6.6 Jones (2008)
Jones, Robert P. (2008) Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders Are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life. Lanham & Boulder & New York & Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Quick Look
Author Robert Jones is the president of Public Religion Research and a visiting fellow in religion at Third Way. He served previously as an affiliated scholar at the Center for American Progress and as the founding director and senior fellow at the Center for American Values in Public Life at People for the American Way Foundation. While at the latter, he directed the American Values Survey. He has a Ph.D. from Emory University and a M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. |
This Resource’s Key Interpretations and Insights Related to the Purposes of This Website
Jones provides ample evidence that the commonly accepted idea that religious America is basically limited to far-right, exclusionist Christianity is far from the truth.
This book is an excellent comprehensive overview of the main “center-left to left” faith & politics groups in the U.S. related to the four most populous world religions. Thus, it breaks open the grossly restrictive idea (unfortunately held by all too many Americans) that the only religious groups interacting with politics in the U.S. are far-right Christian ones. Yet even those who are aware this is not so will be surprised at the number and diversity of such groups. Jones interviewed almost 100 of the top spokespersons for these groups for the book (listed on pp. 193-202).
Jones provides ample evidence that the commonly accepted idea that religious America is basically limited to far-right, exclusionist Christianity is far from the truth.
This book is an excellent comprehensive overview of the main “center-left to left” faith & politics groups in the U.S. related to the four most populous world religions. Thus, it breaks open the grossly restrictive idea (unfortunately held by all too many Americans) that the only religious groups interacting with politics in the U.S. are far-right Christian ones. Yet even those who are aware this is not so will be surprised at the number and diversity of such groups. Jones interviewed almost 100 of the top spokespersons for these groups for the book (listed on pp. 193-202).
Quotes from Text
Jones says, “Like many of my friends, I did some real soul-searching in the aftermath of the 2004 elections about the role of religion in American public life. For me, it was also the beginning of a three-year journey to find ‘the other religious America,’ authentic voices that are deeply rooted in religious traditions; voices that unite rather than divide; and voices that demand attention to a broader agenda of peace, social justice, care for the environment, respect for pluralism, and the common good.” (3, my emphases)
Jones says, “Like many of my friends, I did some real soul-searching in the aftermath of the 2004 elections about the role of religion in American public life. For me, it was also the beginning of a three-year journey to find ‘the other religious America,’ authentic voices that are deeply rooted in religious traditions; voices that unite rather than divide; and voices that demand attention to a broader agenda of peace, social justice, care for the environment, respect for pluralism, and the common good.” (3, my emphases)
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