Allen D. Hertzke

Religion and politics are never far from the headlines, but their relationship remains complex and often confusing. This book offers an engaging, accessible, and balanced treatment of religion in American politics. It explores the historical, cultural, and legal contexts that motivate religious political engagement and assesses the pragmatic and strategic political realities that religious organizations and people face. Incorporating the best and most current scholarship, the authors examine the evolving politics of Roman Catholics; evangelical and mainline Protestants; African-American and Latino traditions; Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities; recent immigrants and religious "nones"; and other conventional and not-so-conventional American religious movements.New to the Sixth Edition• Covers the 2016 election and assesses the role of religion from Obama to Trump.• Expands substantially on religion’s relationship to gender and sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class, and features the role of social media in religious mobilization.• Adds discussion questions at the end of every chapter, to help students gain deeper understanding of the subject.• Adds a new concluding chapter on the normative issues raised by religious political engagement, to stimulate lively discussions.

Marshalling unprecedented global scholarship, Allen Hertzke demonstrates how religious freedom is pivotal to democratic, peaceful, and flourishing societies. The twenty-first century has witnessed a rising crisis of religious repression and persecution. In Why Religious Freedom Matters, Allen Hertzke synthesizes vast evidence from history, ethnography, and worldwide statistical analyses to make the compelling empirical case for the role of religious liberty in shaping a better global future. In rich detail, Hertzke demonstrates how religious freedom nurtures democracy, fosters prosperity, and cultivates international peace. The book also reveals the surprising ways that religious liberty and equality unleash personal agency that empowers women and uplifts the poor. Religious freedom uniquely matters, Hertzke argues, because it goes to the heart of human personhood and aspiration—the right "to be who we are," to act on ultimate commitments, and to be treated with equal worth and dignity. Based on a quarter century of immersion in global networks of scholarship and activism on religious freedom, Hertzke has produced a landmark volume showing how we can navigate the challenge of living with our differences in a shrinking world.

Religion and politics are never far from the headlines, but their relationship remains complex and often confusing. This book offers an engaging, accessible, and balanced treatment of religion in American politics. It explores the historical, cultural, and legal contexts that motivate religious political engagement and assesses the pragmatic and strategic political realities that religious organizations and people face. Incorporating the best and most current scholarship, the authors examine the evolving politics of Roman Catholics; evangelical and mainline Protestants; African-American and Latino traditions; Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities; recent immigrants and religious "nones"; and other conventional and not-so-conventional American religious movements.New to the Sixth Edition• Covers the 2016 election and assesses the role of religion from Obama to Trump.• Expands substantially on religion’s relationship to gender and sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class, and features the role of social media in religious mobilization.• Adds discussion questions at the end of every chapter, to help students gain deeper understanding of the subject.• Adds a new concluding chapter on the normative issues raised by religious political engagement, to stimulate lively discussions.

With the dawning of the 21st Century a new human rights movement burst unexpectedly onto the global stage. Initially motivated by concern for persecuted Christians around the world, unlikely alliances emerged, and the movement grew to encompass a broader quest for human rights. Now, American evangelicals provide grassroots muscle for causes joined by a wide array of activists—from Jews to Catholics, feminists to Pentecostals, African American leaders to Tibetan Buddhists—in the most important human rights movement since the end of the Cold War. Given unprecedented insider access, author Allen D. Hertzke charts the rise of this faith-based movement for global human rights and tells the compelling story of the personalities and forces, clashes and compromises, strategies and protests that shape it. In doing so, Hertzke shows that by bringing attention to issues like religious persecution, Sudanese atrocities, North Korean gulags, and sex trafficking, the movement is shaping American foreign policy and international relations in ways unimaginable a decade ago.

First Published in 1993. This volume is based upon an April 1990 Carl Albert Center conference commemorating the bicentennial of the United States Congress and the centennial of the University of Oklahoma. The conference was entitled, Back to the Future: the United States Congress in the Twenty-first Century. Its focus was on the nature of change in Congress and on the likely direction of congressional change as the new century approaches.

First Published in 1993. This volume is based upon an April 1990 Carl Albert Center conference commemorating the bicentennial of the United States Congress and the centennial of the University of Oklahoma. The conference was entitled, Back to the Future: the United States Congress in the Twenty-first Century. Its focus was on the nature of change in Congress and on the likely direction of congressional change as the new century approaches.