Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada PDF Author: Boris DeWiel
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443804290
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
This collection of essays questions the capacity of Canadian democracy to promote religious pluralism and recognize disparate faith groups as legitimate players on the political stage. These are more than rhetorical questions, as issues and public policies in contemporary Canada reflect an increasing concern that religion and religious belief ought not to intrude in political debate and matters of governance. Despite playing an active role in Canadian politics in the past, religious faith now risks relegation to the private sector. Efforts to push religious belief outside the public square set a dangerous precedent, provide rationale for further exclusion rather than inclusion, and logically culminate in monism rather than pluralism. Faith in Democracy focuses on contemporary challenges to religious pluralism in Canada with attention to the changing religious landscape throughout the country. These challenges are both old and new. They include such tasks as reconciling universal and particular perspectives of liberalism in law and recognizing the limits of secularism as an emergent dominant faith. How Canada responds to these challenges will not only influence public policy, but also test its commitment to democracy.

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada PDF Author: Boris DeWiel
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443804290
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays questions the capacity of Canadian democracy to promote religious pluralism and recognize disparate faith groups as legitimate players on the political stage. These are more than rhetorical questions, as issues and public policies in contemporary Canada reflect an increasing concern that religion and religious belief ought not to intrude in political debate and matters of governance. Despite playing an active role in Canadian politics in the past, religious faith now risks relegation to the private sector. Efforts to push religious belief outside the public square set a dangerous precedent, provide rationale for further exclusion rather than inclusion, and logically culminate in monism rather than pluralism. Faith in Democracy focuses on contemporary challenges to religious pluralism in Canada with attention to the changing religious landscape throughout the country. These challenges are both old and new. They include such tasks as reconciling universal and particular perspectives of liberalism in law and recognizing the limits of secularism as an emergent dominant faith. How Canada responds to these challenges will not only influence public policy, but also test its commitment to democracy.

Religion and Canadian Party Politics

Religion and Canadian Party Politics PDF Author: David Rayside
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774835613
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Religion is usually thought of as inconsequential to contemporary Canadian politics. Religion and Canadian Party Politics takes a hard look at just how much influence faith continues to have in federal, provincial, and territorial political arenas. Drawing on case studies from across the country, this book explores three important axes of religiously based contention in Canada. Early on, there were the denominational distinctions between Catholics and Protestants that shaped party oppositions. Since the 1960s, a newly politicized divide opened between religious conservatives and political reformers. Then from the 1990s on, sporadic controversy has centred on the recognition of non-Christian religious minority rights. Although the extent of partisan engagement with each of these sources of conflict has varied across time and region, this book shows that religion still matters in shaping party politics . This detailed look at the play of religiously based conflict and accommodation in Canada fills a large gap and pulls us back from overly simplified comparisons with the United States. More broadly, this book also compares the role of faith in politics in Canada to that of other Western industrialized societies.

Politics as Religion

Politics as Religion PDF Author: Emilio Gentile
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827213
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Emilio Gentile, an internationally renowned authority on fascism and totalitarianism, argues that politics over the past two centuries has often taken on the features of religion, claiming as its own the prerogative of defining the fundamental purpose and meaning of human life. Secular political entities such as the nation, the state, race, class, and the party became the focus of myths, rituals, and commandments and gradually became objects of faith, loyalty, and reverence. Gentile examines this "sacralization of politics," as he defines it, both historically and theoretically, seeking to identify the different ways in which political regimes as diverse as fascism, communism, and liberal democracy have ultimately depended, like religions, on faith, myths, rites, and symbols. Gentile maintains that the sacralization of politics as a modern phenomenon is distinct from the politicization of religion that has arisen from militant religious fundamentalism. Sacralized politics may be democratic, in the form of a civil religion, or it may be totalitarian, in the form of a political religion. Using this conceptual distinction, and moving from America to Europe, and from Africa to Asia, Gentile presents a unique comparative history of civil and political religions from the American and French Revolutions, through nationalism and socialism, democracy and totalitarianism, fascism and communism, up to the present day. It is also a fascinating book for understanding the sacralization of politics after 9/11.

Faith, Politics, and Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States

Faith, Politics, and Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States PDF Author: David Rayside
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 077482011X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
For decades, agitation by lesbians, gays, and other sexual minorities for political recognition has provoked a heated response among religious activists in both Canada and the United States. In this remarkable comparative study, expert authors explore the tenacity of anti-gay sentiment, as well as the dramatic shifts in public attitudes towards queer groups across all faith communities in both the United States and Canada. They conclude that, despite the ongoing conflict, religious adherence does not invariably entail opposition to the political acknowledgment of queer rights.

