Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy

Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy
Author: Jean L. Cohen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231540736

Polarization between political religionists and militant secularists on both sides of the Atlantic is on the rise. Critically engaging with traditional secularism and religious accommodationism, this collection introduces a constitutional secularism that robustly meets contemporary challenges. It identifies which connections between religion and the state are compatible with the liberal, republican, and democratic principles of constitutional democracy and assesses the success of their implementation in the birthplace of political secularism: the United States and Western Europe. Approaching this issue from philosophical, legal, historical, political, and sociological perspectives, the contributors wage a thorough defense of their project's theoretical and institutional legitimacy. Their work brings fresh insight to debates over the balance of human rights and religious freedom, the proper definition of a nonestablishment norm, and the relationship between sovereignty and legal pluralism. They discuss the genealogy of and tensions involving international legal rights to religious freedom, religious symbols in public spaces, religious arguments in public debates, the jurisdiction of religious authorities in personal law, and the dilemmas of religious accommodation in national constitutions and public policy when it violates international human rights agreements or liberal-democratic principles. If we profoundly rethink the concepts of religion and secularism, these thinkers argue, a principled adjudication of competing claims becomes possible.

Democracy and the Intersection of Religion

Democracy and the Intersection of Religion
Author: Rosa Bruno-Jofré
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2010-11-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0773580689

How are ideas about education and democracy configured and reconfigured as they travel? Democracy and the Intersection of Religion looks at the work of John Dewey, the renowned philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, and the ways in which his educational ideas and democratic ideals have been configured and reconfigured, adopted, and interpreted in different historical and cultural spaces.

Religion and Brazilian Democracy

Religion and Brazilian Democracy
Author: Amy Erica Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2019-03-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108482112

Evangelical and Catholic groups are transforming Brazilian politics. This book asks why, and what the consequences are for democracy.

Gods in the Time of Democracy

Gods in the Time of Democracy
Author: Kajri Jain
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2021-01-08
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1478012889

In 2018 India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurated the world's tallest statue: a 597-foot figure of nationalist leader Sardar Patel. Twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, it is but one of many massive statues built following India's economic reforms of the 1990s. In Gods in the Time of Democracy Kajri Jain examines how monumental icons emerged as a religious and political form in contemporary India, mobilizing the concept of emergence toward a radical treatment of art historical objects as dynamic assemblages. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork at giant statue sites in India and its diaspora and interviews with sculptors, patrons, and visitors, Jain masterfully describes how public icons materialize the intersections between new image technologies, neospiritual religious movements, Hindu nationalist politics, globalization, and Dalit-Bahujan verifications of equality and presence. Centering the ex-colony in rethinking key concepts of the image, Jain demonstrates how these new aesthetic forms entail a simultaneously religious and political retooling of the “infrastructures of the sensible.”

Religion, Politics, and Polarization

Religion, Politics, and Polarization
Author: William V. D'Antonio
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1442221089

Do the religious affiliations of elected officials shape the way they vote on such key issues as abortion, homosexuality, defense spending, taxes, and welfare spending? In Religion, Politics, and Polarization: How Religiopolitical Conflict is Changing Congress and American Democracy,William D’Antonio, Steven A. Tuch and Josiah R. Baker trace the influence of religion and party in the U.S. Congress over time. For almost four decades these key issues have competed for public attention with health care, war, terrorism, and the growing inequity between the incomes of the middle classes and those of corporate America. The authors examine several contemporary issues and trace the increasing polarization in Congress. They examine whether abortion, defense and welfare spending, and taxes are uniquely polarizing or, rather, models of a more general pattern of increasing ideological division in the U.S. Congress. By examining the impact of religion on these key issues the authors effectively address the question of how the various religious denominations have shaped the House and Senate. Throughout the book they draw on key roll call votes, survey data, and extensive background research to argue that the political ideologies of both parties have become grounded in distinctive religious visions of the good society, in turn influencing the voting patterns of elected officials.

