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This introduction to "A Symposium on Leo Strauss and His Students" briefly describes the three contributions that follow, noting that the authors all dissent from Strauss & Straussians in that they doubt that philosophy can truthfully liberate human beings from a natural orientation toward morality & God, though they do acknowledge that Strauss helped clarify the complex relationship between reason & faith. This author contends that he is confronted with a postmodern interpretive nightmare in that each contributor says what he thinks is true about Strauss & Straussians but in a way that defends his own views of the relationships among theology, morality, philosophy, & politics. Strauss separated these elements. In particular, he sought to purge the doctrine of philosophy, or the philosopher himself, of Christian elements. The philosopher is disoriented in the world of men, & political citizens experience his alienation & depersonalization of the world as a threat to their feeling at home in society. Lawler contends that only a whole human being, one who accepts all these elements & draws them together, can be open to the whole of life. J. Stanton

Christian democracy is outlined in an effort to analyze religiously based political ideologies. The relationship between Christian democracy & Catholicism is examined, & it is argued that the Catholic Church involved itself in politics in order to create a social force that would strengthen the pope's political position. However, historical developments in Belgium, Germany, France, & Italy caused a political rift between Roman Catholic doctrine & Catholic political movements. Meanwhile, the Roman pontificate failed to embrace democracy. In 1931, the pontiff raised questions concerning the best social order. These questions were accompanied by changes in Catholic thought during the interwar years, & a new version of Christian democracy that emerged in Europe & Latin America during the postwar years. Finally, in 1944, Pius XII officially legitimized democracy, a decision that enabled the Catholic political movement to influence the postwar political scene. This historical outline illustrates the manner in which the Christian democracy was able to pull a large proportion of Europe's population into the new political system that was created following WWII. Christian ideology played a decisive role in the establishment of European liberal constitutionalism, despite its own declining power. K. Larsen

This article gives a historical overview of the development of the state of Israel, since its formation in 1948, as the center of the monotheistic religions of the world. Looking at specific political & religious problems encountered by the Israeli government in its relations with the rest of the world, the article discusses what can be learned from different approaches to Israeli law with respect to religious conflict & multiculturalism. E. Miller

The relationship of religion and politics is continuously fascinating and elusive, not least because it is rarely posed in a direct way. In stable democracies, incidents which are rather out of the ordinary, such as publishing the Satanic Verses in the United Kingdom or sporting the Islamic headscarf in a French state school, might push the issue temporarily to the centre of the political arena until the categories of normal politics, such as class, region, language or ethnicity, incorporate it or contrive to edge it beyond public visibility. In developing countries, one is accustomed to the more salient presence of religion in the public sphere: for example, the broad sweep of an Islamic revolution in Iran, popular jihad in the Middle East, the militant Sikhs in the Punjab, or the battle for the birthplace of Rama in North India. However, the intelligentsia in these countries who speak with the authority of modern science and the modern state see these events, important as they are, as the expression of primordial sentiments, and indicative of the underdeveloped nature of the people concerned, rather than as the political expression of unresolved issues, ill concealed by the fabric of normal politics and not articulated by political institutions.

Contemporary scholarship that has examined the connection between politics, religion, & social change in Latin American nations is reviewed. Although much research emphasized the institutional aspects of church, society, & state relations in various Latin American countries, it is noted that some literature has investigated grassroots religious movements. Topics that have received attention in recent scholarship include the ambiguous status of progressive Catholicism in many nations, the emergence of Pentecostalism in Brazil & other countries, the influence of Pentecostalism upon constructions of gender & racial identities, the extent to which religious communities are affected by democracy & economic restructuring, & the effects of transnational migration upon family & social relationships. Although research on the affiliation between politics, religion, & social change has transcended institutional analysis, several directions for future research are suggested, eg, exploring Latin American power relations that are impacted by transnational migration, international corporations, & state & local actors. 94 References. J. W. Parker

Sociologists have long acknowledged the importance of religion for American politics, especially for two groups of people: (a) (white) conservative Protestants, who are increasingly affiliated with the religious right, and (b) progressives, who are more and more disaffiliated from organized religion. However, a comprehensive statement of the ways in which religion matters for politics, the context in which it matters and does not matter, and how this has changed over time is lacking. Recent reviews acknowledge that at best, the relationship between religion and politics in the United States is "not straightforward" ( Grzymala-Busse 2012 , p. 427). We contend that this is primarily a result of the fact that neither the sociology of religion nor political sociology adequately considers the role that inequality (especially race and class but also gender) play in religious affiliation (and nonaffiliation). As a result, both fields have neglected to systematically examine the ways in which class and race may shape the relationship between religion and politics in the United States. We thus argue that both fields would benefit from engagement with theories of complex inequality that take seriously the ways in which inequalities of race, class, and gender interact ( McCall 2001 ). In doing so, scholars also need to recognize that these structures of inequality are deeply intertwined with religious group membership—a theoretical argument that we call complex religion.

AbstractSocial group conflict along regional, ethnic, linguistic, and religious cleavages is deeply embedded in the Canadian historical experience. Contemporary analyses, however, have deprecated the role of religion and religiosity in shaping Canadians' political attitudes. This analysis demonstrates that religion and religiosity are significant correlates of Canadian attitudes on moral issues, paralleling the pattern observed in the United States. It demonstrates that the religious cleavage has been a salient feature of Canadian politics for some time and considers whether the contemporary moral divide could serve as a portent of cultural-religious conflict in Canada if a "political entrepreneur" articulated an issue agenda linked to these religion-based differences.