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This exciting volume pioneers the study of the complex relationship between religion and deliberative democracy, a practice that places importance on the need for citizens to come together to identify shared concerns and issues, work through choices and options for action, weigh consequences and trade-offs, and possibly take collective action to influence decisions and policies. Chapters use case studies to demonstrate instances where deliberative democracy has advanced the positive role of religion and where religious practices have advanced the role of deliberative democracy. The authors look at the actions of various denominations of Christianity in Africa, the United States of America, and the South Pacific, as well as examining how such groups operate within the context of indigenous religions such as African Traditional Religion. This volume also explores instances where the absence of deliberative practices in religion has curtailed the ability of people to realise their full potential, and the ability of religious groups to act decisively for the common good to influence the politics of the times. Combining innovative research with case studies and practical implications and recommendations for religious leaders, academics, policy makers, and practitioners, this concise and easily accessible volume instructs on how religious and democratic institutions can symbiotically address community and national challenges.

The study of comparative religion is no longer a matter merely for those interested in religion - it is a matter of concern for everybody. For irrespective of whether one believes in God, religion is a major characteristic of identity. And in the post 9.11 world, every educated person is aware of how important it is to understand what others believe. This collection of essays by international scholars emerged from an intense and powerful dialogue at the University of Hong Kong about love in t

Government neutrality toward religion is based on familiar considerations: the importance of avoiding religious conflict, alienation of religious minorities, and the danger that religious considerations will introduce a dangerous irrational dogmatism into politics and make democratic compromise more difficult. This paper explores one consideration, prominent at the time of the framing, that is often overlooked: the idea that religion can be corrupted by state involvement with it. This idea is friendly to religion but, precisely for that reason, is determined to keep the state away from religion. If the religion-protective argument for disestablishment is to be useful today, it cannot be adopted in the form in which it was understood in the 17th and 18th centuries, because in that form it is loaded with assumptions rooted in a particular variety of Protestant Christianity. Nonetheless, suitably revised, it provides a powerful reason for government, as a general matter, to keep its hands off religious doctrine. It offers the best explanation for many otherwise mysterious rules of Establishment Clause law.

Viele Menschen empfinden sich in Zonen des Übergangs, des Wandels oder auf Schwellen. Anne M. Steinmeier sucht Wege religiöser Sinngestaltung zwischen bildender Kunst, Dichtung und Religion. Die Ordnungen des Lebens sind von "Bruchlinien der Erfahrung" (B. Waldenfels) gezeichnet, auf denen doch sinnkreativ das eigene Leben erzählt und gedeutet sein will. Dabei suchen die Sprachen der Seele Ausdruck in Sinngestalten, die sich nicht allein durch Deutung erschließen. Was heißt das für das Verhältnis von Seelsorge und Psychoanalyse? Was heißt das für die Bedeutung und Sprachwerdung von Religion? Welche Räume können sich an Grenzen und auf Schwellen durch die Sprachen der bildenden Kunst, der Dichtung und Erzählung eröffnen? Im grenzgängigen Diskurs zeigt Steinmeier Wege der Seelsorge auf.

Introduction; Chapter One Religion, Science, and the "Culture Wars"; Chapter Two Science, Neutrality, and Public Life; Chapter Three Authority; Chapter Four The Art of Distinctions; Chapter Five Religion, Science, and Politics; Chapter Six Religion and Science as Social Activities; Chapter Seven Beyond Doctrines and Discoveries; Chapter Eight A Disputational Friendship; Bibliography.

Foreword -- Interrogating religion -- Religion trouble -- Seeing religion : six common clichés -- Gagging at the feast of two unexamined assumptions : religion, all good or all bad -- Politics using religion : anatomy of a cliché -- The religion-is-no-good cliché -- The second set of two clichés : religion is belief and belief in God -- Religion's private parts -- Powerless in paradise -- Two ways to eliminate religion -- Is religion our phlogiston? : an historical test case -- Talal Asad's religion trouble -- The trick of defining religion -- Owning religion -- How Durkheim took ownership of religion -- Religion and its despisers -- Interrogating power -- Confronting the paradox of power -- How power plays havoc with thinking about institutional violence -- Whom should we blame? : history on trial -- History's helper : we should also blameFoucault -- Problematizing power in South Africa -- Foucault versus Foucault -- Thinking about power as Auctoritas and hierarchy -- What more is to be done? : thinking about power as Auctoritas and social force -- Interrogating politics -- Where there is no politics : despotism and totalitarianism -- Autonomous politics -- Where our politics makes no sense -- Politics, the construct -- Two pernicious views of politics -- History lessons for Professor Morgenthau -- What constitutionalism owes the Council of Constance -- The emergence of the political from the religious -- Machiavelli and Luther : critical contributions to the autonomy of politics -- Foucault's fault II : everything is political -- The hidden fascism of thinking that everything is political -- Public and private : no absolute line of demarcation -- Resisting panopticon -- Afterword: The autonomy of politics and the nation-state -- Testing interrogations of religion, power, and politics : human bomber and the authority of sacrifice in the Middle East -- Is suicide bombing religious? -- Making too much of religion in suicide bombing : Islamofascism -- Dying to make too little of religion in suicide bombing : Robert A. Pape -- No religion in suicide bombing : Talal Asad -- How religion helps explain human bombing -- Human bombing is catastrophe, but also a triumph of secular immortality -- Human bombing = jihad + sacrifice -- Sacrifice or suicide? -- But do any Muslims really think human bombers are sacrifices? -- Sacrifice makes authority -- How and why sacrifice works : the authority of sacralization -- How and why sacrifice works : no free gifts.