Godly Republic

Godly Republic
Author: John J. DiIulio
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2007
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0520258002

"Do you know if you are going to heaven?" -- Saved in South Jersey -- Just ask pops -- What would Madison and Franklin do? -- The founders' faithful consensus -- Myths 1 and 2 : a godly republic, not a secular state or a Christian nation --One nation, under God, for all -- A warm civic welcome, not a high legal wall -- Between Jefferson and Witherspoon : Madison -- Madison's multiplicity of sects versus the anti-federalists -- Most blessed compromise : the Bill of Rights -- Neo-anti-federalists versus judicial tyranny -- The court's neutrality doctrine -- Myths 3 and 4 : equal protection -- Blessings in the balance -- Strict separation doctrine's anti-Catholic roots -- Lemon aid stands : religion and education -- Free exercise versus indirect establishment -- Blame the founders, the anti-federalists, and the people -- The people's charitable choice -- Myths 5 and 6 : religious pluralists, not strict secularists or religious purists -- Bipartisan beliefs -- Purple people on church-state -- Turning red over religion? -- Two electoral extremes equal one-third -- Proxy government gets religion, 1996-2000 -- No Bush versus Gore on "faith-based" -- The president's bipartisan prayer -- Faith-based without works is dead -- Three steps on the road not taken -- Neutrality challenges : the Bush faith bill -- Believers only need apply? -- Religious voucher visions -- Hope in the semi-seen : Amachi -- The nation's spiritual capital -- Myths 7 and 8 : faith-based volunteer mobilization, not faith-saturated spiritual transformation -- Bowling alone versus praying together -- Big picture : bridging Blacks and whites -- Faithful Philadelphia : scores of services for people in need -- Putting faith in civic partnerships -- Esperanza objectivo : the three faith factors -- The republic's faith-based future -- Myths 9 and 10 : civiv ecumenism, not sectarian triumphalism or secular extremism -- Take prisoners : evangelical Christians versus secular liberals -- Do unto others : Pratt versus Pratt -- Think Catholic : church, state, and larger communities -- No post-poverty nation : Matthew 25 -- The faith-based future's blessings -- Second trinity : three faith-free principles -- Invest wisely : FBOS as civic value stocks -- Target blessings : young Black low-income males -- Honor thy Franklin : back to America's faith-based future.

Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life

Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life
Author: Isaac Kramnick
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0393254976

“Illuminating.” —Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life If the First Amendment protects the separation of church and state, why have atheists had to fight for their rights? In this valuable work, R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick reveal the fascinating history of atheism in America and the legal challenges to federal and state laws that made atheists second-class citizens.

God's Economy

God's Economy
Author: Lew Daly
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2009-12-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0226134857

President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush Administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative, though, Obama’s version of the policy has generated loud criticism—from both sides of the aisle—even as the communities that stand to benefit suffer through an ailing economy. God’s Economy reveals that virtually all of the critics, as well as many supporters, have long misunderstood both the true implications of faith-based partnerships and their unique potential for advancing social justice. Unearthing the intellectual history of the faith-based initiative, Lew Daly locates its roots in the pluralist tradition of Europe’s Christian democracies, in which the state shares sovereignty with social institutions. He argues that Catholic and Dutch Calvinist ideas played a crucial role in the evolution of this tradition, as churches across nineteenth-century Europe developed philosophical and legal defenses to protect their education and social programs against ascendant governments. Tracing the influence of this heritageon the past three decades of American social policy and church-state law, Daly finally untangles the radical beginnings of the faith-based initiative. In the process, he frees it from the narrow culture-war framework that has limited debate on the subject since Bush opened the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001. A major contribution from an important new voice at the intersection of religion and politics, God’s Economy points the way toward policymaking that combines strong social support with a new moral focus on the protection of families and communities.

Religion without God

Religion without God
Author: Ronald Dworkin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674728041

In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person. Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence. Dworkin hoped that this short book would contribute to rational conversation and the softening of religious fear and hatred. Religion without God is the work of a humanist who recognized both the possibilities and limitations of humanity.

Godly Republicanism

Godly Republicanism
Author: Michael P. Winship
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2012-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674065050

Puritans did not find a life free from tyranny in the new world—they created it there. Massachusetts emerged a republic as they hammered out a vision of popular participation and limited government in church and state, spurred by Plymouth pilgrims. Godly Republicanism underscores how pathbreaking yet rooted in puritanism’s history the project was.

The Uses and Misuses of Politics

The Uses and Misuses of Politics
Author: William G. Mayer
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2021-03-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0700630538

