Piety & Politics

Piety & Politics PDF Author: Reverend Barry W. Lynn
Publisher: Forum Books
ISBN: 0307381633
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The Reverend Barry Lynn explains why the Religious Right has it all wrong. In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the Religious Right insisted that George Bush had been handed a mandate for an ideology-based social agenda, including the passage of a “marriage amendment” to ban same-sex unions, diversion of tax money to religious groups through “faith-based initiatives,” the teaching of creationism in public schools, and restrictions on abortion. Led by an aggressive band of television preachers and extremist radio personalities, the Religious Right set its sights on demolishing the wall of separation between church and state. The Reverend Barry Lynn is a devout Christian, but this propaganda effort disturbs him deeply. He argues that politicians need to stop looking to the Bible to justify their actions and should consult another source instead: the U.S. Constitution. When the Founding Fathers of our great nation created the Constitution, they had seen firsthand the dangers of an injudicious mix of religion and government. They knew what it was like to live under the yoke of state-imposed faith. They drew up a model for the new nation that would allow absolute freedom of religion. They knew that religion, united with the raw power of government, spawns tyranny. Yet the Religious Right now seems distrustful of those principles inherent in the Constitution, viewing the separation of church and state only as a dangerous anti-Christian principle imposed upon our nation. In reality, the separation between church and state has been an important ally to religion: with the state out of the picture, hundreds of religions have grown and prospered. Religion doesn’t need the government’s assistance, any more than it is practical or appropriate for religious doctrine to be fostered in the government or taught in public schools. As an explicitly religious figure speaking out against the Religious Right, Lynn has incurred the wrath of such personalities as Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who once said Lynn was “lower than a child molester.” Lynn has continuously taken on these radicals of the Religious Right calmly and rationally, using their own statements and religious fervor to prove that when they attack the constitutionally mandated separation, they’re actually attacking freedom of religion. In Piety & Politics, the Reverend Barry Lynn continues the fight—educating Americans about what is at stake, explaining why it is crucial that we maintain the separation of church and state, and galvanizing us to defend the honor of our religious freedom.

Piety & Politics

Piety & Politics PDF Author: Reverend Barry W. Lynn
Publisher: Forum Books
ISBN: 0307381633
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Reverend Barry Lynn explains why the Religious Right has it all wrong. In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the Religious Right insisted that George Bush had been handed a mandate for an ideology-based social agenda, including the passage of a “marriage amendment” to ban same-sex unions, diversion of tax money to religious groups through “faith-based initiatives,” the teaching of creationism in public schools, and restrictions on abortion. Led by an aggressive band of television preachers and extremist radio personalities, the Religious Right set its sights on demolishing the wall of separation between church and state. The Reverend Barry Lynn is a devout Christian, but this propaganda effort disturbs him deeply. He argues that politicians need to stop looking to the Bible to justify their actions and should consult another source instead: the U.S. Constitution. When the Founding Fathers of our great nation created the Constitution, they had seen firsthand the dangers of an injudicious mix of religion and government. They knew what it was like to live under the yoke of state-imposed faith. They drew up a model for the new nation that would allow absolute freedom of religion. They knew that religion, united with the raw power of government, spawns tyranny. Yet the Religious Right now seems distrustful of those principles inherent in the Constitution, viewing the separation of church and state only as a dangerous anti-Christian principle imposed upon our nation. In reality, the separation between church and state has been an important ally to religion: with the state out of the picture, hundreds of religions have grown and prospered. Religion doesn’t need the government’s assistance, any more than it is practical or appropriate for religious doctrine to be fostered in the government or taught in public schools. As an explicitly religious figure speaking out against the Religious Right, Lynn has incurred the wrath of such personalities as Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who once said Lynn was “lower than a child molester.” Lynn has continuously taken on these radicals of the Religious Right calmly and rationally, using their own statements and religious fervor to prove that when they attack the constitutionally mandated separation, they’re actually attacking freedom of religion. In Piety & Politics, the Reverend Barry Lynn continues the fight—educating Americans about what is at stake, explaining why it is crucial that we maintain the separation of church and state, and galvanizing us to defend the honor of our religious freedom.

Politics of Piety

Politics of Piety PDF Author: Saba Mahmood
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691149801
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. The author's exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are linked within the context of such movements.

