Download or read book The Naked Public Square written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1986 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Underlying the many crises in American life, writes Richard John Neuhaus, is a crisis of faith. It is not enough that more people should believe or that those who believe should believe more strongly. Rather, the faith of persons and communities must be more compellingly related to the public arena. "The naked public square"--which results from the exclusion of popular values from the public forum--will almost certainly result in the death of democracy. The great challenge, says Neuhaus, is the reconstruction of a public philosophy that can undergird American life and America's ambiguous place in the world. To be truly democratic and to endure, such a public philosophy must be grounded in values that are based on Judeo-Christian religion. The remedy begins with recognizing that democratic theory and practice, which have in the past often been indifferent or hostile to religion, must now be legitimated in terms compatible with biblical faith. Neuhaus explores the strengths and weaknesses of various sectors of American religion in pursuing this task of critical legitimation. Arguing that America is now engaged in an historic moment of testing, he draws upon Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish thinkers who have in other moments of testing seen that the stakes are very high--for America, for the promise of democratic freedom elsewhere, and possibly for God's purpose in the world. An honest analysis of the situation, says Neuhaus, shatters false polarizations between left and right, liberal and conservative. In a democratic culture, the believer's respect for nonbelievers is not a compromise but a requirement of the believer's faith. Similarly, the democratic rights of those outside the communities of religious faith can be assured only by the inclusion of religiously-grounded values in the common life. The Naked Public Square does not offer yet another partisan program for political of social change. Rather, it offers a deeply disturbing, but finally hopeful, examination of Abraham Lincoln's century-old question--whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
Download or read book Religion Returns to the Public Square written by Hugh Heclo and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite talk of a "naked public square," religion has never really lost its place in American public life. As the twenty-first century opened, it was re-emerging in unexpected and paradoxical ways. Religious institutions were considered for expanded roles in welfare and education, at the same time that the limits of religious pluralism—as, for example, in the relation of Islam to American values—became a question of urgent public concern. Religion Returns to the Public Square;Faith and Policy in America explores how and why religion has to be mixed up with American politics. Uncovering philosophical, historical, legal, and social roots of this relationship, these essays go beyond hot-button issues to reflect on the current interactions and future possibilities of religion and politics in America.
Download or read book The Naked Public Square Reconsidered written by Christopher Wolfe and published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute. This book was released on 2009 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Richard John Neuhaus's landmark book The Naked Public Square, ten of today's leading scholars-including Mary Ann Glendon, William Galston, Gerard Bradley, and Hadley Arkes-weigh in on the always impassioned church-state debate.
Download or read book Richard John Neuhaus written by Randy Boyagoda and published by Image. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant biography of one of the intellectual mavericks of 20th Century Catholicism. Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009) was one of the most influential figures in American public life from the Civil Rights era to the War on Terror. His writing, activism, and connections to people of power in religion, politics, and culture secured a place for himself and his ideas at the center of recent American history. William F. Buckley, Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith are comparable -- willing controversialists and prodigious writers adept at cultivating or castigating the powerful, while advancing lively arguments for the virtues and vices of the ongoing American experiment. But unlike Buckley and Galbraith, who have always been identified with singular political positions on the right and left, respectively, Neuhaus' life and ideas placed him at the vanguard of events and debates across the political and cultural spectrum. For instance, alongside Abraham Heschel and Daniel Berrigan, Neuhaus co-founded Clergy Concerned About Vietnam, in 1965. Forty years later, Neuhaus was the subject of a New York Review of Books article by Garry Wills, which cast him as a Rasputin of the far right, exerting dangerous influence in both the Vatican and the Bush White House. This book looks to examine Neuhaus's multi-faceted life and reveal to the public what made him tick and why.
Download or read book A Public Faith written by Miroslav Volf and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intellectual and applied Christian engagement with what it really means to flourish as human beings in relationship to God and one another.
Download or read book The Global Public Square written by Os Guinness and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing that tyranny takes on secular as well as traditional guises, Os Guinness seeks a return to the first principles of religious and political freedom. Hearkening back to the "soul liberty" of English Puritan Roger Williams, Guinness argues that a society's greatest bulwark against abuse lies in its people's freedom of conscience.