Faith in Democracy

Faith in Democracy PDF Author: Jonathan Chaplin
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334060257
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
What is the place of faith in public life in the UK? Beyond ‘secularism’ that seeks to relegate faith to the margins of public life, and a ‘Christian nation’ position that seeks to retain, or even regain, Christian public privilege, there is a third way. Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity calls for an approach that maximises public space for the expression of faith-based visions within democratic fora while repudiating all traces of religious privilege. It argues for a truly conversational space, reflecting theologically on the contested concepts at the heart of the current debate about the place of faith in British public life: democracy, secularism, pluralism and public faith.

Resurrecting Democracy

Resurrecting Democracy PDF Author: Luke Bretherton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107030390
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
This book assesses the construction of citizenship as an identity, a performance, and a shared rationality.

The Undiscovered Dewey

The Undiscovered Dewey PDF Author: Melvin L. Rogers
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231144865
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The Undiscovered Dewey explores the profound influence of evolution and its corresponding ideas of contingency and uncertainty on John Dewey's philosophy of action, particularly its argument that inquiry proceeds from the uncertainty of human activity. Dewey separated the meaningfulness of inquiry from a larger metaphysical story concerning the certainty of human progress. He then connected this thread to the way in which our reflective capacities aid us in improving our lives. Dewey therefore launched a new understanding of the modern self that encouraged intervention in social and natural environments but which nonetheless demanded courage and humility because of the intimate relationship between action and uncertainty. Melvin L. Rogers explicitly connects Dewey's theory of inquiry to his religious, moral, and political philosophy. He argues that, contrary to common belief, Dewey sought a place for religious commitment within a democratic society sensitive to modern pluralism. Against those who regard Dewey as indifferent to moral conflict, Rogers points to Dewey's appreciation for the incommensurability of our ethical commitments. His deep respect for modern pluralism, argues Rogers, led Dewey to articulate a negotiation between experts and the public so that power did not lapse into domination. Exhibiting an abiding faith in the reflective and contestable character of inquiry, Dewey strongly engaged with the complexity of our religious, moral, and political lives.

Religion and Sexuality

Religion and Sexuality PDF Author: Pamela Dickey Young
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774828722
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The relationship between religion and sexuality is often framed as inherently conflictual. Religious groups and ideologies have long influenced the public regulation of sexuality and recent controversies include religious opposition to same-sex marriage, sex education in schools, and non-traditional expressions of sexual identity. But what actually happens when religion and sexuality converge in contemporary contexts? Religion and Sexuality challenges the commonly held assumption that religion’s relationship to sexuality is solely bound up with regulation. In this provocative examination of both sexual and religious diversity, chapters go beyond the familiar debates over tolerance and accommodation to explore the ways in which various forms of religious affiliation and sexual identity do, in fact, co-exist. Drawing on interviews and analyzing media representations, legislation, and public discourse on topics such as education, economics, and same-sex marriage in North America and the United Kingdom, this volume foregrounds the complexity and multiplicity of religious and sexual identities and practices.

Christian

Christian PDF Author: Matthew Bowman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674244917
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A Publishers Weekly Best Religion Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title For many Americans, being Christian is central to their political outlook. Political Christianity is most often associated with the Religious Right, but the Christian faith has actually been a source of deep disagreement about what American society and government should look like. While some identify Christianity with Western civilization and unfettered individualism, others have maintained that Christian principles call for racial equality, international cooperation, and social justice. At once incisive and timely, Christian delves into the intersection of faith and political identity and offers an essential reconsideration of what it means to be Christian in America today. “Bowman is fast establishing a reputation as a significant commentator on the culture and politics of the United States.” —Church Times “Bowman looks to tease out how religious groups in American history have defined, used, and even wielded the word Christian as a means of understanding themselves and pressing for their own idiosyncratic visions of genuine faith and healthy democracy.” —Christian Century “A fascinating examination of the twists and turns in American Christianity, showing that the current state of political/religious alignment was not necessarily inevitable, nor even probable.” —Deseret News

Religion, Politics, and Polarization

Religion, Politics, and Polarization PDF Author: William V. D'Antonio
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442221089
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Do the religious affiliations of elected officials shape the way they vote on such key issues as abortion, homosexuality, defense spending, taxes, and welfare spending? In Religion, Politics, and Polarization: How Religiopolitical Conflict is Changing Congress and American Democracy,William D’Antonio, Steven A. Tuch and Josiah R. Baker trace the influence of religion and party in the U.S. Congress over time. For almost four decades these key issues have competed for public attention with health care, war, terrorism, and the growing inequity between the incomes of the middle classes and those of corporate America. The authors examine several contemporary issues and trace the increasing polarization in Congress. They examine whether abortion, defense and welfare spending, and taxes are uniquely polarizing or, rather, models of a more general pattern of increasing ideological division in the U.S. Congress. By examining the impact of religion on these key issues the authors effectively address the question of how the various religious denominations have shaped the House and Senate. Throughout the book they draw on key roll call votes, survey data, and extensive background research to argue that the political ideologies of both parties have become grounded in distinctive religious visions of the good society, in turn influencing the voting patterns of elected officials.