Owen Making Religion Safe for Democracy

Transformation from Hobbes to Tocqueville
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-1-316-19091-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten

Does the toleration of liberal democratic society mean that religious faiths are left substantively intact, so long as they respect the rights of others? Or do liberal principles presuppose a deeper transformation of religion? Does life in democratic society itself transform religion? In Making Religion Safe for Democracy, J. Judd Owen explores these questions by tracing a neglected strand of Enlightenment political thought that presents a surprisingly unified reinterpretation of Christianity by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. Owen then turns to Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of the effects of democracy on religion in the early United States. Tocqueville finds a religion transformed by democracy in a way that bears a striking resemblance to what the Enlightenment thinkers sought, while offering a fundamentally different interpretation of what is at stake in that transformation. Making Religion Safe for Democracy offers a novel framework for understanding the ambiguous status of religion in modern democratic society.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Owen, J. Judd

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. A third way of religious freedom?: Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Backus, and the struggle for the American soul; 2. Hobbes and the roots of religious indifference; 3. Locke and the political theology of toleration; 4. Tocqueville and the democratization of American religion.

Über Autor(innen)

Owen, J. Judd
J. Judd Owen is Associate Professor of Political Science, an associated faculty member in the Department of Religion, and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, at Emory University. He has held fellowships with the National Endowment for the Humanities and with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism (2001) and the coeditor of Religion, Enlightenment, and the New World Order (2010). His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, and Perspectives on Politics.