Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious RightPrinceton University Press, 2008 - 251 pages The religious and political winds are changing. Tens of millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. In Souled Out, award-winning journalist and commentator E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right--and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage--is over. Based on years of research and writing, Souled Out shows that the end of the Religious Right doesn't signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda of such causes as opposition to gay marriage and abortion. With insightful portraits of leading contemporary religious figures from Rick Warren and Richard Cizik to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Dionne shows that our great religions have always preached a broad message of hope for more just human arrangements and refused to be mere props for the powers that be. Dionne also argues that the new atheist writers should be seen as a gift to believers, a demand that they live up to their proclaimed values and embrace scientific and philosophical inquiry in a spirit of "intellectual solidarity." Written in the tradition of Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, Souled Out will help change how we think and talk about religion and politics in the post-Bush era. |
From inside the book
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... concern with the ultimate into a prop for temporal power . It distorts great traditions by requiring their exponents to bob and weave in order to ac- commodate the political needs of a given moment or the immediate re- quirements of a ...
... concern for life entails an engage- ment with the stewardship of the Earth and the problem of global warm- ing . There is Bono , who said he could be considered a man of the cloth only if the cloth might be considered leather . He , too ...
... concerns of the unchurched whom Warren brought back to worship are basic : a desire for inspiring sermons , a friendly congregation , a pastor who did not seem greedy , and a healthy concern with the lives of their children . It is ...
... concerned . Arrogance is truth's enemy because it closes us to self - criticism , self - correc- tion , and honest doubt . My friend Korin Davis had it right when she said in a conversation one day that the neo - atheists are an ...
... concern devel- oped many years before the 2004 election that some of my fellow liberals harbored certain prejudices against people of faith . I say some because there are many on the left who never harbored such prejudices . But there ...
Contents
Is Religion Conservative or Progressive? Or Both? | 25 |
Why the Culture War Is the Wrong War Religion Values and American Politics | 45 |
What Are the Values Issues? Economics Social Justice and the Struggle over Morality | 71 |
Selling Religion Short When Ideology Is Not Enough | 92 |
John Paul Benedict and the Catholic Future | 126 |
What Happened to the Seamless Garment? The Agony of Liberal Catholicism | 151 |
Other editions - View all
Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right E. J. Dionne Jr. Limited preview - 2009 |
Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right E. J. Dionne Jr. No preview available - 2009 |