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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... tion reflects both a broad renegotiation of religion's role in our public life and a particular political moment when conservative forces set about , with considerable success , to organize religious traditionalists as a voting bloc on ...
... tion of Evangelicals , who insists that 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 ...
... tion about religion and politics . It is aimed at both the believer and the nonbeliever , and it is unapologetically an attempt to influence the political dialogue in the post - Bush era . It is intended to make the case that liberals ...
... 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 overreaction to an overreaction . Religious conservatives had a legitimate grievance against their sense ...
... tion theology . Benedict , as Cardinal Ratzinger , the head of the Congrega- tion for the Doctrine of the Faith , was a prime mover in the Vatican's shift rightward and yet is a complex and intellectually fascinating figure who cannot ...
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 |