Post-modern theology must balance a return to traditionalism with a modern outlook, a leading liberal Jewish theologian told an audience gathered at Emerson Hall last night.

Eugene B. Borowitz told the crowd of approximately 60 people that there has been a "resurgence of religion, especially fundamentalist and evangelical movements," in the past 20 years.

Borowitz said that this return to fundamentalism has been due to a "collapse in confidence" in modernity stemming from the Holocaust.

The "modern view" that flourished before the Holocaust was the idea that humanity no longer needed God to tell it what was moral or ethical, Borowitz said. People, he said, believed that those who were cultured and educated could provide that service.

But after the Holocaust, Borowitz said, "the fundamental understanding and assumptions of modernity had collapsed. Of all the times to have confidence in human nature and education, after the Holocaust is not one."

That resulted in a shift away from the modern view, back to fundamentalist religion.

Borowitz argued, though, that "we cannot simply turn our backs on modernity," since it has taught important lessons such as how to use one's mind to determine one's own morality.

"We want to bring back tradition and exercise our right to have freedom and self-determination within that context," Borowitz said.