Religion and Politics - Softcover

The current trend for religious leaders and their followers to enter the political arena in the name of religious truth raises the questions that were asked by the founders of the United States. First what kind of acknowledgement and respect can religions, which derive their certainty from divine revelation, give to a liberal democracy which lacks such certainty? Second, what kind of acknowledgement and respect can liberal democracy give to religions and to religon as such? The Kenyon Public Affairs Conference Centre has brought together six specialists to discuss these questions. Frederick Schauer's essay takes the state's viewpoint in examining the establishment clause of the First Amendment. His argument for maintaining the separation between church and state illustrates the issues at stake in translating any constitutional principle into public policy. It also aims to illuminate the particular tensions inherent in a society in which there is both a great support for religion and a consent to limit its claims in the public realm. The essays of Father Robert F. Drinan and Father Ernest L. Fortin debate the claim of a particular set of teachings about social justice within the Roman Catholic religious tradition. They also explore the possibility of translating a personal religious conviction into a system of policy preferences. Werner J. Dannhauser's essay warns conservatives, who often consider themselves the allies of religion, against misuseing by domesticating it into a tame supporter of their policies. Jerry H. Combee, using the evangelical Protestantism tradition, responds by asserting the common origins of liberal democracy and religion in acceptance of the paramount claim of individual conscience. Lastly, Peter Ahrensdorf uses the idea of ancient Greek political philosophy, in order to meditate on how religion is seen by founders of regimes (and by their teachers) who are themselves not operating from religious assumptions.