Here in the States, we've always had in our history a convoluted relationship between religion and politics. However, in recent years, matters of Church and State have become a touchstone of and for national politics and culture. Jeffrey W. Robbins, Assistant Professor of Religion and American Studies at Lebanon Valley College, and Neal Magee, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Le Moyne College, have edited a collection of essays addressing this issue in The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken: The New Politics of Religion in the United States now available in the US and to be released next month in the UK. The essays are bookended with an introduction written by John D. Caputo called "A Taste For Theory" and a Postface by Slavoj Žižek entitled "Better Dead than Red - Again!" Caputo and Žižek in the same volume?! How can you go wrong?
Robbins, a contributing blogger for Huffington Post, has recently written about our waking giant and what that means for this presidential election. He writes "We are now witnessing not only an emergent progressive movement within evangelical Christianity (led by the likes of Sojourners director Jim Wallis, emergent church leaders Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo and others), but more generally, a new politics of religion within the United States. With the success of the John McCain in securing the Republican nomination, it is clear that the evangelical Right no longer has a stranglehold on the Republican party."
The triumph of American political conservatism in the last two decades has been paralleled by the ascendance of Christian evangelicalism. More importantly, the political campaigns of 2000 and 2004 marked a convergence between these two political entities with an effectiveness never before seen in national elections. This cultural shift turns on a mutual embrace. On the one side, conservatives have successfully set the terms of debate around so-called "family values" and the status of religion in the public sphere. On the other side, evangelicals have mobilized in a new self-awareness of their formidable political power and now demand representation at all levels of government.
What are the religious seeds of this convergence? Upon what fundamental ideas does it rest? What potential dangers does it present for the concepts of "religion," "politics" and " America"? How secure is this alliance, and what does each side sacrifice in order to sustain it? Must all religion in America now become similarly engaged in the political sphere?
This volume is a collection of articles by a group of young scholars addressing the nexus between political conservatism, evangelical Christianity, and American consumerist culture. Drawing widely upon examples from contemporary culture, these articles are a critical engage ment with this turn and attempt to delineate its dynamics, trajectory, and content.
It's a book that will only become more relevant and timely as we swiftly approach the November election - and beyond!
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