Piety and Politics

Piety and Politics PDF Author: Mary Fulbrook
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521276337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book presents a fresh historical and theoretical analysis of religion and politics in early modern Europe.

Piety and Politics

Piety and Politics PDF Author: Joseph Chinyong Liow
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199703825
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Malaysia, home to some twenty million Muslims, is often held up as a model of a pro-Western Islamic nation. The government of Malaysia, in search of Western investment, does its best to perpetuate this view. But this isn't the whole story. Over the last several decades, Joseph Liow shows, Malaysian politics has taken a strong turn toward Islamism. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the growing role of Islam in the last quarter century of Malaysian politics. Conventional wisdom suggest that the ruling UMNO party has moved toward Islamism to fend off challenges from the more heavily Islamist opposition party, PAS. Liow argues, however, that UMNO has often taken the lead in moving toward Islamism, and that in fact PAS has often been forced to react. The result, Liow argues, is a game of "piety-trumping" that will be very difficult to reverse, and that has dire consequences not only for the ethnic and religious minorities of Malaysia, but for their democratic system as a whole.

Power, Piety, and People

Power, Piety, and People PDF Author: Michael Dumper
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545665
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Conflicts in cities that have particular religious significance often become intense, protracted, and violent. Why are holy cities so frequently contested, and how can these conflicts be mediated and resolved? In Power, Piety, and People, Michael Dumper explores the causes and consequences of contemporary conflicts in holy cities. He explains how common features of holy cities, such as powerful and autonomous religious hierarchies, income from religious endowments, the presence of sacred sites, and the performance of ritual activities that affect other communities, can combine to create tension. Power, Piety, and People offers five case studies of important disputes, beginning with Jerusalem, often seen as the paradigmatic example of a holy city in conflict. Dumper also discusses Córdoba, where the Islamic history of its Mosque-Cathedral poses challenges to the control exercised by the Roman Catholic Church; Banaras, where competing Muslim and Hindu claims to sacred sites threaten the fragile equilibrium that exists in the city; Lhasa, where the Communist Party of China severely restricts the ancient practice of Tibetan Buddhism; and George Town in Malaysia, a rare example of a city with many different religious communities whose leaders have successfully managed intergroup conflicts. Applying the lessons drawn from these cities to a broader global urban landscape, this book offers scholars and policy makers new insights into a pervasive category of conflict that often appears intractable.

Piety and Politics

Piety and Politics PDF Author: Dale Launderville
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802845053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Ancient kings who did not honor the gods overlooked an indispensable means for ruling effectively in their communities. In many traditional societies royal authority was regarded as a divine gift bestowed according to the quality of the relationship of the king both to God or the gods and to the people. The tension and the harmony within these human and divine relationships demanded that the king repeatedly strive to integrate the community's piety with his political strategies. This fascinating study explores the relationship between religion and royal authority in three of history's most influential civilizations: Homeric Greece, biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. Dale Launderville identifies similar, contrasting, and analogous ways that piety functioned in these distinct cultures to legitimate the rule of particular kings and promote community well-being. Key to this religiopolitical dynamic was the use of royal rhetoric, which necessarily took the form of political theology. By examining a host of ancient texts and drawing on the insights of philosophers, poets, historians, anthropologists, social theorists, and theologians, Launderville shows how kings increased their status the more they demonstrated through their speech and actions that they ruled on behalf of God or the gods. Launderville's work also sheds light on a number of perennial questions about ancient political life. How could the people call the king to account? Did the people forfeit too much of their freedom and initiative by giving obedience to a king who symbolized their unity as a community? How did the religious traditions serve as a check on the king's power and keep alive the voice of the people? This study in comparative political theology elucidates these engaging concerns from multiple perspectives, making Piety and Politics of interest to readers in fields ranging from biblical studies and theology to ancient history and political science.

Piety and Public Opinion

Piety and Public Opinion PDF Author: Thomas B. Pepinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190697806
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Across the Muslim world, religion plays an increasingly prominent role in both the private and public lives of over a billion people. Will democratic political participation by an increasingly religious population lead to victories by Islamists at the ballot box? Will more conspicuously pious Muslims participate in politics and markets in a fundamentally different way than they had previously? Against the common assumption that piety would naturally inhibit any tendencies towards modernity, democracy, or cosmopolitanism, Piety and Public Opinion reveals the complex and subtle links between religion and political beliefs in a critically important Muslim democracy.

