Washington College Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture – serie

Politics and religion have been major forces throughout history, and they still are as anyone who pays attention to current events can see. Understandably, the relationship between religion and politics calls for careful and ongoing scholarly exploration. At the same time, global centers of economic and military power are shifting from being concentrated in the West (Europe and North America) to areas in Asia, the world’s largest landmass and home to the bulk of the world’s population. Indeed, the twenty-first century is already shaping up to be the «Asian century». Perhaps not surprisingly, just as in the West, so in Asia, societies have been – and are still being – shaped by religious and political forces. Sacred Matters, Stately Concerns: Faith and Politics in Asia, Past and Present examines the complex and intertwined nature of «politics» and «religion» in diverse cultures within Asia, ranging from China and Japan to Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. By their very nature, the essays included here defy easy generalizations about the nature of religion in various societies, forcing us to rethink, and, one hopes, pushing us beyond staid assumptions. Certainly, these essays challenge prevailing views of national/political boundaries in Asia (and by extension elsewhere), and highlight the fact that the «separation of Church and State», a hallmark of the American political system, has rarely been observed in other places and times. Sacred Matters, Stately Concerns is suitable for use in a variety of courses on Asian history and politics as well as surveys of Asian culture and international relations and comparative/world religion and philosophy courses.

Curriculum and the Culture Wars offers a fresh perspective on perennial debates about the role of religion in public schools, focusing on the intersection of religion and curriculum. This debate has been renewed in part due to the growth of elective Bible courses in public schools in many parts of the country. The first half of the book presents new scholarship on the use of the Bible in schools, including a historical analysis of what the Founders had to say about the use of the Bible in public education, a more current assessment of the politics behind the elective Bible class movement in the early twenty-first century, and a critique of such educational programs from constitutional and pedagogical perspectives. This edited volume also offers new insights into long-standing battles that pit religious and secular advocates against one another in the areas of evolution and sex education and considers whether school choice programs that would allow parents the right to send their children to sectarian schools are an affront to promoting the goals of a liberal democracy.

How can we address the seemingly endless conflicts in the world, particularly those arising from misunderstandings of Islam by both Muslims and non-Muslims? Preventing Violence and Achieving World Peace: The Contributions of the Gülen Movement presents the essays of eight scholars who consider the diverse ways in which the Gülen Movement or hizmet («service to others») – inspired by contemporary Turkish social philosopher Fetullah Gülen – has worked to answer this question. Drawing from various intellectual and theological sources, particularly Sufism, these essays indicate multiple instances of positive interfaith and/or multicultural dialogue. In addition, they consider how the writings of Gülen and the works of the Gülen Movement, through an extensive program of education and communication, have contributed significantly to efforts that oppose violence and shape universal peace.

The transcripted conversations that represent the substance of this volume are the result of a research project funded by the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. The product of nearly three years of interviews conducted with senior religious figures from a diversity of religious traditions, this book represents a physical and political-theological journey around England – from metropolitan capital through provincial cities and rural hinterlands, from rural episcopal palaces to industrial estates, from London mansion houses to remote mountain monastery – and provides a snapshot of how religious leaders and authority figures respond to contemporary issues of freedom of expression. Religious Authority and the Arts has a substantial introduction that situates the conversations within a theological, political, and cultural framework.

For close to half a century, the work of Germain Grisez has been highly influential, and his writings continue to receive considerable attention from philosophers and theologians of diverse viewpoints. His co-author for this work is the professor and noted moral theologian Fr. Peter Ryan, S.J., currently the executive director of the Secretariat of Doctrine and Canonical Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). These two eminent scholars explore fundamental questions about Christian eschatology, moral theory, the purpose of human life, and the promise of human fulfilment. The authors examine Christian teaching on the final destiny of persons, investigating the meaning of God’s kingdom, the hope of the beatific vision, and the centrality of moral goodness and divine grace in one’s final end. This work is an ideal source for students, scholars, ministers and lay persons interested in basic questions of Christian theology, the philosophy of religion, ethical theory, and Catholic doctrine.

