Download or read book Christian Democracy in Latin America written by Scott Mainwaring and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Democracy swept across parts of Latin America, gaining influence in Venezuela in the 1940s, Chile in the 1950s, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1960s, and Costa Rica and Mexico in the 1980s. This book offers an overview of Christian Democracy in the region underscoring its remarkable diversityand examines the Christian Democratic organizations of Chile and Mexico, which are still major parties today. The concluding section analyzes the demise of formerly significant Christian Democratic parties in El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. Christian Democracy in Latin America provides the definitive stufy of the nature, rise, and decline of Christian Democracy in Latin America. The book enriches the broader theoretical literature on political parties by highlighting the distinctive strategic dilemmas parties face, and the distinctive objectives they pursue, in contexts of fragile democracy or of authoritarian regimes.
Download or read book What is Christian Democracy written by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Democratic actors and thinkers have been at the forefront of many of the twentieth century's key political battles - from the construction of the international human rights regime, through the process of European integration and the creation of postwar welfare regimes, to Latin American development policies during the Cold War. Yet their core ideas remain largely unknown, especially in the English-speaking world. Combining conceptual and historical approaches, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti traces the development of this ideology in the thought and writings of some of its key intellectual and political exponents, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. In so doing he sheds light on a number of important contemporary issues, from the question of the appropriate place of religion in presumptively 'secular' liberal-democratic regimes, to the normative resources available for building a political response to the recent rise of far-right populism.
Download or read book The Democratization of American Christianity written by Nathan O. Hatch and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-23 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic "The so-called Second Great Awakening was the shaping epoch of American Protestantism, and this book is the most important study of it ever published."—James Turner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History Winner of the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic book prize, and the Albert C. Outler Prize In this provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic, Nathan O. Hatch argues that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful actors on the religious scene. Hatch examines five distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century—the Christian movement, Methodism, the Baptist movement, the black churches, and the Mormons—showing how all offered compelling visions of individual potential and collective aspiration to the unschooled and unsophisticated.
Download or read book Christianity and American Democracy written by Hugh Heclo and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the tension at the heart of America’s culture wars, this is “a very fine book on a very important subject” (Mark A. Noll, author of The Civil War as a Theological Crisis). Christianity, not religion in general, has been important for American democracy. With this bold thesis, Hugh Heclo offers a panoramic view of how Christianity and democracy have shaped each other. Heclo shows that amid deeply felt religious differences, a Protestant colonial society gradually convinced itself of the truly Christian reasons for, as well as the enlightened political advantages of, religious liberty. By the mid-twentieth century, American democracy and Christianity appeared locked in a mutual embrace. But it was a problematic union vulnerable to fundamental challenge in the Sixties. Despite the subsequent rise of the religious right and glib talk of a conservative Republican theocracy, Heclo sees a longer-term, reciprocal estrangement between Christianity and American democracy. Responding to his challenging argument, Mary Jo Bane, Michael Kazin, and Alan Wolfe criticize, qualify, and amend it. Heclo’s rejoinder suggests why both secularists and Christians should worry about a coming rupture between the Christian and democratic faiths. The result is a lively debate about a momentous tension in American public life.
Download or read book Imagining Judeo Christian America written by K. Healan Gaston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Judeo-Christian” is a remarkably easy term to look right through. Judaism and Christianity obviously share tenets, texts, and beliefs that have strongly influenced American democracy. In this ambitious book, however, K. Healan Gaston challenges the myth of a monolithic Judeo-Christian America. She demonstrates that the idea is not only a recent and deliberate construct, but also a potentially dangerous one. From the time of its widespread adoption in the 1930s, the ostensible inclusiveness of Judeo-Christian terminology concealed efforts to promote particular conceptions of religion, secularism, and politics. Gaston also shows that this new language, originally rooted in arguments over the nature of democracy that intensified in the early Cold War years, later became a marker in the culture wars that continue today. She argues that the debate on what constituted Judeo-Christian—and American—identity has shaped the country’s religious and political culture much more extensively than previously recognized.
