Republicanism Religion And The Soul Of America

Author : Ellis Sandoz
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2013-07-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780826265623

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Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America by Ellis Sandoz Pdf

As debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville’s nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America, Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man’s capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders’ thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin’s thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin’s later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of Order and History. Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity—and the heart of Americanism as we know it today.

Author : Stephen James Nelson
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 359 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781793624246

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Searching the Soul of the College and University in America by Stephen James Nelson Pdf

This is a story of religious and democratic covenants and controversies in the foundations of America and in the soul of its colleges and universities. Coinciding entangled democratic beliefs and convictions distinctly define the American body politic and are in the foundation of the nation and its colleges and universities.

Author : Dayton Hartman
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2014-01-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781625642011

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Joseph Smith's Tritheism by Dayton Hartman Pdf

"I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods.

Author : Frank Lambert
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2010-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400824588

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Religion in American Politics by Frank Lambert Pdf

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when Federalist clergymen charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a "Christian nation," to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been part of American politics. In Religion in American Politics, Frank Lambert tells the fascinating story of the uneasy relations between religion and politics from the founding to the twenty-first century. Lambert examines how antebellum Protestant unity was challenged by sectionalism as both North and South invoked religious justification; how Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" competed with the anticapitalist "Social Gospel" during postwar industrialization; how the civil rights movement was perhaps the most effective religious intervention in politics in American history; and how the alliance between the Republican Party and the Religious Right has, in many ways, realized the founders' fears of religious-political electoral coalitions. In these and other cases, Lambert shows that religion became sectarian and partisan whenever it entered the political fray, and that religious agendas have always mixed with nonreligious ones. Religion in American Politics brings rare historical perspective and insight to a subject that was just as important--and controversial--in 1776 as it is today.

Author : James A. Patterson
Publisher : B&H Publishing Group
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2012-02-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781433675980

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James Robinson Graves by James A. Patterson Pdf

James Robinson Graves (1820-1893) is known for firmly believing that Baptists of his day needed clearly distinct markers in order to preserve a meaningful denominational identity. The founder of Landmarkism, his theology emphasized church succession (an unbroken trail of authentic congregations dating back to the New Testament), the local church (rather than the idea of a universal Body of Christ), and strict baptism guidelines. In this first biography of Graves in more than eighty years, author James A. Patterson portrays the man as bold and brash. A native of Vermont who moved south to Nashville in 1845, the self-educated preacher and budding journalist would become a combative defender of the Baptist cause, engaging in public controversy with Methodists, Restorationists, and even fellow Baptists. Ultimately, Graves sought to influence the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention in its formative period and was the primary shaper of the “Tennessee Tradition,” now considered a key strand of Southern Baptist life and identity. By focusing on Graves’s understanding of essential Baptist boundary markers, this book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Landmark legacy. It concludes with an epilogue that discusses the enduring influence of his ideas in the decades after his death.

Author : David Sehat
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2011-01-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780199792573

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The Myth of American Religious Freedom by David Sehat Pdf

In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Author : Daniel L. Dreisbach
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199987931

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Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers by Daniel L. Dreisbach Pdf

Dreisbach shows that the Bible was the most frequently referenced book in the political discourse of the American founders. Drawing on some of the most familiar rhetoric of the founding era, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers examines the founders' diverse uses of the Bible and how scripture informed their political culture. -- Provided by publisher.

Author : Ronald L. Weed,John von Heyking
Publisher : CUA Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2010-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780813217246

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Civil Religion in Political Thought by Ronald L. Weed,John von Heyking Pdf

The essays in this volume blend historical and philosophical reflection with concern for contemporary political problems. They show that the causes and motivations of civil religion are a permanent fixture of the human condition, though some of its manifestations and proximate causes have shifted in an age of multiculturalism, religious toleration, and secularization

Author : Norbert Finzsch
Publisher : LIT Verlag Münster
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Christianity and politics
ISBN : 9783643114303

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Religion und Politik in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika by Norbert Finzsch Pdf

Author : William Glass
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 455 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2010-08-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781443824804

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Beyond Imagined Uniqueness by William Glass Pdf

Beyond Imagined Uniqueness: Nationalisms in Comparative Perspectives is a collection of essays from a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives that explore the contentious issue of nationalism in historical and contemporary settings. They adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the topic of nationalism and its permutations and modes of expression. The unspoken context of these essays is the trends subsumed under the processes of globalization. Though the world may be becoming more integrated economically, these essays suggest social, cultural, and political forces, historically rooted, keep the nation and national identity alive and well. The comparative perspectives offered by the essays appear in two ways: one set is the explicit comparisons of nations made by several authors within their essays and between the essays themselves when the authors focus on developments within a single nation. A second, and indeed more thought-provoking set of comparisons come from the way the essays address nationalism in disparate scholarly approaches that include visual culture, history, sociology, and literature. Moreover, while traditional themes in the study of nationalism are not ignored, these essays expand the discussion with case studies of nationalism in Turkey, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Even when nationalism is considered in those areas that have been the central focus of nationalism studies (Western Europe and the USA), the authors bring unique voices to the conversation as in the use of portraiture as a vehicle of nationalism in Cold War America or children’s literature shaping a Swedish American identity or in the idea of a covenant as a source of Dutch nationalism or the role of minority languages in West European societies. Section One of this volume contains essays that examine the terrain of the national imaginary through language, monuments, and visual culture. Several of the essays in this traverse the cultural sites of representation and commemoration of the nation, looking carefully at the “politics of memory” in places, material objects, and texts. Section Two provides more individual case studies of nations, though many of these essays engage significant regional and international tensions especially in a post Cold War world that has often influenced the internal dynamics of nation-building. Section Three moves the focus away from the nation to immigrant communities, especially those in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Diasporas throughout the world have challenged many theories about the nation, as crossing borders becomes the norm rather the exception.

