¶ … New Humanities Reader edited by Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, 2003
The elements that make an essay argumentative are not necessarily the same elements as what makes, for instance a conversation an argument. Does God Have a Future? By Karen Armstrong posits that the human understanding of God has shifted and changed over the course of the past centuries, given various groups of humanity's different orientations to other religious and ethnic groups, as well as the introduction of science into the modern worldview. Armstrong does not argue a particular thesis about the true nature of the divine, however she does put forth a particular argument as to what makes a human being religious in orientation, and speculates upon the future of religion in modernity. Likewise, Annie Dillard similarly attempts to understand the place of the theological within a specific modern context in her essay The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure. In fact, although Annie Dillard does not take on religious matter explicitly, she offers a strong view about the need for morality in assessing human behavior within a specific philosophical, if not necessarily God-focused context.
The arguments most of these essays make are about the place of human life within a larger context of faith and the environment. The essay that perhaps most seamlessly melds these concerns is The Ganges' Next Life, by Alexander Stille, which speculates upon the future of this holy water in present-day India. However, Jan Willis' own journey as a Black woman and a Buddhist also illustrates how the political, the social, the theological, and the moral responsibility of all individuals to society cannot be untangled in an easy fashion. Like all the essays in the reader, Dreaming Me: An African-American Woman's Spiritual Journey, by Jan Willis makes an argument from personal and historical testimony, rather than upon purely rational grounds.