Download or read book C Street written by Jeff Sharlet and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C Street - where piety, politics, and corruption meet Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside the C Street House, the Fellowship residence known simply by its Washington, DC address. The house has lately been the scene of notorious political scandal, but more crucially it is home to efforts to transform the very fabric of American democracy. And now, after laying bare its tenants' past in The Family, Sharlet reports from deep within fundamentalism in today's world, revealing that the previous efforts of religious fundamentalists in America pale in comparison with their long-term ambitions. When Barack Obama entered the White House, headlines declared the age of culture wars over. In C Street, Sharlet shows why these conflicts endure and why they matter now - from the sensationalism of Washington sex scandals to fundamentalism's long shadow in Africa, where Ugandan culture warriors determined to eradicate homosexuality have set genocide on simmer. We've reached a point where piety and corruption are not at odds but one and the same. Reporting with exclusive sources and explosive documents from C Street, the war on gays in Uganda, and the battle for the soul of America's armed forces - waged by a 15,000-strong movement of officers intent on "reclaiming territory for Christ in the military" Sharlet reveals not the last gasp of old-time religion but the new front lines of fundamentalism.
Download or read book Evangelicals and Democracy in America written by Steven G. Brint and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Separation of church and state is a bedrock principal of American democracy, and so, too, is active citizen engagement. Since evangelicals comprise one of the largest and most vocal voting blocs in the United States, tensions and questions naturally arise. In the two-volume Evangelicals and Democracy in America, editors Steven Brint and Jean Reith Schroedel have assembled an authoritative collection of studies of the evangelical movement in America. Religion and Politics, the second volume of the set, focuses on the role of religious conservatives in party politics, the rhetoric evangelicals use to mobilize politically, and what the history of the evangelical movement reveals about where it may be going. Part I of Religion and Politics explores the role of evangelicals in electoral politics. Contributor Pippa Norris looks at evangelicals around the globe and finds that religiosity is a strong predictor of ideological leanings in industrialized countries. But the United States remains one of only a handful of post-industrial societies where religion plays a significant role in partisan politics. Other chapters look at voting trends, especially the growing number of higher-income evangelicals among Republican ranks, how voting is influenced both by "values" and race, and the management of the symbols and networks behind the electoral system of moral-values politics. Part II of the volume focuses on the mobilizing rhetoric of the Christian Right. Nathaniel Klemp and Stephen Macedo show how the rhetorical strategies of the Christian Right create powerful mobilizing narratives, but frequently fail to build broad enough coalitions to prevail in the pluralistic marketplace of ideas. Part III analyzes the cycles and evolution of the Christian Right. Kimberly Conger looks at the specific circumstances that have allowed evangelicals to become dominant in some Republican state party committees but not in others. D. Michael Lindsay examines the "elastic orthodoxy" that has allowed evangelicals to evolve into a formidable social and political force. The final chapter by Clyde Wilcox presents a new framework for understanding the relationship between the Christian Right and the GOP based on the ecological metaphor of co-evolution. With its companion volume on religion and society, this second volume of Evangelicals and Democracy in America offers the most complete examination yet of the social circumstances and political influence of the millions of Americans who are white evangelical Protestants. Understanding their history and prospects for the future is essential to forming a comprehensive picture of America today.
Download or read book Christian Faith and Modern Democracy written by Robert P. Kraynak and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work challenges the commonly accepted view that Christianity is inherently compatible with modern democratic society. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it argues that there is no necessary connection between Christianity and any form of government.
Download or read book European Christian Democracy written by Thomas Albert Kselman and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this engaging and innovative new book, French scholar Jacques Proust analyzes the image Europe presented to Japan, deliberately or otherwise, from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century. Appearing for the first time in an American translation, Europe through the Prism of Japan relies on a large quantity of underexplored documents from which Proust has tried to reconstruct, like a puzzle, Japanese-European relations during the age of European exploration. This fascinating book describes in careful detail developments in Japanese culture and civilization during three hundred years of interaction between Japanese and Europeans, including Dutch merchants, Spanish Catholic missionaries, and German and Portuguese Jesuits. Proust examines not only Europeans' influence on Japan but also the unique Japanese interpretation of European culture. This fresh perspective offers a prism through which Europe may be viewed and frequently sheds light on facets of European civilization of which not even the Europeans, at the time, were aware. Proust's lively study is especially valuable because of its interdisciplinary nature. Covering topics as wide ranging as art history, theology, philosophy, political and social history, and even the history of medicine, Proust interweaves these fields to present a unified historical and intellectual fabric. This round-trip journey between Japan and the West, which in the sixteenth century took about four years and can be done today in twenty-four hours, has the advantage of imposing on comparative studies a unique geographical and historical framework. Proust broadens our understanding of two very different cultures by providing new insight into both European and Japanese history.
Download or read book Democracy in America written by Benjamin I. Page and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate.
