Wald Kenneth D., Calhoun-Brown Allison. Religion and Politics in the United States

Sixth Edition. — Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. — 470 p.Religion and Politics in the United States, Sixth Edition, offers a comprehensive account of the role of religious ideas, institutions and communities in American life. This book examines the ways religion can both compel and constrain involvement in politics and policy. What facilitates political participation? What impedes it? What are the limits of religious mobilization and involvement? Are there benefits? Are there dangers? Religion and Politics in the United States addresses these questions by exploring how religion has influenced the structure of American government and law as well as how religious perspectives inform contemporary political issues including topics such as equal rights for women and gays. The book also explores the ways that religion has affected the orientation of partisan politics in the United States. Through a detailed review of the political attitudes and behaviors of major religious and minority faith traditions, the book establishes that religion continues to be a major part of the American cultural and political milieu while explaining that it must interact with many other factors to impact political outcomes in the United States. The sixth edition reviews the role of religion in the 2008 election and includes coverage of how religion informs the civil rights struggles of women and gay Americans.List of Figures and TablesA Secular Society?
The Puzzle of Religious Vitality
The Persistence of Religion
Stability or Change?
Possible Explanations
Why the United States?
Religion in the American Context
Understanding Religion
Patterns of Religious Affiliation
Basic Political Tendencies
Religion and American Political Culture
The Puritan Imprint on Colonial Thought
Covenant Theology and the Right to Revolt
Puritanism and Democracy: A Qualification
Total Depravity and Institutional Restraint
One Nation under God: A Civil Religion
Civil Religion as a Double-Edged Sword
One of Many Influences
Religion and the State
The Genesis of Church-State Conflict
Overview of Church-State Relations
How Far Can Government Go?
The Judicial Record
The Separationist Era (1940s–1970s)
The Accommodationist Era
The Politics of Church-State Relations
The Constitutional Revolution in Perspective
Mobilizing Religious Interests
Studying Religious Interests
Establishing Motive
Establishing Means
Religion and Political Action
Religious Cultural Environment
Institutional Contexts
Partisan Political Alignments
Influential Allies
Policy Domain
Religion and Public Opinion
Economic Liberalism
Moral-Cultural Issues
Social Justice
Foreign Policy
What Culture War?
The Political Mobilization of Evangelical Protestants
The Political Background
Roots of the New Christian Right
Building a National Movement
Evangelical Political Action
Organizational Transformation: The Second Generation
Theories of Evangelical Mobilization
The Impact of the Christian Right
The Consequences for Public Policy
Good Times? The Christian Right and the Bush Administration
The Christian Right as a Mass Movement
Continuity and Change in the Religious Center: Catholics, Mainline Protestants, and Jews
Catholicism: Conflicting Political Impulses
The Conservative Political Heritage
The Transformation of Catholic Attitudes
Abortion: The Catholic Response
Is Abortion a Catholic Issue?
The Political Traditions of Mainline Protestants
Mainline Activism: Sources and Reactions
American Jews
Religion and the Politics of Ethnic and Religious Minorities
African American Protestants
Latino Catholics and Protestants
Muslim Americans
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Other Faith Traditions
The Other Minorities: Women and Gay People
Women, Religion, and Politics
Homosexuals
Religion and Homosexuality
Religion and American Political Life
The Case against Religious Influence in Politics
Assessing the Evidence
The Case for Religion in Politics
Religion in Public Conversation
NotesAbout the Authors