In this work, leading contemporary philosophers discuss key facets of the human person from a variety of perspectives in Christian thought. This closely woven volume includes chapters by Nicholas Wolterstorff on the distinction between humans and other animals; Robert Sokolowski on language; Marilyn McCord Adams on the presence of the Holy Spirit in human beings; Roland Teske on the soul and soteriology; Nicolas Austriaco on bioethics and human nature; J. Hayes Hurley on consciousness; and Germain Grisez on death and immortality. An excellent source for scholars, this book is also ideal for courses in philosophy, theology, and psychology.

Competing Schemas Within the American Liberal Democracy is a compelling book that dispels many of the common myths concerning Church and State. This book shows that how one approaches the subject of religion and politics largely determines what types of conclusions one will draw. Shannon Holzer is not concerned with creating a polemic. Instead, he shows that the subject of Church and State is much wider in scope than strict separationists would have one believe. When most scholars write on the subject of religion and politics they do so from a single academic discipline. The strength of this book lays in the fact that Dr. Holzer is an accomplished scholar in many different academic disciplines and can approach this complex subject from several different areas of inquiry. In doing so, Dr. Holzer offers a more comprehensive approach to the subject. This book makes use of the many relevant disciplines regarding Church and State, including: history, political theory, philosophy of religion, epistemology, legal theory, and history. As such, this text can be used in a multitude of subjects. Scholars will find Competing Schemas Within the American Liberal Democracy to be intellectually stimulating while clearly written and easily comprehended. Whether in the classroom or in one’s personal library, this book is necessary for those who are interested in the highly contentious and often misunderstood subject of Church and State.

City of Christian Love provides a detailed history of Nazareth from the dawn of the Christian Era until today with special focus on the religious communities found in this sacred city, including both the periods of tension and the periods of profound interreligious partnership and solidarity.

This book presents a study of the career of Charles R. Crane, a central player in President Woodrow Wilson’s entourage. In the wake of the U.S. intervention in the Great War, Crane participated in important diplomatic and fact-finding missions. Leclair follows Crane through revolutionary Russia and on the Western front, in the emerging countries born out of the Ottoman Empire, and then in postwar China. In the process, Leclair’s book offers original insights into some of the major domestic and international decisions that define Wilson’s presidency and its legacy in the history of the United States and of international relations, most notably Wilson’s motivation and effort to bring about a new world order under American political and moral leadership. Leclair convincingly portrays Crane as a proponent of the principle of self-determination –one, indeed, whose aversion to colonialism predated Wilson’s international vision as formulated in his Fourteen Points. While a convergence of reform interest and humanitarian concerns brought Crane and Wilson together on some of the most complex issues of the time, Crane’s vision –propelled by a genuine philanthropic commitment—adds substance to what has largely been derided as empty Wilsonian idealism. The thematic structure of this book, the quality of its narration, and the wealth of information it contains, are added elements that make it an excellent contribution to the field of U.S. history. It could be used as a an assigned reading in college or university courses, especially in advanced American history, American Political thought and international relations courses.

Stephen Strehle is a leading scholar of church/state issues. In this volume, he focuses his rigorous historical analysis and philosophical acumen upon a topic of great interest today and source of cultural wars around the globe—the process of secularization. The book starts with a discussion of early capitalism and how it saw the real world functioning well-enough on its own principles of individual struggle and self-interest, without needing religious or moral principles to meddle in its affairs and eventually dispelling the need for any intelligent design or providential orchestration of life through the work of Darwin. The book then discusses the growth of the secular point of view: how historians dismissed the impact of religion in developing modern culture, how scientists conceived of the universe running on self-sufficient or mechanistic principles, and how people no longer looked to the providential hand of God to explain their suffering. The book ends with a discussion of how the Deist concept of human autonomy became a political policy in America through Jefferson’s concept of a wall of separation between church and state and how the US Supreme Court proceeded to dismiss the importance of religion in shaping or justifying the values of the nation and its laws. The book is accessible to most upper-level and graduate students in a wide-variety of disciplines, keeping technical and foreign words to a minimum and leaving scholarly details or debates to its extensive notes.

For the Life of the World: An Eastern Christian Approach to Nature and Environmental Care explores climate change and global ecological issues via the ability of Christianity—one of the world’s most frequently practiced religions—to provide insight. Author Robin Gibbons outlines the tradition of prior Christian involvement in the issue, drawing upon ideas of freely given care and human stewardship of the world. Recently, the issue of climate change and the Christian community’s inability to act against it has been characterized by a disconnect between human life and nature, with the biblical model of human stewardship subsumed by politics, business, and greed. In contrast, this book advocates for embracing an older model of Christian thought, theoretically surmounting the consequences of climate disaster through care and respect for nature.

