Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State PDF Download

Author: Robert Boston
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615924108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Award-winning journalist Robert Boston lambastes the zealots of the Religious Right for spreading misinformation about the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. Boston reveals how a band of ultraconservative religious groups with a political agenda - led primarily by televangelist Pat Robertson - is conducting a systematic war aginst the separation of church and state. The tactics of these groups are designed to exploit unfounded fears and turn the American people against the separationist principle. They will not rest, Boston says, until the United States has become a theocracy. To expose the Religious Right's blatant distortions of U.S. history and correct its skewed analysis of legal rulings, Boston objectively reviews the evolution of church/state relations in the United States and looks at how the separation principle has been applied by the courts. He also examines efforts by sectarian groups to win government support for their schools, the school prayer issue, the history of the free exercise of religion, and the controversial role of religion in the public square. Published in cooperation with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Author: Cal Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780310238362
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Comments on the defeat of Gary Hart and Alan Keyes in the presidential campaign, and re-examines the failure of the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition after two decades of political maneuvering.

Author: L. Edward Hicks
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9780870498657
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Even in the face of apparent setbacks - such as Barry Goldwater's defeat in the 1964 presidential election - Benson never wavered in actively promoting his brand of Americanism.

Author: Christopher Douglas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703528
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. In If God Meant to Interfere, Christopher Douglas shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, he argues, a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers Douglas considers are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right’s strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism —leading to complex emergent phenomena that Douglas terms "Christian multiculturalism" and "Christian postmodernism." Ultimately, If God Meant to Interfere shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.

Author: Kevin Seamus Hasson
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 0307718107
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
In the running debate we call the "culture wars," there exists a great feud over religious diversity. One side demands that only their true religion be allowed in the public square; the other insists that no religions ever belong there. The Right to Be Wrong offers a solution, drawing its lessons from a series of stories--both contemporary and historical--that illustrates the struggle to define religious freedom. The book concludes that freedom for all is guaranteed by the truth about each of us: Our common humanity entitles us to freedom--within broad limits--to follow what we believe to be true as our consciences say we must, even if our consciences are mistaken. Thus, we can respect others' freedom when we're sure they're wrong. In truth, they have the right to be wrong.

Author: Randall Balmer
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465003710
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
For much of American history, evangelicalism was aligned with progressive political causes. Nineteenth-century evangelicals fought for the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, and public education. But contemporary conservative activists have defaulted on this majestic legacy, embracing instead an agenda virtually indistinguishable from the Republican Party platform. Abortion, gay marriage, intelligent design -- the Religious Right is fighting, and winning, some of the most important political battles of the twenty-first century. How has evangelical Christianity become so entrenched in partisan politics? Randall Balmer is both an evangelical Christian and a historian of American religion. Struggling to reconcile the contemporary state of evangelical faith in America with its proud tradition of progressivism, Balmer has headed to the frontlines of some of the most powerful and controversial organizations tied to the Religious Right. With a skillful combination of grassroots organization, ideological conviction, and media savvy, the leaders of the movement have mobilized millions of American evangelical Christians behind George W. Bush's hard-right political agenda. Deftly combining ethnographic research, theological reflections, and historical context, Balmer laments the trivialization of Christianity -- and offers a rallying cry for liberal Christians to reclaim the noble traditions of their faith.

Author: Jan G. Linn
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1581124244
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Silence may be golden, but not when it comes to the extremes of the Christian Right. That is why Jan Linn wrote his new book, What's Wrong With The Christian Right, just released by BrownWalker Press. As a former college and seminary teacher and author of ten previous books, Linn uses the Christian Right's own words and actions to show the extent to which it is trying to reshape both American politics and Christianity into its own image. The book describes in detail the agenda of the Christian Right, the tactics it employs, and the ways it plays loose with truth. It is also a call to action to everyone disturbed by the power and influence of the Christian Right. With careful documentation, this book exposes the extent to which the Christian Right is influencing American politics, who its political allies are, the ways it is working to re-shape America into its own image, and the hypocrisy it practices in the process. The book also takes issue with the Christian Right's agenda on major issues, and the distorted image its extremism presents of Christianity. What's Wrong With The Christian Right is ultimately a call to all liberal minded people, especially people of faith, to join the effort to offset the Christian Right as the dominant religious voice in America today. Several outstanding leaders in their field have commended the book to a wide reading audience. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ, calls the book "a must read." Dr. Albert Pennybacker, founder of the Clergy Leadership Network, describes it as "a book for these times." Dr. Arvid Lundy, retired from Los Alamos National Laboratories and a non-Christian agnostic, describes the book as "a joy to read." James Autry of People for the American Way describes it "a careful, thoughtful, well researched examination of those we call the Christian Right."

Author: Patrick Hynes
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 141852574X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Political consultant and commentator Patrick Hynes dispels common stereotypes and misapprehensions about the most powerful political constituency in the country while undertaking the most exhaustive effort yet to define what the Religious Right is, what its members believe, and why they are right.

Author: David Sehat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Author: Kevin Alan Brook
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442203021
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
The Jews of Khazaria chronicles the history of the Khazars, a people who, in the early Middle Ages, founded a large empire in eastern Europe (located in present-day Ukraine and Russia). The Khazars played a pivotal role in world history. Khazaria was one of the largest-sized political formations of its time, an economic and cultural superpower connected to several important trade routes. It was especially notable for its religious tolerance, and in the 9th century, a large portion of the royal family converted to Judaism. Many of the nobles and commoners did likewise shortly thereafter. After their conversion, the Khazars were ruled by a succession of Jewish kings that began to adopt the hallmarks of Jewish civilization, including the Torah and Talmud, the Hebrew script, and the observance of Jewish holidays. In this thoroughly revised edition of a modern classic, The Jews of Khazaria explores many exciting new discoveries about the Khazars' religious life, economy, military, government, and culture. It builds upon new studies of the Khazars, evaluating and incorporating recent theories, along with new documentary and archaeological findings. The book gives a comprehensive accounting of the cities, towns, and fortresses of Khazaria, and features a timeline summarizing key events in Khazar history.