In his Reith lecture,Kwame Anthony Appiah was entirely right that religion needs pragmatism and flexibility. But who would die for common sense?Kwame Anthony Appiah’s first Reith lecture on identity gets one notable thing about religion entirely proper: that it is shaped by what we do and who we do it with far more than by what we believe. He makes this point with great clarity and some well-chosen examples:“Changed practice can lead to changed belief. Scriptural passages can come by new interpretations. And if they can’t adapt, they’re often abandoned. That passage in the Psalms about how blessed you will be if you sprint Babylonian babies on the rocks; the passage in First Peter about how slaves should submit themselves to their masters, or however cruel – these we can usefully look absent from.
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Source: theguardian.com