37 Santalka. Filosoija, 2008, t. 16, nr. 3. ISSN 1822-430X print/1822-4318 online Introduction Writing where religion and ethics intersect, I am mindful that intersections are places where deals with the devil have traditional- ly been made – deals in which both parties typically offer more than they can honestly TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES: BETWEEN RELIGION AND ETHICS Steven Schroeder Shenzhen University (China) / University of Chicago (USA), 5710 S. Kimbark 3 Chicago, IL 60637-1615, USA E-mail: steven_schroeder@earthlink.net he paper deals with the questions centered around the interrelation of ethics, religion and aesthetics inclu- ding the relection upon such constitutive elements of human experience as faith, reason, poetry, experience and politics. he analysis explores S. Kierkegaard’s understanding of the relationship between the ethical and the religious and the relationship of both to the aesthetic, explores many relevant themes resided in the works of S. T. Coleridge, W. Blake and others. Structured in this way the paper opens up new paths for better understanding of the fundamental presuppositions of ethics and religion as well as political realities in the age of fundamentalism. Keywords: ethics, religion, poetry, reason, politics. DOI: 10.3846/1822-430X.2008.16.3.37-49 Take of your shoes and pray he ground you walk it’s holy ground Every spot on earth I traipse around Every spot I walk it’s holy ground Every spot it’s holy ground Every little inch it’s holy ground Every grain of dirt it’s holy ground Every spot I walk it’s holy ground (Woody Guthrie, “Holy Ground”) VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go? ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go. hey do not move. (Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot) deliver. But in what follows, my intention is to deal with aesthetics as it relates to ethics and religion – starting with Kierkegaard, then tur- ning to Coleridge and William Blake. If it is a temptation to hope for signs, then we may ind