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 45
... believe whatever he wants about God — is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss . We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man's inhumanity to man . " Arguments about faith do not ...
... believe or not to believe is an individual choice . We are all shaped by the traditions in which we are nurtured and by whether we grow to accept , reject , or modify them . Because this is so , it is fair for a reader to ask about the ...
... believe is true . Does God exist ? How do we knon ? What was the nature of the covenant between God and Moses ? What is the meaning of the Exodus ? Who was Jesus ? Who did Jesus think he was ? What is the meaning of the empty tomb at ...
... believe is really a mystery to be taken on faith ? I offer this list — I think it's fairly typical of questions believers ask them- selves at one point or another , and sometimes all their lives — to be honest with readers and to ...
... believe , wrongly , that ours is a nation of religious fanaticism . It's a liberal's argument with his fellow liberals over the respect owed believers and the impossibility of separating religion from politics — even if the state itself ...
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 |