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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... party after all these years ? " A great many Americans have come to believe that He has , in fact , changed his party after all these years . On significant parts of the right and left , there is a sense that religion always has been ...
... adversaries . Linking religion too closely to the fortunes of one political party , or to one leader or group of leaders , is always a mistake . It encourages alienation from faith itself — where , after all , did 2 INTRODUCTION.
... conservative forces set about , with considerable success , to organize religious traditionalists as a voting bloc on behalf of the Republican party . Much of the public discourse thus saw religion as a IS GOD'S WORK OUR WORK ? 3.
... party ) , I look at the results in some detail , balancing the impact of religion against other forces at work in our politics , including those of race , class , and region . If religion's role in our politics should not be demeaned or ...
... party's own public figures — Mark Foley , David Vitter , and Larry Craig among them . They are being called upon to square their moralism at election time ( and during the controversy over Bill Clinton's scandals ) with the private ...
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 |