Author : Robert Reilly
Publisher : Ignatius Press
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2020-05-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781642291148

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America on Trial by Robert Reilly Pdf

The Founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country's moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy. In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason. These concepts were further developed by thinkers in the Middle Ages, who formulated the basic principles of constitutional rule. Why were they later rejected by those claiming the right to absolute rule, then reclaimed by the American Founders, only to be rejected again today? Reilly reveals the underlying drama: the conflict of might makes right versus right makes might. America's decline, he claims, is not to be discovered in the Founding principles, but in their disavowal.

Author : Gary Scott Smith
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 512 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2015-02-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199391417

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Religion in the Oval Office by Gary Scott Smith Pdf

In his highly praised book Faith and the Presidency, Gary Scott Smith cast a revealing light on the role religion has played in presidential politics throughout our nation's history, offering comprehensive, even-handed examinations of the role of religion in the lives, politics, and policies of eleven presidents. Now, in Religion in the Oval Office, Smith takes on eleven more of our nation's most interesting and influential chief executives: John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Drawing on a wide range of sources and paying close attention to historical context and America's shifting social and moral values, he examines their religious beliefs, commitments, affiliations, and practices and scrutinizes their relationships with religious leaders and communities. The result is a fascinating account of the ways in which religion has helped shape the course of our history. From John Quincy Adams' treatment of Native Americans, to Harry Truman's decision to recognize Israel, to Bill Clinton's promotion of religious liberty and welfare reform, to Barack Obama's policies on poverty and gay rights, Smith shows how strongly our presidents' religious commitments have affected policy from the earliest days of our nation to the present. Together with Faith and the Presidency, Religion in the Oval Office provides the most comprehensive examination of the inseparable and intriguing relationship between faith and the American presidency. This book will be invaluable to anyone interested in the presidency and the role of religion in politics.

Author : Gary L. Gregg,Mark David Hall
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2023-05-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781684516025

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America's Forgotten Founders, second edition by Gary L. Gregg,Mark David Hall Pdf

Beyond Washington and Jefferson: Ranking the Founders. Even as Americans devour books about our Founding Fathers, the focus seldom extends past a half dozen or so icons—Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton. Many of the men (and women) who made prodigious contributions to the American founding have been all but forgotten. America's Forgotten Founders corrects this injustice. Editors Gary L. Gregg II and Mark David Hall surveyed forty-five top scholars in history, political science, and law to produce the first-ever ranking of the most neglected contributors to the American Revolution and our constitutional order. This unique book features engaging short biographies of the top ten most important Founders whose contributions are overlooked today: James Wilson, George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, John Jay, Roger Sherman, John Marshall, John Dickinson, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and John Witherspoon. Part of the "Lives of the Founders" series, America's Forgotten Founders reshapes our understanding of America's founding generation.

Author : Matthew H. Pangborn
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2018-09-07
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429784347

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Enlightenment Orientalism in the American Mind, 1770-1807 by Matthew H. Pangborn Pdf

This study engages with the emerging field of energy humanities to provide close readings of several early American oriental-observer tales. The popular genre of orientalism offered Americans a means to critique new ideas of identity, history, and nationality accompanying protoindustrialization and a growing consumerism. The tales thus express a complex self-reflection during a time when America’s exploitation of its energy resources and its engagement in a Franco-British world-system was transforming the daily life of its citizens. The genre of the oriental observer, this study argues, offers intriguing glimpses of a nation becoming strange in the eyes of its own inhabitants.

Author : Kody W. Cooper,Justin Buckley Dyer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2022-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781009098113

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The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics by Kody W. Cooper,Justin Buckley Dyer Pdf

There has been a considerable amount of literature in the last 70 years claiming that the American founders were steeped in modern thought. This study runs counter to that tradition, arguing that the founders of America were deeply indebted to the classical Christian natural-law tradition for their fundamental theological, moral, and political outlook. Evidence for this thesis is found in case studies of such leading American founders as Thomas Jefferson and James Wilson, the pamphlet debates, the founders' invocation of providence during the revolution, and their understanding of popular sovereignty. The authors go on to reflect on how the founders' political thought contained within it the resources that undermined, in principle, the institution of slavery, and explores the relevance of the founders' political theology for contemporary politics. This timely, important book makes a significant contribution to the scholarly debate over whether the American founding is compatible with traditional Christianity.