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy
Author: David M. Elcott
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2021-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268200599

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.

Religion, Science, and Democracy

Religion, Science, and Democracy
Author: Lisa L. Stenmark
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013-03-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0739142887

Despite the increasing popularity of “religion and science” as an academic discourse, the intersection of science and religion remains a front line in an ongoing “culture war.” The reasons for this lie in an approach to discourse that closely resembles the model of discourse promoted by John Rawls, in which plural discourse —such as between religion and science— is based on a foundation of shared beliefs and established facts. This leads to a “doctrines and discoveries” approach to the relationship of religion and science, which focuses on their respective truth claims in an attempt to find areas of agreement. This framework inherently privileges scientific perspectives, which actually increases conflict between religion and science, and undermines public discourse by inserting absolutes into it. To the extent that the science and religion discourse adopts this approach, it inadvertently increases the conflict between religion and science and limits our ability to address matters of public concern. This book suggests an alternative model for discourse, a disputational friendship, based on the work of Hannah Arendt. This approach recognizes the role that authorities —and thus religion and science— play in public life, but undermines any attempt to privilege a particular authority, because it promotes the position of the storyteller, who never settles on a single story but always seeks to incorporate many particular stories into her account. A disputational friendship promotes storytelling not by seeking agreement, but by exploring areas of disagreement in order to create the space for more conversations and to generate more stories and additional interpretations. Successful discourse between religion and science is not measured by its ability to determine “truth” or “fact,” but by its ability to continually expand the discourse and promote public life and public judgment.

Prophets and Patriots

Prophets and Patriots
Author: Ruth Braunstein
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2017-05-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520293649

Introduction -- Becoming active citizens -- Narratives of active citizenship -- Putting faith in action -- Holding government accountable -- Styles of active citizenship -- Conclusion

Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy

Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy
Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0691222649

How the actions and advocacy of diverse religious communities in the United States have supported democracy’s development during the past century Does religion benefit democracy? Robert Wuthnow says yes. In Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy, Wuthnow makes his case by moving beyond the focus on unifying values or narratives about culture wars and elections. Rather, he demonstrates that the beneficial contributions of religion are best understood through the lens of religious diversity. The religious composition of the United States comprises many groups, organizations, and individuals that vigorously, and sometimes aggressively, contend for what they believe to be good and true. Unwelcome as this contention can be, it is rarely extremist, violent, or autocratic. Instead, it brings alternative and innovative perspectives to the table, forcing debates about what it means to be a democracy. Wuthnow shows how American religious diversity works by closely investigating religious advocacy spanning the past century: during the Great Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the debates about welfare reform, the recent struggles for immigrant rights and economic equality, and responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The engagement of religious groups in advocacy and counteradvocacy has sharpened arguments about authoritarianism, liberty of conscience, freedom of assembly, human dignity, citizens’ rights, equality, and public health. Wuthnow hones in on key principles of democratic governance and provides a hopeful yet realistic appraisal of what religion can and cannot achieve. At a time when many observers believe American democracy to be in dire need of revitalization, Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy illustrates how religious groups have contributed to this end and how they might continue to do so despite the many challenges faced by the nation.

Civic Rites

Civic Rites
Author: Nancy Evans
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2010-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520945484

Civic Rites explores the religious origins of Western democracy by examining the government of fifth-century BCE Athens in the larger context of ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Deftly combining history, politics, and religion to weave together stories of democracy’s first leaders and critics, Nancy Evans gives readers a contemporary’s perspective on Athenian society. She vividly depicts the physical environment and the ancestral rituals that nourished the people of the earliest democratic state, demonstrating how religious concerns were embedded in Athenian governmental processes. The book’s lucid portrayals of the best-known Athenian festivals—honoring Athena, Demeter, and Dionysus—offer a balanced view of Athenian ritual and illustrate the range of such customs in fifth-century Athens.