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
Results 6-10 of 88
... Arguments about faith do not , in the end , hang on whether religion is socially " useful " or instead promotes ... argued in a 2007 critique of the neo - atheists , suggests the contrary . " Questions , " he noted , " have been the ...
... arguments for civil rights were rooted in Jefferson's Declaration of Inde- pendence — and in the scriptures . Unless ... argument with the Christian Right . It is impossible to see Jesus as a tool of the Establishment . It is difficult ...
... argued that Christianity teaches " the passion for the possible " and keeps at the forefront the idea of " breaking ... arguments about how best to deal with it . It's an American's dialogue with his fellow Americans over how we should ...
... arguing with each other , accepting together what , for believers , is the hard- est fact of all : " the burden of ... arguments about religion's role in American public life while also offering an account of our current political moment ...
... argue that the current engagement between religion and public life reflects a new stage in our more than two - century - long dialogue about how best to preserve religious liberty . This is not a development to be feared , but an ...
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 |