconciled, but that it is an on going project. The post-modern world continues to search for meaningful sacred metaphors. While the search for meaning is the price we pay for self-consciousness, without it we lead impoverished lives. Gilmer is also the author of The Boisterous Sea Of Liberty: The Evolution of Religious Freedom in America.