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Cover image of Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States
Cover image of Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States
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Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States

edited by R. Marie Griffith and Melani McAlister

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This collection of essays from a special issue of American Quarterly explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that religion matters in contemporary public life.

Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States offers a groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary conversation between scholars in American studies and religious studies. The contributors explore numerous modes through which religious faith has mobilized political action. They utilize a variety of definitions of politics, ranging from lobbying by religious leaders to the political impact of popular culture. Their work...

This collection of essays from a special issue of American Quarterly explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that religion matters in contemporary public life.

Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States offers a groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary conversation between scholars in American studies and religious studies. The contributors explore numerous modes through which religious faith has mobilized political action. They utilize a variety of definitions of politics, ranging from lobbying by religious leaders to the political impact of popular culture. Their work includes the political activities of a very diverse group of religious believers: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others. In addition, the book explores the meanings of religion for people who might contest the term—those who are spiritual but not religious, for example, as well as activists who engage symbols of faith and community but who may not necessarily consider themselves members of a specific religion. Several essays also examine the meanings of secular identity, humanist politics, and the complex evocations of civil religion in American life.

No other book on religion and politics includes anything like the diversity of religions, ethnicities, and topics that this one does—from Mormon political mobilization to attempts at Americanizing Muslims in the post-9/11 United States, from César Chávez to James Dobson, from interreligious cooperation and conflict over Darfur to the global politics surrounding the category of Hindus and South Asians in the United States.

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Reviews

Griffith and McAlister offer a superb historiographical overview of trends in both religious studies and American studies—their discussion of religious studies within the academy is especially insightful.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
552
ISBN
9780801888687
Illustration Description
20 halftones
Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Is the Public Square Still Naked?
Part I: Engaging State Power
Chapter 1. "Favoritism Cannot Be Tolerated": Challenging Protestantism in America's Public Schools and Promoting the

Preface
Introduction: Is the Public Square Still Naked?
Part I: Engaging State Power
Chapter 1. "Favoritism Cannot Be Tolerated": Challenging Protestantism in America's Public Schools and Promoting the Neutral State
Chapter 2. Selling American Diversity and Muslim American Identity through Nonprofit Advertising Post-9/11
Chapter 3. "The ERA Is a Moral Issue": The Mormon Church, LDS Women, and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment
Chapter 4. Hot Damned America: Evangelicalism and the Climate Change Policy Debate
Chapter 5. Catholics, Democrats, and the GOP in Contemporary America
Part II: Politics of the Global
Chapter 6. Islamism and Its African American Muslim Critics: Black Muslims in the Era of the Arab Cold War
Chapter 7. "As Americans Against Genocide": The Crisis in Darfur and Interreligious Political Activism
Chapter 8. From Exodus to Exile: Black Pentecostals, Migrating Pilgrims, and Imagined Internationalism
Chapter 9. Who Speaks for Indian Americans? Religion, Ethnicity, and Political Formation
Part III: Leaders and Activists
Chapter 10. Benjamin Mays, Global Ecumenism, and Local Religious Segregation
Chapter 11. Impossible Assimilations, American Liberalism, and Jewish Difference: Revisiting Jewish Secularism
Chapter 12. An Exception to Exceptionalism: A Reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Vision of "Prophetic" Christianity and the Problem of Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy
Chapter 13. Cesar Chavez in American Religious Politics: Mapping the New Global Spiritual Line
Chapter 14. Ties That Bind and Divisions That Persist: Evangelical Faith and the Political Spectrum
Part IV: Media and Performance
Chapter 15. "Signaling Through the Flames": Hell House Performance and Structures of Religious Feeling
Chapter 16. Critical Faith: Japanese Americans and the Birth of a New Civil Religion
Chapter 17. Back to the Future: Religion, Politics, and the Media
Chapter 18. Testimonial Politics: The Christian Right's Faith-Based Approach to Marriage and Imprisonment
Chapter 19. "It Will Change the World If Everybody Reads This Book": New Thought Religion in Oprah's Book Club
Contributors
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

R. Marie Griffith

R. Marie Griffith is a professor of religion at Princeton University. She is the author or coeditor of several books, including Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance, also published by Johns Hopkins.
Featured Contributor

Melani McAlister

Melani McAlister is an associate professor of American studies and international affairs at George Washington University. She is the author of Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945.