Patriotism and Piety

Patriotism and Piety PDF Author: Jonathan J. Den Hartog
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 081393642X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
In Patriotism and Piety, Jonathan Den Hartog argues that the question of how religion would function in American society was decided in the decades after the Constitution and First Amendment established a legal framework. Den Hartog shows that among the wide array of politicians and public figures struggling to define religion’s place in the new nation, Federalists stood out—evolving religious attitudes were central to Federalism, and the encounter with Federalism strongly shaped American Christianity. Den Hartog describes the Federalist appropriations of religion as passing through three stages: a "republican" phase of easy cooperation inherited from the experience of the American Revolution; a "combative" phase, forged during the political battles of the 1790s–1800s, when the destiny of the republic was hotly contested; and a "voluntarist" phase that grew in importance after 1800. Faith became more individualistic and issue-oriented as a result of the actions of religious Federalists. Religious impulses fueled party activism and informed governance, but the redirection of religious energies into voluntary societies sapped party momentum, and religious differences led to intraparty splits. These developments altered not only the Federalist Party but also the practice and perception of religion in America, as Federalist insights helped to create voluntary, national organizations in which Americans could practice their faith in interdenominational settings. Patriotism and Pietyfocuses on the experiences and challenges confronted by a number of Federalists, from well-known leaders such as John Adams, John Jay, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Timothy Dwight to lesser-known but still important figures such as Caleb Strong, Elias Boudinot, and William Jay.

Politics and Piety

Politics and Piety PDF Author: David L. Ellis
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004337857
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
In Politics and Piety: The Protestant 'Awakening' in Prussia, 1816-1856, David L. Ellis analyzes the connections between political conservatism and Prussia’s neo-Pietist religious revival, especially in Brandenburg and Pomerania, in the years surrounding the revolution of 1848. Awakened conservatives waged a cultural struggle against political and religious liberalism, impacting the state church, the outcome of the revolution, and Prussia’s controversial neutrality in the Crimean War. Awakened leaders, in their effort to recover and adapt a pre-Napoleonic order, ironically modernized conservatism with individualistic rhetoric, widely circulated newspapers, and political organization.

Piety, Power, and Politics

Piety, Power, and Politics PDF Author: Douglas Sullivan-González
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970503
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Douglass Sullivan Gonzalez examines the influence of religion on the development of nationalism in Guatemala during the period 1821-1871, focusing on the relationship between Rafael Carrera amd the Guatemalan Catholic Church. He illustrates the peculiar and fascinating blend of religious fervor, popular power, and caudillo politics that inspired a multiethnic and multiclass alliance to defend the Guatemalan nation in the mid-nineteenth century.Led by the military strongman Rafael Carrera, an unlikely coalition of mestizos, Indians, and creoles (whites born in the Americas) overcame a devastating civil war in the late 1840s and withstood two threats (1851 and 1863) from neighboring Honduras and El Salvador that aimed at reintegrating conservative Guatemala into a liberal federation of Central American nations.Sullivan-Gonzalez shows that religious discourse and ritual were crucial to the successful construction and defense of independent Guatemala. Sermons commemorating independence from Spain developed a covenantal theology that affirmed divine protection if the Guatemalan people embraced Catholicism. Sullivan-Gonzalez examines the extent to which this religious and nationalist discourse was popularly appropriated.Recently opened archives of the Guatemalan Catholic Church revealed that the largely mestizo population of the central and eastern highlands responded favorably to the church's message. Records indicate that Carrera depended upon the clerics' ability to pacify the rebellious inhabitants during Guatemala's civil war (1847-1851) and to rally them to Guatemala's defense against foreign invaders. Though hostile to whites and mestizos, the majority indigenous population of the western highlands identified with Carrera as their liberator. Their admiration for and loyalty to Carrera allowed them a territory that far exceeded their own social space.Though populist and antidemocratic, the historic legacy of the Carrera years is the Guatemalan nation. Sullivan-Gonzalez details how theological discourse, popular claims emerging from mestizo and Indian communities, and the caudillo's ability to finesse his enemies enabled Carrera to bring together divergent and contradictory interests to bind many nations into one.