Ed Kilgore argues that American Catholics no longer represent a voting constituency that is significantly different from non-Catholics.
Posts Tagged ‘religion in the U.S.’
October 25th, 2011
Tony Judt on Religion in America
posted by Charles GelmanIn addition to an excerpt from the introduction to Denis Lacorne’s Religion in America, as well as Joseph Blankholm’s response to Lacorne’s recent presentation of the book at Columbia University, you can also read the book’s foreword by the late Tony Judt, available from Columbia University Press.
October 12th, 2011
America’s “faith-friendly secularism”
posted by Charles GelmanAt the Rethinking Religion blog of Columbia University’s Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, Joseph Blankholm responds to Denis Lacorne’s recent presentation, at Columbia, of his latest book Religion in America (Columbia University Press, 2011), which explores the multiple and divergent narratives situating faith’s place in the foundation and ongoing life of the American republic. Lacorne also examines how the United States’ seemingly peculiar mixture of principled secularism and overt public religiosity has been understood, and misunderstood, by French philosophers and other observers of the American scene.
September 26th, 2011
Taking theology seriously
posted by Molly Worthen
What we need is a bird’s eye view, and that requires taking theology seriously, and considering a longer view of the history of Western civilization than any sociological survey can provide. [...] American Grace adopts a position of respectful skepticism toward theology. The authors dutifully reproduce the questionnaire of “measures of theological belief and religious commitment” included in their survey, but they express surprise that many Americans “have stable views on such seemingly arcane theological issues” as whether a person is saved by faith or by their own good deeds. (Calling this fundamental question “arcane” is a bit like expressing confusion at that obscure rule in baseball that allows a player to score a run by crossing home plate.)
September 19th, 2011
A historian’s reaction to American Grace
posted by Jon ButlerDavid Campbell’s and Robert Putnam’s American Grace left me historically puzzled on my first reading, and my second didn’t clear things up. Its 550 pages of text, plus 97 pages of appendices and notes, probe the range and complexity of contemporary American religiousness with remarkable patience and detail. Although American Grace doesn’t leave historians on the whirling dime, wondering “So what?” it does raise questions about historical context. In other words, how do the changes that Campbell and Putnam retrace fit three centuries of evolution in American religion, politics, and culture?
September 14th, 2011
Nothing is ever lost: An interview with Robert Bellah
posted by Nathan Schneider
Both an influential scholar and a public intellectual, Robert Bellah is one of the foremost sociologists of his generation. His books and articles have set in motion lasting conversations about the role of religion in public life, both in the United States and around the world. Since retiring from thirty years of teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, Bellah has been at work on his most ambitious book yet, the recently released Religion in Human Evolution (Harvard University Press).
September 13th, 2011
A discussion on religious freedom, Islam, and American Muslims
posted by Amanda KaplanOn September 15, New York University will hold a discussion on “religious freedom, possibilities for reform in Islam, and the paths being taken by American Muslims in the context of a post-9/11 rise in bias against Muslims” with U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Irshad Manji.
September 2nd, 2011
More on religion in the presidential race
posted by Amanda KaplanAt The Daily Beast, Micheal Medved joins the current discussion, set off by Bill Keller’s recent Times article, on religion’s role in the presidential race.
August 29th, 2011
Questioning religion’s role in the presidential race
posted by Charles GelmanAt the Scoop, Maura Jane Farrelly rounds up some responses (and adds her own) to Bill Keller’s Times Magazine editorial appealing for closer scrutiny of presidential candidates’ religious backgrounds and beliefs.
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