Christianity and American Democracy

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, Mar 31, 2009 - Political Science - 312 pages

Christianity, not religion in general, has been important for American democracy. With this bold thesis, Hugh Heclo offers a panoramic view of how Christianity and democracy have shaped each other.

Heclo shows that amid deeply felt religious differences, a Protestant colonial society gradually convinced itself of the truly Christian reasons for, as well as the enlightened political advantages of, religious liberty. By the mid-twentieth century, American democracy and Christianity appeared locked in a mutual embrace. But it was a problematic union vulnerable to fundamental challenge in the Sixties. Despite the subsequent rise of the religious right and glib talk of a conservative Republican theocracy, Heclo sees a longer-term, reciprocal estrangement between Christianity and American democracy.

Responding to his challenging argument, Mary Jo Bane, Michael Kazin, and Alan Wolfe criticize, qualify, and amend it. Heclo’s rejoinder suggests why both secularists and Christians should worry about a coming rupture between the Christian and democratic faiths. The result is a lively debate about a momentous tension in American public life.

From inside the book

Contents

2 Democracy and Catholic Christianity in America
145
3 Pluralism Is Hard Workand the Work Is Never Done
167
4 Whose Christianity? Whose Democracy?
185
5 Reconsidering Christianity and American Democracy
209
Notes
243
Acknowledgments
284
About the Authors
286
Index
289
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Hugh Heclo is Robinson Professor of Public Affairs, George Mason University. Mary Jo Bane is Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Michael Kazin is Professor of History, Georgetown University. Alan Wolfe is the director of the Boisi Center for Religion & American Public Life at Boston College, & author of the best-selling "One Nation After All".