The Uses and Misuses of Politics is a detailed examination of the politics of George W. Bush’s presidency, focusing on the work—and the mistakes—of presidential political advisor Karl Rove. In his role as political advisor Karl Rove stands apart from his numerous counterparts in modern American politics in three major ways. The first measure of Rove’s distinctiveness is the totality of his direction over Bush’s political career. Simply put, George W. Bush never won an election, of any kind, in which Rove was not the dominant, even sole campaign strategist A second important difference between Karl Rove and other major presidential campaign strategists was the role that Rove played in helping formulate policy after Bush became president. In fact, Rove became the first presidential aide to both provide political advice to a sitting president while at the same time controlling the policy levers inside the White House, especially as an advocate for his own agenda in the areas of domestic policy. Finally, Karl Rove is noteworthy for the scope of his ambitions: his goal for the Bush presidency was to create a durable Republican majority that would dominate American politics for the next several decades. Even though theories of party systems and realignments have received serious challenges, Karl Rove was a believer; providing a key insight into how he approached his work with the Bush presidency. Where previous realignments were the result of historical accidents and recognized only after the fact, Karl Rove believed he could engineer the next one. In The Uses and Misuses of Politics William G. Mayer analyzes Karl Rove’s performance as presidential advisor: the roles he played, the advice he gave, and how the Republican Party fared with Rove as its principal strategist. By offering the reader a comprehensive assessment, Mayer provides valuable insight into the larger, enduring, and critical questions: What is the proper role of politics in the contemporary presidency? When does politics enhance a nation’s long-term welfare, and what does it detract from it? And what positive contributions can political advisors make to a modern-day president?

Civil Religion in the Early Modern Anglophone World, 1550-1700

Civil Religion in the Early Modern Anglophone World, 1550-1700
Author: Rachel Hammersley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2024-05-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 178327784X

Civil Religion - a tradition of political thought that has argued for a close connection between religion and the state - made an important contribution to the development of religious and political thought at key moments of early modern British political and colonial history. As this volume shows, it was at work not just during the Enlightenment, but within a much wider periodical framework: the Reformation, the rise of the Puritan movement, the conflict over the Stuart state and church, the English Revolution, and the formation of key American colonies in the eighteenth century. Advocates of Civil Religion tried to reconcile a national church with religious toleration and design a constitution capable of preventing the church from interfering with affairs of state. The volume investigates the idea of Civil Religion in the works of canonical thinkers in the history of political thought (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau), in the works of those who have been recognized as shaping political ideas (Hooker, Prynne et al.) during this period, and in the advocacy of those perhaps not previously associated with Civil Religion (William Penn). Although Civil Religion was often posited as a pragmatic solution to constitutional and ecclesiological problems created by the Reformation and the English Revolution, they also reveal that such pragmatism was not at odds with religious conviction or ideals. Civil Religion certainly enhanced citizenship in this period, but it did so in ways which depended on the truth claims of Protestantism, not on their domestication to politics.

When Texas Prison Scams Religion

When Texas Prison Scams Religion
Author: Michael G. Maness
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 683
Release: 2023-05-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1728377552

When Texas Prison Scams Religion exposes corruption in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, especially in the abuse of religion. In many ways, this book is a literature review of 1,800-plus works that defends freedom of conscience in prison while exposing the unconstitutionality of the seminary program that “buys faith with favor” from prisoners. The state veritably ordains the prisoner a “Field Minister” that represents the offices of the Governor, TDCJ Director, and wardens throughout the prison. Therein, TDCJ lies about neutrality in a program all about Christian missions and lies again in falsely certifying elementary Bible students as counselors. Why is the director sponsoring psychopaths counseling psychopaths? In fact, TDCJ pays $314 million a year to UTMB for psychiatric care and receives not a single report of the care given, and worse, for UTMB generates no reports itself. The underbelly TDCJ’s executive culture of cover up is exposed. TDCJ has hired the lowest qualified of the applicant pool many times in the last 25 years and regularly destroys statistics on violence. TDCJ Dir. Collier led the prison to model Louisiana Warden Burl Cain, the most scandal-ridden in penal history according to a host of published news stories for 20 years. Therein, Collier led TDCJ to favor the smallest segment of religious society within Evangelical Dominionism. Texas has no business endorsing the truth of any religion over another. We close with a proposal that utilizes the 400,000,000 hours of officer contact over ten years as a definitive influence in contrast to a commissioner that spends less than 10 minutes on each decision. Maness has been lobbying Austin for 15 years to definitively access staff for his “100,000 Mothers’ 1% Certainty Parole Texas Constitutional Amendment,” which would revolutionize prison culture and save Texans millions of the dollars.

The Hebrew Republic

The Hebrew Republic
Author: Eric Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2010-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674050587

According to a commonplace narrative, the rise of modern political thought in the West resulted from secularization—the exclusion of religious arguments from political discourse. But in this pathbreaking work, Eric Nelson argues that this familiar story is wrong. Instead, he contends, political thought in early-modern Europe became less, not more, secular with time, and it was the Christian encounter with Hebrew sources that provoked this radical transformation. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Christian scholars began to regard the Hebrew Bible as a political constitution designed by God for the children of Israel. Newly available rabbinic materials became authoritative guides to the institutions and practices of the perfect republic. This thinking resulted in a sweeping reorientation of political commitments. In the book’s central chapters, Nelson identifies three transformative claims introduced into European political theory by the Hebrew revival: the argument that republics are the only legitimate regimes; the idea that the state should coercively maintain an egalitarian distribution of property; and the belief that a godly republic would tolerate religious diversity. One major consequence of Nelson’s work is that the revolutionary politics of John Milton, James Harrington, and Thomas Hobbes appear in a brand-new light. Nelson demonstrates that central features of modern political thought emerged from an attempt to emulate a constitution designed by God. This paradox, a reminder that while we may live in a secular age, we owe our politics to an age of religious fervor, in turn illuminates fault lines in contemporary political discourse.