Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.
David M. Elcott is a professor at SUNY and the Hudson Link and works with Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison to teach college level classes to incarcerated individuals at Green Haven Correctional Facility. C. Colt Anderson is professor of Christian spirituality and the former dean of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University. Tobias Cremer is a member of the European Parliament. Volker Haarmann is the chair of the Department of Theology of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland.
Acknowledgments Introduction: Why We Write 1. Facing Liberal Democracy's Challenge: Why We Highlight The Role Of Religious Identity In Populist Nationalist Movements 2. How To Understand The Populism Of Europe 3. The Assault On Liberal Democracy In The United States 4. A Catholic Response To The Errors Of Catholic Nationalism 5. The Post-Holocaust Protestant Church As The Defender Of Pluralistic Democracy 6. Each Human Being As An Image Of God: A Jewish Response To Religious Nationalism Epilogue: Religious Leadership, Civil Discourse, And Democracy The Authors Bibliography Notes
"This book is a useful primer on how authoritarian leaders manipulate religion to encourage human division, tribalism, and nationalism and how religion offers the means to promote liberal democracy." -Choice "Elcott and his coauthors have come together across religious and cultural divides and exemplified a clear commitment to liberal democracy. Their work challenges faith leaders and laypersons alike to do the same and join together across seemingly insurmountable boundaries to work towards a global emphasis on human rights and dignity for all people." -Reading Religion "Elcott and his colleagues . . . offer a broad perspective on how religious faith has been misused in the development of national identities. . . . The authors are stark in highlighting the ways in which religious belief has been weaponized to promote intolerance and disenfranchisement." -The Arlington Catholic Herald "Elcott and his colleagues are to be commended for lobbying that religion, when properly practiced, exposes "divisions between 'us' and 'them' " not as appeals to purity but exercises in apostasy. Hope, not fear, thus paves the way forward." -The Journal Gazette "In this trenchant analysis, Elcott . . . teams up with other researchers to explore the ways religion impacts politics in the U.S. and Europe. . . . This is a startling reminder of the insidious potential of religious identity being overtaken by extremist political forces." -Publishers Weekly "Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy . . . impart[s] a cogent, academic, and rich way of understanding how religion has been turned political weapon; it gives significant advice about what to do to address the problem . . . [and] explains how religious claims have been warped and understood to be more about belonging than believing." -Foreword Reviews (starred review) "Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is an impassioned defense of the sane and sound forms of religion that engender and protect democracy, human rights, and love of neighbor. It is obviously a labor of love produced by those who have lived their lives in support of those values that will mend our broken world." -Jim Winkler, president and general secretary, National Council of Churches "It is vital for citizens of liberal democracies to understand the populist movements that are challenging democracy from within. By explaining how religion has been co-opted by nationalist populism, and by showing how religion can help provide an antidote to populism, this learned and insightful book helps us appreciate the dilemmas of contemporary democratic politics." -Andrew Preston, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith "This is a solid, timely book on a surprisingly neglected topic: the religious views and responses to the rise across the West of national populism. It succeeds at being both a scholarly and an activist and prescriptive look at the Christian and Jewish reactions to the populist surge in the twenty-first century." -Jose Pedro Zuquete, author of The Identitarians "Engaging and insightful, Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy helps us recognize the striking patterns of dangerous nationalisms that threaten to divide humanity and distort democracy around the globe. The authors' comparative perspective helps us see our own context in a clearer light, and the activist reading of history and the present ask us, as readers and people of faith, to take action." -Jeannine Hill Fletcher, author of The Sin of White Supremacy "The four writers of Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, all of them religious, are unusually frank in recognizing the possible affinities between their religions and a nationalist politics. At the same time, they are wonderfully (and thankfully) persuasive in providing an account of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism that can stand alongside and support liberal democracy." -Michael Walzer, author of The Paradox of Liberation "A timely, constructive, and empirically grounded exploration of the tensions among religion, identity, and liberal democracy in the United States and around the world." -Robert D. Putnam, co-author of American Grace