Download or read book American Babylon written by Philip S. Gorski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did 81 percent of white evangelicals vote for Donald Trump in 2016? And what does this tell us about the relationship between Christianity and democracy in the United States? American Babylon places our present political moment against a deep historical backdrop. In Part I the author traces the development of democratic institutions from Ancient Greece through to the American Revolution and of Christian political theology from Augustine to Falwell. Part II charts the decline of democratic governance within American churches; explains the capture of evangelical Christianity by the Republican Party; and denounces the fateful embrace between white Christian nationalists and right-wing populists that culminated in Trump’s victory. An accessible and timely book, American Babylon is essential reading for those concerned with the vexed relationship of religion and politics in the United States, including students and scholars in the fields of divinity, history, political science, religious studies, and sociology.
Download or read book Faith Nationalism and the Future of Liberal Democracy written by David M. Elcott and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.
Download or read book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation written by John Fea and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2011-02-16 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fea offers an even-handed primer on whether America was founded to be a Christian nation, as many evangelicals assert, or a secular state, as others contend. He approaches the title's question from a historical perspective, helping readers see past the emotional rhetoric of today to the recorded facts of our past. Readers on both sides of the issues will appreciate that this book occupies a middle ground, noting the good points and the less-nuanced arguments of both sides and leading us always back to the primary sources that our shared American history comprises.
Download or read book Political Exile in the Global Twentieth Century written by Wolfram Kaiser and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-10 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the political exile of Catholic Christian Democrats during the global twentieth century, from the end of the First World War to the end of the Cold War. Transcending the common national approach, the present volume puts transnational perspectives at center stage and in doing so aspires to be a genuinely global and longitudinal study. Political Exile in the Global Twentieth Century includes chapters on continental European exile in the United Kingdom and North America through 1945; on Spanish exile following the Civil War (1936–39), throughout the Franco dictatorship; on East-Central European exile from the defeat of Nazi Germany and the establishment of Communist rule (1944–48) through the end of the Cold War; and Latin American exile following the 1973 Chilean coup. Encompassing Europe (both East and West), Latin America, and the United States, Political Exile in the Global Twentieth Century places the diasporas of twentieth-century Christian Democracy within broader, global debates on political exile and migration.
Download or read book Prophetic Politics written by David S. Gutterman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In an era of military conflict and economic hardship, religious and political leaders adamantly speak in the language of crisis. Whether one attributes this public religious fervor to a response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, millennial hopes and fears, a sense of moral decay (generally based on either growing economic inequality or the 'breakdown of the American family'), or a sign of the normal progression of the stages of history, the discourse of religious revival is increasingly prominent. And, as is amply evident in the United States and throughout the world, devout declarations of religious belief in the public sphere can bring intractable passions to politics."—from Chapter 1 What are the relationships among religion, politics, and narratives? What makes prophetic political narratives congenial or hostile to democratic political life? David S. Gutterman explores the prophetic politics of four twentieth- and twenty-first-century American Christian social movements: the Reverend Billy Sunday and his vision of "muscular Christianity"; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement; the conservative Christian male organization Promise Keepers; and the progressive antipoverty organization Call to Renewal. Gutterman develops a theory based on the work of Hannah Arendt and others and employs this framework to analyze expressions of the prophetic impulse in the political narrative of the United States. In the process, he examines timely issues about the tense and intricate relationship between religion and politics. Even prior to George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, debates about abortion, family values, welfare reform, and environmental degradation were informed by religious language and ideas. In an interdisciplinary and accessible manner, Gutterman translates the narratives employed by American Christian social movements to define both the crises in the land and the path to resolving these crises. The book also explores the engagement of these prophetic social movements in contentious political issues concerned with sex, gender, sexuality, race, and class, as well as broader questions of American identity.
Download or read book The End of White Christian America written by Robert P. Jones and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and columnist for the Atlantic describes how white Protestant Christians have declined in influence and power since the 1990s and explores the effect this has had on America, "--NoveList.
Download or read book Christianity Democracy and the Radical Ordinary written by Romand Coles and published by Lutterworth Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays reflect possibilities and practices of radical democracy and radical ecclesia that take form in the textures of relational care for the radical ordinary. Hauerwas and Coels point out political and theological imaginations beyond the political formations, which seems to be the declination and the production of death. The authors call us to a revolutionary politics of 'wild patience' that seeks transformation through attentive practices of listening, relationship-building, and a careful tending to places, common goods, and diverse possibilities for flourishing.