Download or read book Faith in the Public Square written by Robert D. Cornwall and published by Energion Publications. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when a newspaper editor gives his primary editorial slot on Sundays to a pastor? In the case of Bob Cornwall, a pastor in Troy, Michigan, the result is a series of relevant, interesting, and challenging essays that go well beyond the local scene while still managing to be relevant to Americans in their local situation. Now extensively revised and organized as to theme, these essays form a coherent statement of progressive Christianity at work in the public square. At the same time they are seasoned with a look at how the public square influences the spiritual life of a Christian living in mid-America. The 52 essays in this collection go well beyond one place and time. You will find yourself, your community, your state, your nation, and your world in each. Can a person of faith be involved in the public square with integrity? Is public policy made better by this action? Can faith remain whole and genuine following the encounter? Read these essays to discover the answers, and perhaps find a new optimism for the future as you do. Anyone can benefit, but pastors and church leaders will find help in demonstrating their faith in the public square.
Download or read book America Against Itself written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An even-tempered (if rather partisan) critique of the American soul as it exhibits itself on the different fronts of our culture war.'' Neuhaus (Unsecular America, 1986, etc.) traces the traumas of our social and political life back to their ontological roots and supplies a prognosis that will undoubtedly scandalize as many as it sways. A Catholic priest and scholar who presides over the Institute of Religion and Public Life, Neuhaus has concentrated his sociological efforts for some years now on the intersection between the political and the spiritual in American life. In doing so, he has run counter to prevailing notions of secularism--held only, he maintains, by an elite minority--that would, he says, collapse all religious impulses into an entirely private realm. Neuhaus skips over the more obvious examples of conflict--school prayer, Nativity scenes in public parks, etc.--and attempts in more theoretical terms to show that liberal democracy (in its American incarnation) requires a religious foundation if it is to succeed as a unifying social force. He draws on his experiences with the civil-rights movement to show how a religious vocabulary can be used--as it was by Martin Luther King--to bring together even the most mutually antagonistic groups. One might question Neuhaus's optimism in light of the increasing lack of cohesion in most mainline churches today, and parts of his argument display an inclination toward the sort of throne-and-altar'' alliance that has bedeviled European reactionaries for two hundred years--but his analysis of the seeming void around which the secular'' consensus is built, and the fragility of the social structures that depend upon that consensus, is challenging, prescient, and ominous. And his chapters on the abortion issue, while hardly impartial, are remarkably free of the usual cant. A trifle glib and overconfident, Neuhaus's tone can irritate. His thesis, however, is original enough to compel attention and forceful enough to provoke thought. -- Copyright (c)1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Naked City written by Sharon Zukin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-18 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As cities have gentrified, educated urbanites have come to prize what they regard as "authentic" urban life: aging buildings, art galleries, small boutiques, upscale food markets, neighborhood old-timers, funky ethnic restaurants, and old, family-owned shops. These signify a place's authenticity, in contrast to the bland standardization of the suburbs and exurbs. But as Sharon Zukin shows in Naked City, the rapid and pervasive demand for authenticity--evident in escalating real estate prices, expensive stores, and closely monitored urban streetscapes--has helped drive out the very people who first lent a neighborhood its authentic aura: immigrants, the working class, and artists. Zukin traces this economic and social evolution in six archetypal New York areas--Williamsburg, Harlem, the East Village, Union Square, Red Hook, and the city's community gardens--and travels to both the city's first IKEA store and the World Trade Center site. She shows that for followers of Jane Jacobs, this transformation is a perversion of what was supposed to happen. Indeed, Naked City is a sobering update of Jacobs' legendary 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Like Jacobs, Zukin looks at what gives neighborhoods a sense of place, but argues that over time, the emphasis on neighborhood distinctiveness has become a tool of economic elites to drive up real estate values and effectively force out the neighborhood "characters" that Jacobs so evocatively idealized.
Download or read book The Case for Civility written by Os Guinness and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world torn apart by religious extremism on the one side and a strident secularism on the other, no question is more urgent than how we live with our deepest differences—especially our religious and ideological differences. The Case for Civility is a proposal for restoring civility in America as a way to foster civility around the world. Influential Christian writer and speaker Os Guinness makes a passionate plea to put an end to the polarization of American politics and culture that—rather than creating a public space for real debate—threatens to reverse the very principles our founders set into motion and that have long preserved liberty, diversity, and unity in this country. Guinness takes on the contemporary threat of the excesses of the Religious Right and the secular Left, arguing that we must find a middle ground between privileging one religion over another and attempting to make all public expression of faith illegal. If we do not do this, Guinness contends, Western civilization as we know it will die. Always provocative and deeply insightful, Guinness puts forth a vision of a new, practical "civil and cosmopolitan public square" that speaks not only to America's immediate concerns but to the long-term interests of the republic and the world.
