Suchergebnisse

"There has been a breakdown in American public life that no election can fix. Americans cannot even converse about politics. All the usual explanations for our condition have failed to make things better. Bruce Ledewitz shows that America is living with the consequences of the Death of God, which Friedrich Nietzsche knew would be momentous and irreversible. God was this culture's story of the meaning of our lives. Even atheists had substitutes for God, like inevitable progress. Now we have no story and do not even think about the nature of reality. That is why we are angry and despairing. America's future requires that we begin a new story by each of us asking a question posed by theologian Bernard Lonergan: Is the universe on our side? When we commit to live honestly and fully by our answer to that question, even if our immediate answer is no, America will begin to heal. Beyond that, pondering the question of the universe will allow us to see that there is more to the universe than blind forces and dead matter. Guided by the naturalism of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, and the historical faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we can learn to trust that the universe bends toward justice and our welfare. That conclusion will complete our healing and restore faith in American public life. We can live without God, but not without thinking about holiness in the universe"--

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I: THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN SECULAR DEMOCRACY -- 1 The Presidential Election of 2004 -- 2 The Establishment and Content of the American Secular Consensus -- 3 Cracks in the Foundations of the American Secular Consensus -- 4 Religious Elements in American Constitutional Democracy -- 5 Religious Elements in Deep Political Life -- 6 The Separation of Church and State in Principle -- 7 The Separation of Church and State in Constitutional Doctrine -- PART II: IS RELIGIOUS DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE? -- 8 How Does Our Constitution Change? -- 9 The Problems of Religion in Democracy -- 10 The Constitutional Doctrines of Religious Democracy -- 11 The Theology of Religious Democracy -- 12 The Political Theory and Policies of Religious Democracy -- PART III: THE RELIGIOUS VOID IN AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE -- 13 The Current Political Imbalance in American Religious Democracy -- 14 Biblical Religion and Secular Believers -- 15 The Radical Politics of Biblical Religion -- 16 God, the Secular Voter, and American Political Life -- Conclusion: The Coming Religious Renewal of the Democratic Left -- Afterword: The 2006 Midterm Election -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.