Stephen Strehle continues his detailed analysis of the secular forces that shape the modern world in this second and final volume to the study, offering a fresh perspective and solid philosophical, theological, and historical conclusions from his years of research. He continues to find forces of secularity embodied in social or political institutions, cultural dispositions or interests, and new or disturbing intellectual realities that challenge former religious perspectives. The present work starts out examining two powerful institutions of culture, the American university and Hollywood, and explains their place in promoting the secular mentality. The study then shows the secular mentality permeating society as the culture starts to accent the materialistic concerns of technology and divorce religion from the practical and social concerns of everyday life. The study completes the analysis with a discussion of intellectual problems that confront the old-time religion or even the very possibility of faith in the modern world, particularly pointing to the rise of biblical criticism and the rejection of all God-talk among critical philosophers. Like the first volume, the present work is accessible to most upper-level and graduate students in a wide-variety of disciplines, keeping technical and foreign words to a minimum and leaving scholarly details or debates to its extensive notes.

This book provides a unique Pakistani perspective and understanding of a region that has not been studied extensively to date. Pakistan’s Frontier Region has been at the forefront of the War on Terror since 2001. The Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (now known as merged Tribal Districts) are a critical geostrategic area for Pakistan. This work highlights key economic, political, and religious issues in the FATA-KP region in order to identify means to eradicate ongoing conflicts and integrate the region within mainstream Pakistani society. This project proposes a series of phased economic development reforms that can guide FATA’s transition as an integrated territory within the rest of Pakistan. These reforms can and should encourage dimensions of indigenous economic practices, women’s empowerment, the education system, food security, subsistence agriculture, and transportation and communication infrastructure where possible. These improvements can be implemented in 10+ year plans designed to organize a committed effort to develop and integrate FATA with the rest of Pakistan.

This book provides a unique Pakistani perspective and understanding of a region that has not been studied extensively to date. Pakistan’s Frontier Region has been at the forefront of the War on Terror since 2001. The Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (now known as merged Tribal Districts) are a critical geostrategic area for Pakistan. This work highlights key economic, political, and religious issues in the FATA-KP region in order to identify means to eradicate ongoing conflicts and integrate the region within mainstream Pakistani society. This project proposes a series of phased economic development reforms that can guide FATA’s transition as an integrated territory within the rest of Pakistan. These reforms can and should encourage dimensions of indigenous economic practices, women’s empowerment, the education system, food security, subsistence agriculture, and transportation and communication infrastructure where possible. These improvements can be implemented in 10+ year plans designed to organize a committed effort to develop and integrate FATA with the rest of Pakistan.

This book examines, through the use of archives and oral evidence, the role of the Pakistan Army in the context of Pakistan’s foreign policy and domestic politics. Focusing on its independent relationship with three instruments of policy-making in the United States – State Department, White House and Pentagon – the theory argues that the relationship between the Army and these policy-making bodies arose from a synergistic commonality of interests during 1947-65. The Americans needed a country, on the periphery of the Soviet Union to contain Communism while the Pakistan needed US military support to check Indian regional military hegemonism in South Asia. This alliance was secured to the disadvantage of democratic political institutions of Pakistan. The Army, which became stronger as a result of US military and economic support, came progressively to dominate domestic politics. This led not only to weakened civilian governments in the period under examination but also, in 1958, to the military seizure of political control of the country itself. Religion, the foundation of the creation of the country, failed to keep the East and West wings of Pakistan united.The book explores the influence of the martial-race theory and and reconstructs provincial politics that weakened the Federal Government and allowed the Army to usurp political power to a disproportionate degree. The complications arising in Indo-Pakistan relations as a consequence of an abrupt tilt of the US towards India after the Sino-Indian war in 1962 are also examined. This resulted in China-Pakistan friendship.In conclusion, the book argues that the period under consideration saw a complete failure of the US policy of containing communism while at the same time avoiding war between its allies in the region, and that this had tragic consequences for the future of democracy in Pakistan.