Download or read book Why Politics Needs Religion written by Brendan Sweetman and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2006-08-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a convincing argument as to why religion should be mixed with politics, ascertaining that certain religious beliefs should be made public and suggesting that a secularism that rules out religious belief cannot effectively contribute to a civil society where reasonable disagreements are allowed. Original.
Download or read book The Culture of Disbelief written by Stephen L. Carter and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture Of Disbelief has been the subject of an enormous amount of media attention from the first moment it was published. Hugely successful in hardcover, the Anchor paperback is sure to find a large audience as the ever-increasing, enduring debate about the relationship of church and state in America continues. In The Culture Of Disbelief, Stephen Carter explains how we can preserve the vital separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or treating religious believers with disdain. What makes Carter's work so intriguing is that he uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends. Explaining how preserving a special role for religious communities can strengthen our democracy, The Culture Of Disbelief recovers the long tradition of liberal religious witness (for example, the antislavery, antisegregation, and Vietnam-era antiwar movements). Carter argues that the problem with the 1992 Republican convention was not the fact of open religious advocacy, but the political positions being advocated.
Download or read book Catholic Matters written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by . This book was released on 2007-02-27 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[The author] proposes a vibrant, forward-thinking way of being Catholic in America"--P. [4] of cover.
Download or read book The Best of The Public Square written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Opposing Currents written by Vivienne Bennett and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2005 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on women in Latin America as stakeholders in water resources management. It makes their contributions to grassroots efforts more visible, explains why doing so is essential for effective public policy and planning in the water sector, and provides guidelines for future planning and project implementation. After an in-depth review of gender and water management policies and issues in relation to domestic usage, irrigation, and sustainable development, the book provides a series of case studies prepared by an interdisciplinary group of scholars and activists. Covering countries throughout the hemisphere, and moving freely from impoverished neighborhoods to the conference rooms of international agencies, the book explores the various ways in which women are-and are not-involved in local water initiatives across Latin America. Insightful analyses reveal what these case studies imply for the success or failure of various regional efforts to improve water accessibility and usability, and suggest new ways of thinking about gender and the environment in the context of specific policies and practices.
Download or read book Square Sun Square Moon written by Paul Reps and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of Zen essays by the author of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones offers an enlightening perspective on a variety of topics. From the introduction: Not all of us can be exuberant travelers though we all dream of faraway places. Not all of us can sec the subliminal with a penetrating eye, though many of us yearn to shake off the philistine shells that restrict our lives to the prosaic. Here, then, is your chance! In the privacy of your den, on the commode, in the library wherever you find reading most pleasurable reps invites you t o share his experiences vicariously. Within these pages, if you synchronize properly, you may find yourself in Tahiti where you "breathe this flowered air, drink the cascading water, cat the fruits and just sleep" until "you too become sweet."
Download or read book Dissident Gardens written by Jonathan Lethem and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling novel from one of our finest writers—an epic yet intimate family saga about three generations of all-American radicals At the center of Jonathan Lethem’s superb new novel stand two extraordinary women: Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist who savages neighbors, family, and political comrades with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her precocious and willful daughter, Miriam, equally passionate in her activism, flees Rose’s influence to embrace the dawning counterculture of Greenwich Village. These women cast spells over the men in their lives: Rose’s aristocratic German Jewish husband, Albert; her cousin, the feckless chess hustler Lenny Angrush; Cicero Lookins, the brilliant son of her black cop lover; Miriam’s (slightly fraudulent) Irish folksinging husband, Tommy Gogan; their bewildered son, Sergius. Flawed and idealistic, Lethem’s characters struggle to inhabit the utopian dream in an America where radicalism is viewed with bemusement, hostility, or indifference. As the decades pass—from the parlor communism of the ’30s, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, ragged ’70s communes, the romanticization of the Sandinistas, up to the Occupy movement of the moment—we come to understand through Lethem’s extraordinarily vivid storytelling that the personal may be political, but the political, even more so, is personal. Lethem’s characters may pursue their fates within History with a capital H, but his novel is—at its mesmerizing, beating heart—about love.
